The need for politicians to state the problem

OAKVILLE, ONT.—Successful politicians are usually good at crisis management, by which I mean, they know how to manage it so that voters believe there’s a crisis. In other words, politicians purposely scare the bejesus out of people by frantically ringing alarm bells about some sort of peril and then, once everyone is properly filled with anxiety, they argue they’re the only ones with a realistic plan to avert the oncoming catastrophe. So, you better vote for them. An example of this is the Liberal Party of Canada’s constant alarmism about the climate change “emergency.” Basically, the Liberal message is this: if the climate-change-battling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau loses power, and is replaced by the green-hating, fossil-fuel-loving, oil-pipeline building Conservatives, the entire world will more than likely suffer an unprecedented environmental disaster. Now that’s a crisis. And make no mistake, this sort of crisis-mongering tactic can be effective. Simply put, fear catches people’s attention, fear motivates. Yet surprisingly, sometimes political strategists, when coming up with their communication plans, will skip over the “create a crisis” part. In short, they promote solutions to problems without first convincing voters that these problems actually exist, and that these problems are a grave threat which must be quickly solved. Conservative political parties, for some reason, are more likely to make this sort of basic mistake, especially when it comes to how they promote fiscal issues. For instance, conservatives will often go on and on about how they’ll cut taxes or reduce government spending or slash the size of bureaucracy, despite the fact that voters might not understand why taxes need cutting or why government spending needs reducing or why bureaucracy needs slashing. Consequently, their messaging lacks emotional punch, and thus fails to resonate. By the way, this is not just a problem for Canadian Conservatives, but for American Republicans as well. American political consultant Alex Castellanos once put it this way: Republicans “skip the joke and go right to the punchline.” One reason why strategists might “go right to the punchline” is they simply assume that since their own base feels strongly about a particular issue, e.g., that taxes are too high, it must also mean everyone feels that way too. And often that isn’t the case. Sometimes the concerns of a political base are not in sync with the population at large. Indeed, this is why polling matters. If you’re going to push for lower taxes during a political campaign, you better first commission some polls to see if average voters actually believe their taxes are too high. Then, if the numbers show Canadians are okay with what they pay in taxes, you have basically two options. First option; just forget about making taxes an issue and come up with another plan. Second option; expend some effort convincing Canadians that the taxes they pay are too high, that high taxes are undermining their quality of life. As playwright David Mamet once rightly noted, “The power of the dramatist and of the political flack, therefore resides in the ability to state the problem.” Mind you, stating the problem likely won’t be difficult when the next federal election rolls around. After all, thanks to the COVID pandemic, you don’t have to persuade people that we face a crisis. In fact, we have potential crises galore. Our health-care system might face a crisis; our economy might face a crisis; we might eventually have a crisis when it comes to our faith in governmental institutions. With all these dark crises looming in the background, Canadians will be looking for hope. All politicians have to do is provide it. Gerry Nicholls is a communications consultant. The Hill Times