I hear a lot of people say that the NDP is worse off under Singh than it was under Layton or Mulcair. I was pretty young when Layton died, and I’m not really sure why people seem to idolize him so much. Could you please explain why he’s so highly regarded, and why Singh seems to face such disdain?
Both Mulcair and Layton were Centrists.
Jack Layton was forgiven for his Centrist politics (it was he who removed socialism from the NDP’s constitution) because he was the most hopeful and inspiring politician in my lifetime. That is why people liked Jack Layton. He didn’t have to have the most amazing policies because he instilled hope in people. I don’t remember a lot of his policies standing out that much (status quo NDP stuff), but he could draw crowds and inspire people in a way I haven’t seen from any politician since he passed.
Mulcair was not very charismatic. He was a very good debater but a poor campaigner. He didn’t come across as very interesting, and because of his poor campaign he threw away the NDP’s best ever chance of governing. Part of his poor campaign was committing to a balanced budget no matter what, which many people saw as a Conservative move at a time when Canada needed investment. Also the general policies of the NDP that election were status quo and not that exciting (and didn’t look a lot different from Liberal policies).
Some of Jagmeet Singh’s faults were also that he seemed to be leaning more towards the status quo centrism that many in the party didn’t like from Mulcair (initially waffling on pipelines, being vague in debates around key issues, etc), but recently he’s been a lot more ambitious calling for a Green New Deal, Pharmacare for all and building 500,000 affordable homes.
I think many of people at this point who are shitting on Jagmeet are just racists. He gets a disproportionate amount of hate for seemingly no reason. I’ve come to the conclusion that many Canadians despite their claims to the contrary are uncomfortable hearing a confident, brown, sikh man in a position of power.
