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Viable opposition is about creating a narrative people can attach themselves too. A way to order the inchoate frustrations someone is feeling into a rational story they can claim as their own.
This is from @AaronWherry’s excellent piece on O’Toole’s effort to rebrand the Conservative Party of Canada.
It takes the things people feel about the pm- elitist, aloof, urban— and contextualize those vague feelings as a legit political difference.
The dissonance, for me, is historical. The Conservatives were the party of globalization, the original free traders, the reason manufacturing is gone and people have laptop in cafe jobs.
The new Conservative brand has to ignore its own history to be of use to people.
In the theatre, we are responsible only for what happens between 8 and 10 pm. If you poke holes in the story in the car on the way home, I’ve still done my job.
Political parties have to present a rational narrative that lasts only until the next election.
