3 Signs Authoritarian Tactics Might Be Present In The 2025 Municipal Elections

I’ve started listening to the Autocracy in America podcast, as I’m a fan of anything writer Anne Applebaum creates that analyzes the state of democracy in the Western world and beyond. Episode one examines how authoritarianism can and has creeped into democratic spaces that were once governed, broadly speaking, by facts and arguments.

As I listened, I reflected on what some of the insights the podcasters brought up might mean for the coming municipal elections in Alberta in 2025.

This premise should at first seem ridiculous. Municipal politics and politicians are the exact opposite of what we picture when we picture authoritarians. They lack real power, control, and the political landscape to even fantasize about the authority the president of a state can wield. But that’s not the point, I think. Instead, if you consider some of the new pieces that are coming into the coming 2025 municipal elections, such as political parties and more rigid partisan identities in general, I think it’s naive to expect the tactics we see in provincial and federal politics, where those pieces are firmly in play, to be wholly absent from our municipal politics.

In plainer terms, I worry the 2025 municipal election will not be governed by facts, arguments, and rationality.

Here are three things we might look out for when judging if the authoritarian turn we see happening in politics across the Western world, most prominently in the United States, is trickling down into our local elections. All of this is written directly from the ideas that Applebaum and co-host Peter Pomerantsev offer in the podcast, based from their own life’s experiences and keen observations from the rise of Donald Trump in the U.S. They’re not my ideas. All I’m doing is superimposing them onto our coming municipal elections.

1. Untruths that are EASILY refuted are nonetheless pushed by candidates and their supporters, even if they’ve been shown to be false.

   This is the main and terrifying point of the first episode in Autocracy in America. To show political belonging, the hosts examine how repeating absurdity and conspiracies is the point. It signals belonging. Here, thinking of municipal politics, I have to reflect on some of the signs I saw this happening during the lightning rod that was the 15-minute cities discussion. Many people have stopped discussing it entirely to avoid being swept up in the absurdity.

2. Otherwise committed people decide it’s time to get out

   The canary in the coal mine for a rise of authoritarianism, as the podcasters examine, can be those who work within systems that they assume are governed by facts and arguments suddenly feeling confronted by absurd or conspiratorial accusations. Often, as the podcast examines, people just give up. If we see people deciding to bail from systems or institutions that they once felt at home within, I think it’s a potential sign that the 2025 municipal election might be becoming infected with what’s plaguing provincial and federal politics.

3. A diversity of views is replaced by a binary, or two camps that can’t stand one another and will not compromise

   This is the one that scares me the most as it will signal that municipal politics are shifting away from the qualities that make them something of a haven for those interested in political discussions but can’t stand the teams and tribalism that have come to epitomize provincial and federal politics in Canada. If our 2025 election sees camps that literally can’t stand one another and defining themselves as opposite to their hated rivals, I think we’ve started down the slope.

So, what do you think?

Archibald or Baron? Some thoughts on density and history

The proposed Baron development is fine. Not great. Not exceptional. Fine.

And the Archibald block, at least with a massive awning obscuring its historic looks, is also fine. Not great, not exceptional. Fine.

This is the problem. And given this, what’s most important when we’re just working with fine — history, or density?

Screen capture of City of Edmonton video.

To bring you up to speed, a nine to 11 storey development, called The Baron, is proposed at Whyte Avenue and 105 Street. To build the Baron, the developer would have to demolish the Archibald Block, the street-retail box at Whyte Avenue and 105 Street.

Now, ordinarily, I’m against demolishing historic buildings that add needed street retail atmosphere as buildings erected before the rise of the car, like the Archibald Block, seem so effective at doing.

There’s now a campaign to “Keep the old in Old Strathcona” from a group called Heritage Forward. It hopes to drive residents to share their views on the proposal with the City of Edmonton.

My issue is that the Archibald, with its very large awning, evokes approximately zero historic feeling as I look at it or walk past it. It looks like an anodyne retail box like so many others, dominated by its awning rather than architectural features or signs of patina.

Perhaps others would feel more compelled by the history along Whyte if we showed it off a bit better. If we told its story a touch more clearly.

I think The Baron would be great anywhere other than along Whyte Avenue — unless it was built on a current parking lot or brownfield area and therefore adding a building where there isn’t one currently. But I also think The Archibald needs to look its part to engender support to save it from the wrecking ball.

So, which is it: fine history or fine density? Or should we ask for something better?

A quick proposal for a cheaper, more democratic future for mobility

There is a coming revolution in mobility. The future is electric.

But you already knew that.

What you might not know is that there’s a potential democratization of mobility that could change our lives for the better — if governments make smart decisions right now.

While we focus on the electric part of the future, what could also shift is the intellectual-property side of things. The small electric vehicles of the future — e-bikes, e-trikes, e-whatever else — could share key interchangeable components in ways that current automakers do, but in a very limited way.

Why should we care? Cost and simplicity.

Shared components and standardized mounting points would dramatically lower costs for consumers, allow all sorts of new manufacturers to set up shop in places where manufacturing has been fleeing, and offer cutting edge options without having to invest huge amounts in research and development. You could have a scenario where someone buys an e-bike but, rather than replace the whole thing in five or ten years, simply upgrades the motor and battery and saves a whole lot of money.

In short, if we incentivize the next generation of mobility to be more collaborative and sustainable than the current world of auto manufacturers are, we might shift more than just how we move.

Of course, this won’t happen unless we begin to adopt standards for the future electrified mobility world. Standardized sizes and mounting points are not at all sexy. But if we had them we might really allow electrification to take off in ways we haven’t imagined.