Where's the middle ground?

I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention to the Canadian news this week, but our Prime Minister just called a snap election.

That means that Canucks are headed to the polls on September 20th — a mere 36 days from the date the federal election was called, and only two years since we last voted for our country’s leadership.

If you’re like approximately 70% of Canadians out there, you’re wondering why the heck this is happening — especially as we’re at the start of a fourth wave c/o Ms Delta.

Here’s the simplest take: the Liberals currently hold the greatest number of seats in the House of Commons so they’re “in charge”, but they don’t hold a majority of the seats — so Canada has a minority government.

Our pal and current PM JT is taking a run for a majority government, likely hoping to capitalize on the generally positive position he’s in at the moment for the handling of The Panzerotti + vaccine rollout.

Because as we know, from watching it play out over and over, the tides of public approval turn quickly — especially in these Uncertain Times.

I get why the election was called, and, the decision has certainly raised a few brows.

But I’m not writing about this today because I want to make a heartfelt plea to persuade you to vote one way or the other.

I want to talk about spotting bullshit, especially on social media.

To be clear — I do not necessarily encourage engaging with bullshit, because #boundaries…but once you’re able to spot it, you can (hopefully) avoid stepping in it and tracking it around wherever you go and that is Self-care…for you, and the people around you. Trust me.

There’s been so much virtue signaling and performative activism on the internet (and in real life) as businesses and political figures alike try to garner public approval by aligning with the cause du jour, especially over the last few years.

And don’t get me wrong — it’s all well and good to signal boost good causes and put positive, supportive words on the interweb. But if a company is selling a rainbow shirt for Pride month, and then the owners support representatives that vote against LGBTQ+ rights in parliament…

There’s a values gap there, and it’s where the bullshit is.

We’re going to see a lot of this as the different parties share their platforms and try to appeal to the masses.

And we are about to hear a lot of promises get made.

I got one of my first major whiffs of BS the other day when one of the party’s leaders posted a video to social media about the emergency support that BC requires in response to the wildfires.

It’s not that what he was saying is wrong — because he’s right that this is a crisis, people are scared, and we need to do something about it.

The reason this take sucked so hard is because less than 5 months ago, the majority of his party’s candidates voted to reject adding “climate change is real” to their policy book.

Can you really speak to the wildfire crisis without talking about things like climate change and unsustainable resource extraction?

Yes, this party has proposed plans for the environment built into their platform, and they’ll be highlighting those on the campaign trail because climate change is a hot (lol) topic these days.

And.

While the leader himself has spoken up about the importance of this issue, in March 2021, 54% of his candidates voted that climate change isn’t real…so colour me skeptical but that kind of about-face doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence in the party’s commitment, or the potential for follow-through by those candidates once they’re elected.

Please note: I am not personally attacking this leader by calling out this gap. I do wish there was acknowledgement of how much work there is to do in his party to bring the candidates up-to-date with the current science, because ignorance in positions of power is dangerous.

It is one thing for a random dude at the coffee shop to run his mouth, and another for an elected official to be making decisions that impact millions of people based on false information.

Holding positions of power comes with responsibility, and in this case, it includes being accurately informed so that you do not cause unnecessary harm to others due to ignorance.

I’m not looking for a perfect candidate because that doesn’t exist — we are human — and I don’t even expect most election promises to be fulfilled. The reality is that there’s not going to be a revolutionary outcome from any election because our system is inherently flawed.

What I am looking for is integrity and humanity from our leaders, with a dash of hope for the future…because it’s been feeling pretty bleak these days.

I don’t think that hope is going to be found in the simple at-face-value promises that we’re going to hear in the next month — ones that politicians are used to delivering, while they simultaneously throw shade at their opponent.

PSA: Throwing someone under the bus never makes you look better.

And it’s another kind of bullshit to watch for, because they all do it.

The point is that the promises that get made at election time often include a lot of buzz words about restoring the economy and creating jobs and having a plan to make everything better which all sounds great but at the end of the day, they’re actually pretty empty.

If there’s one thing the last couple years have taught us (well, me at least) it’s that plans are fallible and certainty is an illusion that helps us get through the day.

So, you’ll have to forgive my cynicism but talking about a comprehensive plan doesn’t give me hope. Continuous slander of “the other guys” doesn’t give me hope. The promise of creating more jobs doesn’t give me hope.

Because the reality is that we’re fighting each other tooth and nail to try and prop up crumbling and unsustainable systems.

And I wish someone would just be honest about that…but that brings up a completely separate problem which is that most people don’t want the truth, they just want to feel better enough to get through the day.

The allure of false promises is that they deliver a temporary hit of relief…unfortunately, they come at the cost of actual change.

(I promised myself I wouldn’t get really depressing with today’s email so I’m going to wrap this up…I swear I’m not all gloom and doom over here 😅)

So. What does give me hope?

Having respectful conversations with people that I disagree with, without it feeling like a verbal cage match, gives me hope that we can make progress — even if the conversation itself doesn’t change anything in the moment.

And I know that probably doesn’t sound like much of a “win,” but I’m not trying to win anymore…I’m trying to build trust and stronger relationships, because that’s what we really need more of in the world.

We don’t need more people playing the devil’s advocate, we don’t need to crush our opponents, and we don’t even have to agree on everything.

But we need to respect each other.

The goal for me is to listen and better understand why somebody feels so strongly about an issue, without trying to change their minds, even when their beliefs aren’t rooted in factual information.

I have to say, this one is really hard for me because informed consent is so fucking important and it is painful when people aren’t making decisions based on accurate information…but pissing them off will burn a bridge faster than it builds one, and we will all remain stranded in our ideological bunkers that way.

And honestly, I keep finding out that amidst all the yelling and posturing and bullshit that gets the attention of the algorithm…there are a lot of people who are also just searching for something true and real, and we are all struggling to find it in the polarizing noise.

Because underneath all of the inflammatory rhetoric and hot takes and mud slinging, a lot of us want the same things.

We just don’t always agree about the best path to get us there, and it’s really hard to find unity when we’re being pitted against each other, meeting in “the middle” with a divide-and-conquer mentality.

The win/lose, right/wrong, good/bad approach is part of what’s wrong with the whole system in the first place…and that’s not going to change if we keep doing more of what we’ve always done.

So. Where does that leave me for the next…31 days?

Just doing more of what I’ve been doing for the last few years — taking really good care of my Self so that I am resourced to handle the challenge of holding space for these hard conversations with the people in my life, and, continuing to help other stressed out humans learn how to manage their feelings and make sense of the mental mayhem so that they can do more of what matters.

I will be doing my best to avoid social media interactions with strangers as part of my election processing and research because if I let myself get sucked into the bullshit, instead of noticing it and calling it out for the hazard it is…well, I’m not good to anyone when I get defensive and hunker down on my island of moral righteousness, setting fire to every potential bridge of connection.

I'll still be having the hard conversations because they are necessary if we want to learn and do better...I just don't be having them in triggering spaces.

Because even if we don’t always agree, we need each other.

And that means finding the kind of middle ground that can support everyone — not just the people who look/think/vote like us.

Change is a lot of work, and the process doesn’t always feel good. But without the willingness to sit with the discomfort — which is sometimes just the fear of being wrong — we won’t be able to get through to the growth on the other side.

Good luck with calling bullshit internally, and out there in the wild.

With big love and healthy boundaries,

Justine

PS. If you want to listen to something that I found really helpful for giving me language to have some of this conversations — with myself and others — I highly suggest a Brenè Brown podcast that I’ve shared in the past:

Words, Actions, Dehumanization, and Accountability

(You can find it on Spotify and Apple, by searching Brenè Brown + the title. You can also check out the transcript if you’re more of a reader…but I highly suggest listening.)

My top takeaways to sit with are:

There’s no unity without accountability, and shame undermines accountability.
It’s impossible to practice empathy when we’ve shamed and dehumanized.
Moral exclusion is created by dehumanization, which fuels violence and human rights violations.
We are all vulnerable to the slow, insidious practice of dehumanizing which means we’re all responsible for recognizing it, stopping it, and holding people accountable.
Holding someone accountable for their actions and them feeling guilt or shame is not the same as shaming them.
There is a line that defines human rights, and it is etched in dignity; dehumanization allows us to justify crossing that line.
Shame and dehumanization are tools of oppression that kill empathy and accountability.

Those are some of the principles I’m using to shape my work, and ones that I encourage you to think about as you examine your own rights, responsibilities, and roles as a human being in this world...whether or not you have a career in politics. 😆

And if this process of inquiry makes you uncomfortable, that’s okay. Don’t be afraid to sit with that discomfort, and create the space that allows you to take a deep breath and dig a little deeper.

Because it’s in that exquisite tension that we grow.