May 7, 2019
A Little Institutionalized Rant from George Affleck on Red Meat, the Mushy Middle & the NPA
In George Affleck’s world, the only thing worse than the politician who tries to please everyone is the politician who only focuses on the base.
So you can understand why the only thing to possibly vex him more than last council — in which he withstood endless punishment from a neo-leftie Vision Vancouver majority — could be this council, the least experienced in…possibly forever.
The two-time former NPA councillor, alongside friend of the podcast Rob McDowell, joins Gord to dissect the goings-on at City Hall. And if there’s one common theme, it’s that this NPA caucus is very, very different from past NPA caucuses.
No surprise — Vancouver’s favourite artisanal-partisanal political party apparently tends to shape and reshape itself every election cycle (at least according to this particular trio, who would know); the last reshaping led not only to Affleck stepping back, but resulted in a party unable to attract enough voters from the “mushy middle” to elect a mayor, and thus plunging the city into uneasy, unpredictable coalition territory.
So why *did* Affleck extract himself from the last campaign? Who’s shaping the NPA today? Is the 2022 election already looking like slam dunk, or a problem….or both? And how many NPA councillors have an eye on the mayor’s chair. (Hint: all of them.)
Most importantly, what would he have done about the 420 coughuffle? (This is the discussion that earns us our first E for explicit content.)
We hope to have him back; in the meantime, you can hear more via his UnSpun podcast on The Orca media network with Jody Vance.
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Try as the right might, progressives always win in the end. Otherwise we’d still be in the trees.
The paint is barely dry and the conservatives are already strategizing for next time. I’m amazed how much effort they put into holding civilization back. The right, by definition, is made up of (usually) hard working but entirely self-interested individuals who by their efforts gain power and wealth, powerful connections and control over media (which they own) and thereby the ability to create the truth as they see it. Climate denial anyone?
The middle class has to work ever harder to make ends meet and have less and less time for complicated issues and so, gravitate to sound bites and the simplistic stories of the right: “Work hard, reduce government and taxes and you, too, will be rich!” In a vicious cycle, of course. It’s amazing that conservatives ever lose elections. And perhaps they don’t. They have minor setbacks as they drag the left farther to the right while the middle class drifts toward poverty and the poor pile up under doorways and bridges as a climate catastrophe barrels down on a weakened society in which the poor will bear the brunt.
And yet, in the end, the progressives always win.
So much anguish, death and destruction could be avoided as we progress toward a better future if conservatives weren’t so intent on, and so good at, holding us all back.
I predict you will be sorely disappointed in the Octoebr federal election.
Yup conservatives are going to win because of liberals not upholding a certain liberal standards. The irony is the conservatives will not even be close to that ideal.
Haven’t had a chance to listen yet but it was a shame Affleck didn’t run again. Not afraid to speak his mind and not just pander to every group. Watching him with Dianne Watts on the local coverage of the last municpal election was great, he made her look like some anamatron from Disneyland, afraid to say anything remotely controversial. He could ahve been Mayor, would be interesting to know why he didn’t go for it.
He said in the interview the NPA insiders did not allow certain people to compete for mayor nomination. This lead him to quit.