Thread by @timabray

The older I get and the more I study the relationship between voters and political actors, the less patient I am with fanciful narratives that commentators concoct to explain the results to themselves and their audiences. Canadians didn't "say" anything. They reacted.+ #Elxn44

In an election, Canadians have only one or two choices to make: whether to vote and, if so, for whom. There's no arguing with the fact that people explain their choices to themselves in all manner of ways but, ultimately, they must choose one of the candidates presented to them.+

Those individual races are as diverse as you can possibly imagine. And the motivations that underlie one voter's decision cannot be easily applied even to a voter who makes the same choice. We literally do not know *why* people make the specific choice they do.+

So, it becomes downright comical when observers try to weave a coherent, simple tale to explain aggregated, national results. We don't provide people with the tools or the levers to comment on the entire Canadian political landscape. We give them one vote to pick one person.+

Mash all of those unknown motivations together and you end up, eventually, with a collection of 338 people who have won the most votes in their communities. Whether we like it or not, it's those 338 who then decide who forms government--not us.+

They also decide whether that government stands or falls. They decide which pieces of policy will become legislation and which will pass and which will fail. Not us. +

And again, like it or no, the stability of majority governments is a by-product of MPs agreeing to toe a partisan line. If they wished to, they could turn on the government and bring it down. That's what provides the tension in our system and holds the government accountable.+

It is the dynamic of those MPs working together and their individual convictions mixed with their perceptions of the wants and needs of the constituents that drive policy development. Is it ultimately more complicated than this? Yes, of course.+

But, under no circumstances, does the electorate, en masse sent some clearly articulated, nicely packaged, narrative set of instructions via the election to newly elected governments. It doesn't happen. Stop pretending that it does. It's unhelpful. Rant over.

Passion=typos. It is a law.