I re-read that Straight To The Point piece and yes, I recognize it was anything but, so today’s will be slightly more so, especially since it’s outside my normal schedule, but also as I aim to give you surface information, a bit of analysis, and links to explore deeper as you desire.

While the surrounding posts do have a climate and politics tilt, which are incredibly relevant to Sustaining With Age, do not fret, there will soon be much more across the realms I mentioned in the past and a reprieve from politics as we explore twists and turns across other sectors. If you are still feeling exhausted, though, I ask you to just jump to the brief point on the goofy horseshoe theory below.

May also be shifting the schedule a bit to only once a week or when things become most relevant so I can provide the highest quality, yet timely content to you all!

What Almost Happened In Canada Is More Important Than What Did

Canada’s Liberals won out - not an absolute majority, meaning they will have to form a coalition government with another party as they have done for the last few years. Who that other party is will likely remain the same - the NDP.

However, as results were coming in throughout the night, it seemed as though a coalition would need to be formed with multiple parties or the Bloc Québécois directly, a fairly unprecedented situation that may have had a bigger impact than a Conservative win.

Clearly those who flipped from typically Bloc voters to Liberal made a calculated decision, seemingly just not wanting the Conservatives to win. Despite the NDP getting crushed, they may still have a large base of support in the country, with voters flipping for many of the same reasons.

In any given riding (district), the existence of an NDP candidate could be analogized to a 3rd party presidential candidate in the US, “taking” votes from one party and, even though 2 parties may command a majority of votes and seem more closely aligned politically, the winner with a plurality ends up being their stark rival. In this case, Liberal (45%)+NDP (5%)=50%, but the Conversative candidate gets 46% and wins. It is not so simple to assume the NDP 5% would all go to the Liberal candidate if the NDP didn’t have anyone on the ballot, nor the reverse if the Liberals dropped out, but there were at least a dozen ridings with a majority Liberal plus NDP, but a Conservative winner. Seemingly some NDP voters were still confident in their candidates winning regardless of what happened with Liberals broadly, while more Bloc voters had a desire to block the Conservatives. Another theory is that Bloc voters are more aligned with Liberals and, thus, could more easily swallow voting for a Liberal while the same is not true for the NDP. Talk to any Canadian and they will probably laugh at that theory, but it is not irrelevant. Regardless, based on my analysis a Liberal-NDP coalition could have been much larger than the result we saw last week with coordination across ridings so that only a Liberal or only an NDP candidate ran against a Conservative. Even though they lost, I posit Conservatives had a better election than they even should have based on vote totals. It is just unfortunate vote totals do not equate to actual MP seat results.

One place that aimed to remedy these issues is France.

While they vote like Canada with multiple parties and candidates in a district, usually the vote occurs in two rounds (see Are We Voting Too Much??). While rare, a candidate can win in the first round if they earn more than 50% of the vote and turnout is 25%+. If either of those conditions are not met, a second round of voting is held with the top two candidates from the first round and any others who earn 12.5% of the registered vote share. There is time for any of those candidates to drop out before the second round and mass coordination of dropouts occurred among Macron’s center party and left-leaning parties in the recent election so that most people only had to choose between 2 candidates. The result was a fractured coalition, but they achieved their goal of preventing the far-right party from winning a majority of seats. The first round gave a preview of where voters leaned in any given district and then the center and left parties could then champion themselves where they had a top 2 candidate and drop out where they were not.

Some US states hold run-offs, or a second round, but only among the top 2 candidates from the first if 50% is not achieved by anyone. Typically, though, the US operates under a “first-past-the-post” system where anyone with a plurality, not necessarily majority, wins. US congressional seats could easily be made like Canada’s parliamentary system. We have just gone on so long it is hard to imagine adding a real 3rd party, but we could be in the same situation as Canada today - for better or worse - depending on how people chose to allocate their votes and how well parties represented any given set of values. New York’s fusion voting is a step toward this direction with the Working Families Party fairly robust, yet cross-endorsing candidates with Democrats. If they put up their own candidates, they could be likened to the NDP. They are fairly diligent in only doing so when it will not hurt Democrats. The NDP is not so when it comes to Liberals, but again different systems, and the NDP exists for a reason - mainly, they have different values and policies from Liberals and see a party as the way to champion them. I am not here to demonize that.

Ultimately, voters who defected from Bloc Québécois to the Liberals still have certain expectations of the new government and failure to meet some demands could make the term of this government short as the can call a snap election before one is required, as was done this year. The fact that it got so close among parties has re-raised calls for reforms like ranked choice voting.

It is worthwhile to explore how each party presents itself in Canada and how those who “flipped” to deliver the Liberal win may stand in contrast to those priorities. The smaller party that joins a coalition in a parliamentary system is often called a “kingmaker” as they can dictate quite a bit in order for the biggest party to form the government and pass its own priorities.

Ironically, compared to the US, compromise is necessary and desired by most parties in order to move things forward. In the US, compromise is eschewed as it is not necessary to simply “be in power.” While the recent Speaker’s races and issues are an exception to this rule within a given party’s factions and disagreements, the high-level dynamic is still present. In Canada, forced compromise on any given issue to form a government allows many policies to be passed. In the US, not passing a policy is much easier with static election dates and no agreement necessary among parties.

Speaking of bending over backwards to make deals or reconcile values and beliefs…

It is worthwhile to discuss the “horseshoe theory” which posits that the far right and far left are more closely aligned than might be typically understood - as completely opposed or on opposite ends of a spectrum.

Real-life manifestations include the BSW party in Germany, generally considered far-left, but with what is considered a hardline anti-immigration approach. That stance, though, is purportedly to enhance the social welfare system, a progressive value. They are social democrats, but against multiculturalism, but pro-climate and LGBTQ+. Gay marriage was legalized in Greece by a center-right party.

What was once a joke in US political discourse that someone can be socially liberal, but fiscally conservative, has morphed into a derogatory calling from the left, amplified by our two-party system, in which one seemingly has to pick social causes or economic ones. The implication, too, is that everyone wants socially liberal policies, but fiscal conservatism and that it is not possible to reconcile those values. While there are certainly socially conservative people broadly and on any given topic, they are a relatively declining breed. While almost no one wants a large national debt, it is more or less a priority for some and individual economic issues on taxes have seemingly morphed in with larger government conservatism.

The existence of ticket-splitters, a conservative party in Australia called the Liberals, or Canadian Progressive Conservatives may initially seem like contradictions, but actually reflect very real values of many of us. No matter where you stand, they also further justify your need to vote in all elections from local to national or supra-national if you’re in the EU. Much of New England had or has GOP governors and Senators, despite, or perhaps because of how voters in those states participate federally.

To an extent, progressivism of the past was more a characterization of society than politics, though where they did cross, it was anti-corruption work. If you accept that we as a society are generally moving toward social liberalism and progressivism, we must then ask how we are to address a dual desire for economic conservatism and what that might look like. If anything, it is probably the pace of economic changes that will be different so that social priorities do not get lost in the process.

I recently read the book Crunchy Cons which supposedly inspired VP JD Vance’s politics. It describes a “conservative counterculture” of “Birkenstock-wearing,” farmers’ market attending, hip, gun-owning people.

While factors like some Quebecers’ desire to separate from Canada are also relevant, their alignment and lack thereof with Liberals is something to think about. Just as other separatist, sovereigntist, and related movements often find themselves aligned along political or party lines - maybe because of marketing potential - but seemingly for real value reasons, the same goes here. Just look at Brexit.

How Do We Sustain With Age From Here?

We have already discussed the recent Canadian election, today’s Australian, and upcoming in Romania. Poland also has another in a long-running identity crisis, Belgium and Austria are working on solidifying coalitions, and primaries for NYC Mayor and dozens of other local races from Pennsylvania to New Jersey are happening.

There are dozens of electoral systems out there and many are experimented with in the US like ranked choice voting leading some states to elect congressmembers differently than others. In such an already complex world, it is laughable when people suggest a new system will be too complex for voters as an argument against it. New Jersey banned fusion voting, but they are at least having a conversation on what does and does not work for them as voters.

Voters are continually underestimated, but their behaviors demonstrate a great knowledge, just within a system that plays their interests against one another, when they could be complementary. We make calculated decisions all the time - our complexities are little reason not to participate in the system we have ie. vote.

I do not have the direct link, but the great Bill McKibben once tweeted: “Elections aren’t the same as politics. Elections aren’t moral choices - they’re binary choices, where you try to give power to the person you have some hope of doing politics on. The day after election day is just as important politically…most people are good…believing that and acting on it is the basis for everything decent.”

Peace,

Kyle