The Replacements - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

Full-scale election fever is running amok these days and everyone either has it or is avoiding it like the plague, which it kind of is. 
We have the U.S. election this fall, which will mark Donald Trump’s official return to politics and hold the potential to bring the country its first-ever female president and a woman of colour at that. Here in Canada, there have been some absolutely major developments in the federal realm, with Jagmeet Singh and the NDP pulling support for the Supply and Confidence Agreement with Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in what can certainly be regarded as an early Christmas present for Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre. The potential for an early election just increased dramatically, which is music to the ears of some and slightly-more-than-mildly tedious to the nervous systems of others. 

 

So many of our current political situations of late are not driven by things like excitement, the dawn of a new day or the promise of a bright future for residents both young and old. No - instead, they are driven by the utterly unexciting fact that, well, at least Candidate A isn’t Prime Minister X or that the only way to stop former President B is a vote for Candidate Y. The best thing many of the candidates of today have going for them is that they’re not the other candidate. And that, my friends, is a sad state of affairs. Imagine being excited about eating at a restaurant and its most intriguing feature is the fact that it isn’t that roach-ridden other place on the edge of town. Or a young pair of parents exchanging high fives because their kid didn’t get the teacher with a less-than-thrilling reputation for Junior Kindergarten and yet, what do we really know about this other teacher anyway?

 

The movie Nashville, directed by Robert Altman and released in 1975, tells the story of a country music-loving city by way of several of its, seemingly-unconnected characters over the span of a few days. One of the threads running through everyone’s lives is  the presidential campaign of Hal Philip Walker of the Replacement Party. Billed as a “walker, talker and sleeper”, Walker offers the voting public an alternative to major party politics. He’ll replace - hence the name of the party - whoever was in power and take things in a new, allegedly exciting direction. 

 

Though we never do actually see Walker in the film, he is always around and we hear his voice frequently (or at least we’re to assume).

 

This was nearly 50 years ago and it seems that the politics of replacement were alive and well even back then, when a candidate could sell himself by, well, not selling himself. Really, he was selling all the things that he is not. 

 

In the U.S., for a time, Joe Biden was selling himself as the person who wasn’t Donald Trump. Some might even say that’s how he won the 2020 election and that’s all that it took. Again, for a time, he thought he could do it again, but time caught up with him and he stepped aside to let someone else take a shot at defeating Trump. Kamala Harris is making some good points and exciting a younger base of voters, but, every once in a while, even in her own signage, she drops a reminder that she is, in fact, not Donald Trump.

 

In Canada, it’s more straightforward. Justin Trudeau has become someone who incites some very strong feelings from a lot of people. He’s even inspired a profane flag and, more and more, it’s becoming clear that people want rid of him. But, who is left? The other guys. They’re not him and sometimes that’s enough.