So I can feel it starting already, that pull, that distraction of partisan negativity that turns most of us off. Why is it that we can’t just say we disagree with the PC or NDP approach? Why is there an urge to go too far, to turn our fellow Manitobans into villains?
Brian Pallister is not Donald Trump, or even Doug Ford, and Wab Kinew is not Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot.
That’s right, you heard it here first: no one running in the current Manitoba General Election is a pile of dog crap. That I know of.
I haven’t seen any tweets from candidates that seem hateful, and I’ve never run into a politician who tried to run me down with their car or kick my children as they help me hand out brochures.
The negativity and the hate does seem to make plenty of appearances, though. It’s blatant, yet it’s insidious. Because it’s sometimes the campaigns, like the billboards and the negative video ads, but it’s also from people on social media and comment sections, a vocal group of people who seem to have been in the mire of partisan spectator sports that they have lost touch with the notion that the people on the other team are not evil monsters, but a large group of people who just have different opinions, or every so often the same opinions packaged in a different ways.
And people are so focused on which team they’re on, or more emphatically, the teams they are not on.
I can feel that pull, though as a candidate I’m not really allowed to join the worst of the muck. But I can feel the drag on my emotions, along with that dangerous temptation to start thinking Blue is this and Orange is that and anyone who follows along with that is super bad.
I need to remind myself that many Manitobans support Pallister because they know that the NDP’s governance has put us in a bad place with how tax dollars are spent and how liabilities had been kicked down the road and are now coming back to haunt us. They don’t support Pallister because they’re stupid or evil. I don’t believe that Pallister’s way is the right way to fix the issues, due to the instability these rapid cuts are causing in his mad rush for results, and because it makes little sense to me how you can complain about spending and move toward austerity while cutting the kind of tax that does not stimulate the growth of lower and middle classes, which is where actual economic growth is found (not from the rich moving their tax savings out of Manitoba).
And obviously I don’t support giving government back to the NDP, since they have not given me any confidence that they will fix the problems they’ve been causing since 1999.
What I support is bringing new voices into the legislature, from diverse sources. And I support the ideas that are coming out of the Manitoba Liberals’ platform and plans.
But no one who wins in this election should be vilified just because of the colour of their signs. How is that better than splitting us off based on the colour of our eyes or favourite pizza toppings? (Let’s not discriminate based on pizza toppings, as my monstrous favourite happens to be Pineapple and Mushroom) Even I think that’s wrong, but I just can’t help myself.
Vote for the right person and the right party. Don’t vilify the other candidates just for asking you to consider their point of view. I will work on remembering that.
Regan Wolfrom 
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