Almost half of Americans, most Canadians and many Europeans are in various stages of disbelief, grief, outrage and fear because Donald J. Trump decisively won the U.S. election. They need to get over it for their psychological health and the
good of their countries. While a post-election sex strike is as credible as threats to leave the country, if Americans did flee to Canada they would be more welcome without the threat of Lysistrata.
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Democrats would be ill-advised to try again to destroy Trump’s capacity to govern with false accusations of foreign influence and criminality. Democrats should learn from their defeat and put the country over the party. That would be better for democracy and the future of the Democratic Party.
Fevered warnings about fascism and the end of constitutional democracy did not resonate beyond those afflicted with the Trump Derangement Syndrome who are blaming each other as well as poor messaging, Russian interference and misguided or even bigoted voters, especially Latinos, black men and white women – anything but their policies.
Critically, Harris did not convincingly respond to voters’ substantive concerns – inflation, especially the cost of food, energy and housing, stagnant personal earnings growth, ten million illegal immigrants, homelessness, crime and a weak foreign policy. Also, the Biden/Harris government alienated many Americans with elitist and illiberal cultural obsessions and fringe woke fetishes, like biological men competing against women and transitioning teenage girls, captured by the slogan “She’s for they/them, he’s for you.”
Liberals are making the same mistake as Democrats – trying to engender fear of Pierre Poilievre who allegedly represents a Trump-like threat to democracy and the Canadian way of life. It will fail because it mischaracterizes Poilievre, a caring
a middle-class family man whose common sense message of competent government and pride in Canada and its core values resonates across the country with all socio-economic and cultural groups.
It is also a dangerous tactic because the Canadian government has an overarching need to get along with the new Republican Administration, a task made more difficult by the obvious contempt several Liberal cabinet ministers have for the incoming President, including Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland. Not surprisingly, Trump does not like her or Justin Trudeau, whom he called ‘weak’ and a ‘far left lunatic’. Trump is likely to work more collegially with a Conservative government than one mired in socialism, climate alarmism, woke ideology and insufferable virtue signalling.
Furthermore, Trudeau’s own legacy is replete with authoritarianism and disrespect for parliamentary democracy. The most egregious example is the invocation of the draconian Emergencies Act and freezing of over 400 bank accounts and Bitcoin
wallets, which the Federal Court found to be unreasonable and ultra vires. Trudeau interfered in the justice system by personally pressuring Jody Wilson-Raybould, the Justice Minister and Attorney General, to intervene in criminal proceedings against SNC Lavalin. He prorogued Parliament in the midst of the WE scandal. He did little to counter hostile foreign interference in Canada’s elections, defence and national security and then tried to cover up his inaction.
Numerous factors caused the Liberal collapse in the polls, starting with antipathy to Trudeau personally. They include a weak economy, inflation, a stagnant standard of living, high taxes, especially the hated carbon tax, unaffordable housing for first-time buyers, a surge in violent crime, unsustainable immigration, hostility to resource development, identity politics, antipathy to Canada’s history and traditions, western Canadian alienation and the rise of the Parti Québécois.
Rather than learn from the Democratic debacle, Trudeau seems oblivious to the real issues Canadians care about as he heads down the road to electoral obliteration.
– Joe Oliver was the Minister of Natural Resources and Minister of Finance in the government of Stephen Harper