I chuckle at a lot of the comments in these political threads as most are just regurgitated sound bites from your favorite main stream (gov. funded) media station, ie. propaganda.
Very few people now days do any digging for real political info, although I'll admit, it is getting harder to find with bill C-18 in affect.
This is my problem with most of it. People put on the team jersey and read all the talking points from a script. Like human bots, basically.
I know the political landscape and what policies mean. I form my own opinions. I speak my own words, and have no problem cutting the typical narratives to shreds.
There is no party I agree with 100%, or even 90%. The ones I support do not have my guaranteed allegiance, ever.
Frankly I think people who are die-hard Team Blue, or Red, or whatever, are just gullible, especially if they're not party members and have zero say in what those leaders choose to do.
Two reasons why:
1) Parties do change policies. They may have constant general core values, but the specific things change from time to time, if you actually watch & remember. So maybe being completely rabid about something, you'll forget how they miight be opposing something they used to propose doing. Are the leaders evolving their positions, or just hypocrites opposed to whatever the other guy is for? Even if the policies all change, just pretend like it was always what it is right now.
Example: Carbon Taxes, are originally a right-wing idea, proposed to reduce emissions but within the context of market choice, by applying the true costs of GHG emissions so that customers make a more fair comparison between clean energy and dirty. North America's first carbon tax was the BC one, brought in by Gordon Campbell's right wing government. The NDP opposed the carbon tax for something like 3 elections, and it was only when they lost twice more then had to share power with the Greens that they finally shut up about getting rid of it. So what happened ? Well, the right wing in American, then in Canada, got completely captured by the fossil industry, and they gave orders to right-wingers to oppose all forms of GHG reducing measures, and just like a bunch of loyal little minions, their supporters changed their tune to climate change denial, and aggressively doing nothing, even when the damage from doing nothing it costs their own industries dearly. They will not break with their party line - they will just alter the political spin to blame something else. Why is an oil industry dollar more sacred than a EV dollar, a farming dollar, or a tourism dollar? There is literally no answer given for this, except "that is what all good right wingers believe,, so you better be on board!"
The flipside is the NDP / left doing the same thing in the opposite direction. Now they pretend to support it, as if they always supported it, like it was even their idea.
2) The whole idea of democracy is choosing. You are free to make your own beliefs, and at election time, you choose the group that you agree with the most or did the best job convincing you. If you do not like what the party you support is doing, change your vote to someone else. If you're an actual party member, you're supposedto be free to try convincing them on an issue, or at least free disagree with them on some things, if it is not the major core issues. At the very least, withhold your support for certain leaders or certain policies. If they just do not listen to your concerns, dictating to you instead of asking for your input while they also ask for your donations, then you should walk away from them. Nowadays, narratives are so controlled inside of parties and leadership has such iron control over the membership, most parties are not even democratic internally. Everything is decided for you (not by you), every contest is rigged. They still want your dollars and your automatic agreement with all their policies and to do your duty to them by repeating their positions, no matter how insincere or even insane it is.
Well, this is all because political party affinity has become a CULT. You do not change the party you support, it changes you.
Check your brain at the door, and amp up the hypocrisy, because everything your team does is great and anything done by the others is terrible. You need to be a team player, and never try to make sense of why your team is doing or saying something.
They control what you hear or see, what you get to say, and what you are supposed to feel about something or someone.
Like I said, a CULT.
So if you see me ragging on one leader or party in particular, believe me when I say I am coming to that conclusion all by myself, after decades of observation and research, to back up what I assert about them, without being anyone else's cheerleader.