What you’re describing is winning elections by letting the public dictate your position. This is not the same thing as leadership. To be fair though, genuine leadership is in short supply all over the world right now, so it’s easy to conflate cowardice with strategy.
Leadership is when someone steps away from the crowd, paints a picture of the world they want, and asks people to join them. Think: “I have a dream”, or “we choose to go to the moon”. Leaders are charismatic visionaries that take you with them rather than taking popular positions once the polling reports in.
Canada deserves the sort of leadership that understands the critical nature of the climate issue, and leaders who will convince us to come with them in building the world we want. May is criticising the other parties for their lack of conviction regarding the most important issue of our time, and she’s right to do it.
Look at the US. Winning matters. A lot. A lot more than just being right.
Dying on hills that cannot be held is not leadership.
Knowing what battles to fight is leadership.
Canada deserves the politicians it is willing and able to elect. Blaming politicians for the quality of candidate that the electorate will consider is folly. Point your derision in the right direction. We are not in a situation where Canadians are demanding something that our leaders are not delivering. On some issues, we are demanding that our leaders do not deliver.
What you’re describing is winning elections by letting the public dictate your position. This is not the same thing as leadership. To be fair though, genuine leadership is in short supply all over the world right now, so it’s easy to conflate cowardice with strategy.
Leadership is when someone steps away from the crowd, paints a picture of the world they want, and asks people to join them. Think: “I have a dream”, or “we choose to go to the moon”. Leaders are charismatic visionaries that take you with them rather than taking popular positions once the polling reports in.
Canada deserves the sort of leadership that understands the critical nature of the climate issue, and leaders who will convince us to come with them in building the world we want. May is criticising the other parties for their lack of conviction regarding the most important issue of our time, and she’s right to do it.
Politics is real.
Look at the US. Winning matters. A lot. A lot more than just being right.
Dying on hills that cannot be held is not leadership.
Knowing what battles to fight is leadership.
Canada deserves the politicians it is willing and able to elect. Blaming politicians for the quality of candidate that the electorate will consider is folly. Point your derision in the right direction. We are not in a situation where Canadians are demanding something that our leaders are not delivering. On some issues, we are demanding that our leaders do not deliver.
The problem is us.