Have you ever been somewhere your native tongue wasn't the common one and needed to see a doctor? It's a nerve-wracking thing, having people diagnose and treat you in a language you don't understand. Once, while sick with e-coli in Ecuador, I was left at the mercy of Spanish-speaking friends and their doctors. As my innards tried to turn themselves inside-out, people were thrusting herbal teas at me; I kept pushing them away, because I wasn't going to take in anything else that I didn't understand. The same held true when I eventually saw a doctor; nothing about the visit felt like practiced medicine as I'd experienced it before. It was a terrifying experience.
Fortunately for me, I gave in and drank the mate and followed the doctor's instructions. If I hadn't, I could very well have died. The herbal teas I was given before and after had been tried-and-tested over generations; the doctors I saw were all trained professionals, though trained in their own countries and in their own languages. Why had I hesitated in the first place?
Because, quite frankly, I couldn't understand what was happening. I had never been sick like that in my life, which was disconcerting. My knowledge of Spanish at the time was minimal and even then, rendered useless by the severity of my illness. The sorts of medicines and the way they were presented were completely unfamiliar - I didn't trust them. If the Spanish-speaking doctor had pulled out a bottle labeled "Advil" I probably would have felt better.
Politics is not just a foreign language to many, with acronyms and insider terms that get bandied about like status symbols - it's a foreign culture. To the average bear, places like Parliament Hill and Queen's Park are living museums, not places of work. What happens in these work-museums is a strange combination of street theatre and courtroom jargon, all of it very inaccessible to the majority. It's not that we don't care about the wording of Parliamentary motions, it's that we don't understand them. To the average Canadian, politicians are like foreign doctors, trying to convince us some unknown tonic is good for us. We make jokes about politicians for the same reason we stigmatize minority groups - we can't quite grasp what they're up to, but it's somehow threatening.
Funny enough, most of our politicians feel the same way - they view politics as a big machine in which they see themselves as outsiders. This is certainly true of Stephen Harper and Rob Ford. Both had long, strong ties to politics before gaining elected office, yet both portrayed themselves as men against the machine. They have both also been successful at communicating with the average voter on their terms, albeit through completely different mechanisms.
Stephen Harper is a policy wonk; he would be as out of place at a small-town Timmy's as he would be around the UN table with foreign leaders of impeccable political breeding. Understanding his personal weakness in connecting directly with voters, Harper has cleverly shunned the limelight. When he comes out, he says little; the only time he talks about the political process is as a club to beat his opponents with. Harper masterfully portrayed The Green Shift, the notion of a coalition government and Michael Ignatieff's CV as foreign tonics that were somehow threatening to the average person.
Rob Ford, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of guy you expect to find swearing at the TV in a local sports bar. He doesn't need to strategically pick his words or speaking opportunities - he's as authentic as they come. Ford is with you when it comes to complex procedure and the operation of Council - he doesn't get it either. He approaches politics the way he approaches football, by cheering on his own team and looking to break those who stand between him and a touchdown. He's relatable. The problem is, because he doesn't understand how actual Council work works, he's accomplishing nothing.
The gap between politics and the average Canadian is a wide one, but it can be bridged. Whereas Ford sits with the common man and fails at work, Harper hides his cards from Canadians and is proceeding to change our country in ways most of us would disapprove of, if were aware what was going on. To be successful, progressive politicians need to find a third way - not ignore the complexity of policy or hide their intentions from Canadians, but rather find the right tools for political translation.
This translation, like all communication, but be built on trust. Harper doesn't trust his team any more than he trusts himself, which is why they are short on communicaiton but rather fond of messaging. Progressives need to foster an unrivalled level of trust between themselves and voters by engaging them and making the effort to learn their language and to understand the world through their lens, first.
In an age of micro-targeted messaging and carefully-controled events, trust isn't something that voters receive much these days. Without trust, however, there can be no conversation and it's the conversation that democracy is all about. Perhaps this is the tough medicine we should all be taking.
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