Aggregating Voters, How Trudeau Won, Trudeau’s Trials
Justin Trudeau was uniquely suited to win voters through the web in the 2015 election. Four years later, the same playbook leaves him vulnerable.
Welcome to the first entry in Absolutely Neutral. This series will explore how power and politics play out in public across the web, and how the public may use those same digital tools to push back in the run up to the 43rd federal election in October. For a more detailed overview, please have a look at the introductory article from last week. For those who are returning, I hope to make analysis invaluable as we move closer to Election Day.
Aggregation Theory and Politics
The central premise that powers Absolutely Neutral is this: the internet has fundamentally altered the relationship between the public, politicians, and the intermediaries that was relied upon to set the bounds of acceptable discourse. Voters are now able to directly connect with politicians and, crucially, candidates must be more responsive to voters’ whims during elections if they are to build a broad coalition and win power at the ballot box. This connective process, which leverages the core abilities of the internet to draw value from as many people as possible over a few centralized groups, is the core tenet of Aggregation Theory.
