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Comment by cmrdporcupine | Hacker News Reader

"Lefties" don't vote Liberal, we vote NDP.

And we've been trying to tell you this about the Liberal Party for 50+ years. It's a corrupt opportunistic self-interested institution. There's nothing intrinsically "left wing" about them, they just put up whatever ideological sail will keep their party in power. In the 90s they were the party of austerity. This decade, they're all about "debt doesn't matter" neo-Keynesianism. An election or two later and they'll flip again. But you can count on seeing the same faces and them putting the Party first.

Me: self-identified socialist who knew ArriveCAN was a f*in disaster from the moment it was announced?

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What are your thoughts on the NDP's role in propping up the Liberals?

They've used it well as a lever for pushing through their agenda on pharmacare and dental coverage. Overall it's been a success for the NDP.

The average working class Canadian won't see that, and a PP gov't will just gut or turf those programmes immediately.

And people will either credit the Liberals, or just hate Singh for propping up the dreaded Trudeau. Every store or place I go to some baby boomer is ranting at me about Trudeau. Being associated with that gov't in any way is toxic.

Like I said ... tactical move but bad strategically.

I'll agree with you that the Polievre / Conservative Party's anti-Trudeau astroturfing campaign has been extremely successful. You can see evidence of it all over the comments here.

> The average working class Canadian won't see that, and a PP gov't will just gut or turf those programmes immediately.

Precisely. I think what really grates on people is that the policies pursued are so anti-working class interests while being patronized to from cabinet about it all the time.

This is why despite being libertarian I manage to maintain active friendships with lefties - it is the self serving provably corrupt we cannot stand. I think both of us tend to assume the other leads to an even worse scenario.

Tactical "necessity", strategic blunder.

I suspect almost complete decimation in the next election, and Singh out right after.

NDP needs to return to delegate based leadership elections.

I think you're right. I would have voted for Jack Layton, did vote for Mulcair, but won't vote for Singh.

Ideologically, I'm far far to the left of Mulcair but could plainly see the guy was an extremely competent parliamentarian and debater and organizer. He should have put up a struggle to stay as leader. He would have held Trudeau to account and kept some integrity for the party. The people who ran his "Smilin' Tom" campaign should have been fired.

Huge mis-steps during COVID and after by the NDP. They've completely lost their bearing as a party for working people people.

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