Yeah, the credibility of most political analyst sorts kinda went out the window with their predictions on recent elections, and their generally unchecked left-bias positions (which contributed to their ‘analysis’ being junk).
I don’t think many would deny something like competing in a 100 meter dash against no opponents, if you have the option, is likely going to result in you winning the race. And people who are only concerned with the technicalities of winning the race, would encourage you to do just that. But when you have an audience watching you time the start of the race so that you’re the only competitor, with the intention of not giving people a choice/chance to have viable alternatives, its a shit move that should be punished – and it’s highly unlikely that the crowd is going to be polite as you go through the motions of collecting your first place prize against a field of 0 competitors.
Another part of this, is that it’s an authoritarian move. In some ways, it’s more informative to look at current politics as authoritarian vs individualistic (libertarian?), than left vs right, as both left and right are trending heavily towards authoritarian, anti-democratic/anti-individual practices. It undermines basic democratic principles, for the benefit of an authoritarian government that wants to make it “look” like they’re giving the people a choice, but in reality they aren’t. They’re setting things up so that there is no realistic alternative. It’s a few degrees softer than places like Russia / NK / China, but its a similar playbook as when those dictatorships overtly ban opposition candidates from ballots. “Putin was re-elected! He has the support of the people!” … yea, no. He was just the one candidate that didnt accidentally fall out a window.
On CBC Power & Politics today it was described as a gamble. Lots for the BCNDP to potentially lose but lots also to potentially gain. It worked for Doug Ford but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for Eby.
The BC Cons were a bit of an unknown in Oct 2024, they were close to power but then fell apart continuously over two years. The same folks are in and around the alphabet soup of conservative parties that might reconstitute themselves into something, but one thing I am confident in is that trying the same playbook as just be anti-Eby and try to look competent for long enough, isn’t going to work out for them. Eby has room for one or two unforced errors compared to the chaotic summer of Conservative unforced errors, but I’ll keep my feelers out on the rate a new unified centre-right party picks up steam. Oh, and up until Friday, KLF was confident she wasn’t going anywhere, the BCNDP were already signalling election moves and didn’t just start thinking about it when they became leaderless, so it’s not that strong of a point even if it is a technically unprecedented situation to call an election without a decided election leader.
Yeah, the credibility of most political analyst sorts kinda went out the window with their predictions on recent elections, and their generally unchecked left-bias positions (which contributed to their ‘analysis’ being junk).
I don’t think many would deny something like competing in a 100 meter dash against no opponents, if you have the option, is likely going to result in you winning the race. And people who are only concerned with the technicalities of winning the race, would encourage you to do just that. But when you have an audience watching you time the start of the race so that you’re the only competitor, with the intention of not giving people a choice/chance to have viable alternatives, its a shit move that should be punished – and it’s highly unlikely that the crowd is going to be polite as you go through the motions of collecting your first place prize against a field of 0 competitors.
Another part of this, is that it’s an authoritarian move. In some ways, it’s more informative to look at current politics as authoritarian vs individualistic (libertarian?), than left vs right, as both left and right are trending heavily towards authoritarian, anti-democratic/anti-individual practices. It undermines basic democratic principles, for the benefit of an authoritarian government that wants to make it “look” like they’re giving the people a choice, but in reality they aren’t. They’re setting things up so that there is no realistic alternative. It’s a few degrees softer than places like Russia / NK / China, but its a similar playbook as when those dictatorships overtly ban opposition candidates from ballots. “Putin was re-elected! He has the support of the people!” … yea, no. He was just the one candidate that didnt accidentally fall out a window.
On CBC Power & Politics today it was described as a gamble. Lots for the BCNDP to potentially lose but lots also to potentially gain. It worked for Doug Ford but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for Eby.
The BC Cons were a bit of an unknown in Oct 2024, they were close to power but then fell apart continuously over two years. The same folks are in and around the alphabet soup of conservative parties that might reconstitute themselves into something, but one thing I am confident in is that trying the same playbook as just be anti-Eby and try to look competent for long enough, isn’t going to work out for them. Eby has room for one or two unforced errors compared to the chaotic summer of Conservative unforced errors, but I’ll keep my feelers out on the rate a new unified centre-right party picks up steam. Oh, and up until Friday, KLF was confident she wasn’t going anywhere, the BCNDP were already signalling election moves and didn’t just start thinking about it when they became leaderless, so it’s not that strong of a point even if it is a technically unprecedented situation to call an election without a decided election leader.