Thread by @ProfSmithSask

As I've started working on a book on #skpoli politics over the past two decades, it has me thinking a lot about how #leadership shapes political success. I've become particularly interested in what leadership looks like in times of crisis, for obvious reasons.

I'm still thinking this through, but 1) let me say that sometimes I think we put way to much emphasis on leadership, thinking it alone solves political problems. I think we do a disservice when seeing leadership this way. But, having said that /2

leadership in times of crisis clearly matters. One of the constant themes I've noticed over the past few decades is that leaders that have some success as 'leaders' tend to share some common political responses /3

But a warning here: many many leaders that have seen some political bumps in popularity tend to see those numbers come down to earth after about a year. After a year, the public starts demanding solutions and not just a strong presence.

For example, even someone like George Bush who was a terrible president, saw a huge bump in popularity after 9/11 but after a year, and several illegal wars later, his popularity came down to earth because of unpopular wars etc /5

Ok, that is a long preamble to think about how leadership has worked over the pandemic in #cdnpoli. In the first year of the pandemic, leaders in the provinces and at the federal level seemed to see large bump in their popularity. This was for two reasons, I think: /6

1) almost all leaders took a similar response initially to #Covid: short term shut down and strong public health measures (with noticeable differences, but we can chat about that more later). 2) regular updates to explain what was happening and how we were going to beat Covid /7

These initial responses led to high levels of support, and we saw leaders return to power with large majorities. /8

But then the first year turned into the second year, and suddenly there were all kinds of voices challenging public health orders, vaccines arrived, business lobbies started opposing lockdowns, and anti-vax movements started shouting loudly. /9

Now, here is where we hit the year mark. Now the public is demanding answers, and leaders that appear to ignore that call are starting to lose support, and quickly. There are a few reasons for this, but one is some massive mistakes in leadership in #skpoli and #abpoli

In both of these provinces, leaders did something that was fatal, IMHO: they declared the pandemic over. They had their George Bush "Mission Accomplished" moment with photo ops, handshakes, patting themselves on the back and then moved on. /11

They declared the vaccines to be the answer and then ended public health measures. They did this for a host of reasons, political (listening to their right-flank opposing any health measures), economic (business lobbies) and personal (wanting to be back to normal) /12

Except, things weren't normal and the pandemic was not over. Going on vacation and ignoring the coming tidal wave (the #DeltaVariant) proved to be a massive political miscalculation /13

As an aside, Trudeau calling an election and Doug Ford going into hiding, and Horgan not really being proactive was a similar miscalculation, but I haven't been following those as closely. By contrast, Legault kept governing and did not suffer the same losses in support /14

In the prairies, SK and AB leaders also made another fatal error: they stopped listening to experts. This was a staggering miscalculation. The experts at the state level clearly are prone to political pressure, but experts in public health kept speaking out. /15

That speaking out was what the public was clearly listening to. The public heard the message about Delta, about hospitals filling up, about masking, and more proactive health measures. The political class ignored those calls. That was also a major mistake /16

After you declare "Mission Accomplished" the public has to believe you and it actually has to be over. Moe and Kenney said it was a Mission Accomplished moment, but it clearly was. July 11 in #skpoli will likely be one of the worst moments in Moe's Premiership /17

For all of July and Aug cases climbed, Moe and Kenney did nothing and #covid spread like wildfire. The public was outraged but the leaders did nothing, believing (hoping) that it was really over. It wasn't. Now the leadership of Kenney is in question, despite an apology /18

Moe refused to apologize and now he refuses to outright condemn anti-science rumours (although to be fair, he has clearly stated his support for vaccines) but he also keeps his eyes on the far right of his political spectrum. /19

Also, there is a refusal to admit mistakes or take any responsibility, which is where I think the #skpoli premier really fell down. There is an absent health minister, an unapologetic Premier and a health system falling apart. There is a real lack of any leadership /20

And I guess that is the ultimate question today: when leadership falls apart, how does a government or organization pick up the pieces? Right now, I am not sure as there aren't a lot of examples of bouncing back from these types of failures. These leaders are in trouble /21

And it is trouble entirely of their own making. The lack of humbleness, frankness and basic kindness isn't helping either, but I'm not sure that is the reason they're in this predicament. /end