I like P but Byrne needed to get pushed out a month ago. But also the Cossacks work for the czar. Partly, I want to forgive P for being too slow to defy Trump and to shift to taking Trump’s threats of economic coercion into annexation seriously. Conservatives have to keep their pro-Trump and anti-Trump halves together, and hindsight is 20/20. I also like P’s ideas about the cost of living and growth by facilitating more natural resource development.
But. I also suspect that P is fundamentally and at core a pro-Trump person. I don’t think he’s crazy or stupid or lazy like Trump, although the bitcoin thing was gross for sure. I think his heart is in the right place. But he just seems viscerally uncomfortable criticizing Trump. And he weirdly praised Elon in January, saying he wanted his son to meet him. Gross. And the “knock it off” thing, sounds like he’s playing footsie with Trump? And he spent too long implicitly justifying Trump’s tariff threats by talking about how Canada needs to crack down on fentanyl (which he’s still doing) and build military bases in the arctic. Meanwhile, net fentanyl and military threats come from the south. Overall, he seems like Trump’s battered wife.
And then you have the conservative movement, which is full of Trump sympathizer and winking annexationists. They’re even worse about the, “he didn’t hit me; I fell down the stairs.” They admire Trump and identify with him. It’s like affinity fraud. They see Trump as someone who is fat, white and anti woke and they assume he’s the good guy.
Byrne was never up to the job. Ultimately, that is on Poilivere for sticking with her. Just the image with the MAGA hat alone is costing Poilievre dearly. It's the dot that connects him to Trump as long as she is running the show and it is probably too late to extricate himself from that connection.
The biggest problem he has now is that she is probably the smartest one he has on staff. Firing her could be worse for him.
Different forms of Conservatism are of interest in different regions. This is why I believe the "United the Right" movement for a single Cross-Canada party has always been a terrible idea.
It is also why I believe the notion of "Party Popular Vote" is toxic to Canadian politics, as we shouldn't be trying to believe that the same party should try to appeal to the entire of this vast country. The more the focus is narrowly on cross-Canada parties, often headquartered in Ontario or Quebec, the more regional divides will grow.
Plurality voting that manufactures the concept of vote splitting needs to go, and be replaced with ballot ranking (preferably in multi-member districts). That removes any incentive to merge entirely different ideological camps, whether "Unite the Right" or "Unite the Left".
We shouldn't expect a single leader or corporate brand to be trying to make all these very different groups happy -- we should be trying to get the best people into the House of Commons.
I believe the Liberals remain in crisis -- Uniting against Trump and/or Polievre isn't any longer-term sustainable as uniting against the Liberals/Trudeau/etc ever was. This is short-term anger-based politics, not a way to try to get the best people together to govern a Nation.
Well, PP's entire lengthy campaign was F*ck Trudeau! F*ck Trudeau - and now that Trudeau is no longer around, he has nothing. Policy that's built on vilifying one person is illustrative of the toddler PP is - shallow, nasty, vindictive. PP and his team have been scrambling to use the same play on Carney and it's not working. This Trump attack has PP trying to out Trump Trump - maple MEGA holds little appeal these days.
I thought the problem was that "trans rights" and even "carbon tax" (ten bucks a tank!) suddenly looked like small issues compared to "trade war costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, preparatory to Anschluss".
People will be writing books about this election campaign and the events leading up to it. We may even have a few PhD theses…
Okay, what options does Poilievre have to pivot?
I can see only one. Demand a more patriotic response to the Trump threat than Carney. He could demand export taxes and export quota limits. Insist on higher retaliatory tariffs than what the Liberals will proposing. Propose to cancel the F35 and buy European alternative. Nationalize US owned defense industry subsidiaries in Canada. Suspend NORAD cooperation. Etc.
Most of these measures are not realistic, but that is not important. Poilievre needs to make the point is willing to be more forceful, more direct than the Liberals when it comes to Trump. Will it work? I don’t know, but the current approach is certainly not working.
If PP proposed export taxes for one of our largest exports to the US, oil and gas, he would lose the 'support' of his biggest fan, Danielle Smith. Given her Breitbart performance, that would likely be to his benefit.
Speaking of death knells. A number of Liberal operatives are furiously pumping out columns on how the Conservative campaign is in trouble. Meanwhile - Mark Carney is drawing 20 Liberals to his events, while Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives are drawing 4 - 5,000 for their events. 😉 When the Liberals start attacking the other parties campaign - you know it’s not going well for the unpopular incumbent party. 💀
Nonsense. Poilievre is a populist -- populist draw large crowds of supporters. The faithful. The acolytes. What he's not getting is any pick-up from the undecided. Those flocking to cheer him don't care what he says because they're already on board. He just has to hope that there are enough of them. If you think this election is between Liberals and Conservative, you're not paying attention. It's between Poilievre and Carney. Poilievre appears to be unable to change to suit the changing circumstances, which only goes to show that he's an ideologue, so wedded to his view of how things should be that he's deaf to the reality of where things are now, let alone where they're going. The point about Carney is that he's a man used to thinking about and planing foir the future -- and for various scenarios of that future. He's developed the kind of flexibility you only get from experience of carrying great responsibility in exceedingly difficult circumstances. Carney doesn't need love-ins; he's convincing Canadians by what he's actually accomplishing, and we see that in real time, on our TVs and our social media. He's already doing the job, and, in so doing, showing all too clearly how Poilievre is not the Prime Minister we need at this time.
Okay, I have to comment on this. Liberal operatives are furiously pumping out articles? Have you seen the latest polls? What part of liberals could be in a majority gov’t based on the latest polling do you not understand? You are unattached from reality. PP is drawing crowds of thousands and Carney 20. Carney is campaigning and dealing with Trump fiasco. Most of his conversations are with the press or heads of states. Which draws more attention. Sounds a lot like Trumps behaviour. You add your opinion , tha if the liberals start criticizing the CPC you know things aren’t going well. Or again. Look at the polling.
Tariff revenue for tax cuts? I thought he wanted to sound less Trumpish
I like P but Byrne needed to get pushed out a month ago. But also the Cossacks work for the czar. Partly, I want to forgive P for being too slow to defy Trump and to shift to taking Trump’s threats of economic coercion into annexation seriously. Conservatives have to keep their pro-Trump and anti-Trump halves together, and hindsight is 20/20. I also like P’s ideas about the cost of living and growth by facilitating more natural resource development.
But. I also suspect that P is fundamentally and at core a pro-Trump person. I don’t think he’s crazy or stupid or lazy like Trump, although the bitcoin thing was gross for sure. I think his heart is in the right place. But he just seems viscerally uncomfortable criticizing Trump. And he weirdly praised Elon in January, saying he wanted his son to meet him. Gross. And the “knock it off” thing, sounds like he’s playing footsie with Trump? And he spent too long implicitly justifying Trump’s tariff threats by talking about how Canada needs to crack down on fentanyl (which he’s still doing) and build military bases in the arctic. Meanwhile, net fentanyl and military threats come from the south. Overall, he seems like Trump’s battered wife.
And then you have the conservative movement, which is full of Trump sympathizer and winking annexationists. They’re even worse about the, “he didn’t hit me; I fell down the stairs.” They admire Trump and identify with him. It’s like affinity fraud. They see Trump as someone who is fat, white and anti woke and they assume he’s the good guy.
Byrne was never up to the job. Ultimately, that is on Poilivere for sticking with her. Just the image with the MAGA hat alone is costing Poilievre dearly. It's the dot that connects him to Trump as long as she is running the show and it is probably too late to extricate himself from that connection.
The biggest problem he has now is that she is probably the smartest one he has on staff. Firing her could be worse for him.
Fantastic analysis.
I just can’t imagine the amount of pivot needed that would be seen as sincere. Best go down with the ship they built.
https://substack.com/@calluramichael491850/note/c-104559048?r=1ii73h&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Different forms of Conservatism are of interest in different regions. This is why I believe the "United the Right" movement for a single Cross-Canada party has always been a terrible idea.
It is also why I believe the notion of "Party Popular Vote" is toxic to Canadian politics, as we shouldn't be trying to believe that the same party should try to appeal to the entire of this vast country. The more the focus is narrowly on cross-Canada parties, often headquartered in Ontario or Quebec, the more regional divides will grow.
Plurality voting that manufactures the concept of vote splitting needs to go, and be replaced with ballot ranking (preferably in multi-member districts). That removes any incentive to merge entirely different ideological camps, whether "Unite the Right" or "Unite the Left".
We shouldn't expect a single leader or corporate brand to be trying to make all these very different groups happy -- we should be trying to get the best people into the House of Commons.
I believe the Liberals remain in crisis -- Uniting against Trump and/or Polievre isn't any longer-term sustainable as uniting against the Liberals/Trudeau/etc ever was. This is short-term anger-based politics, not a way to try to get the best people together to govern a Nation.
Well, PP's entire lengthy campaign was F*ck Trudeau! F*ck Trudeau - and now that Trudeau is no longer around, he has nothing. Policy that's built on vilifying one person is illustrative of the toddler PP is - shallow, nasty, vindictive. PP and his team have been scrambling to use the same play on Carney and it's not working. This Trump attack has PP trying to out Trump Trump - maple MEGA holds little appeal these days.
I thought the problem was that "trans rights" and even "carbon tax" (ten bucks a tank!) suddenly looked like small issues compared to "trade war costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, preparatory to Anschluss".
The Conservatives came to my door. They are going to give me ride to the polls on election day.
People will be writing books about this election campaign and the events leading up to it. We may even have a few PhD theses…
Okay, what options does Poilievre have to pivot?
I can see only one. Demand a more patriotic response to the Trump threat than Carney. He could demand export taxes and export quota limits. Insist on higher retaliatory tariffs than what the Liberals will proposing. Propose to cancel the F35 and buy European alternative. Nationalize US owned defense industry subsidiaries in Canada. Suspend NORAD cooperation. Etc.
Most of these measures are not realistic, but that is not important. Poilievre needs to make the point is willing to be more forceful, more direct than the Liberals when it comes to Trump. Will it work? I don’t know, but the current approach is certainly not working.
If PP proposed export taxes for one of our largest exports to the US, oil and gas, he would lose the 'support' of his biggest fan, Danielle Smith. Given her Breitbart performance, that would likely be to his benefit.
Speaking of death knells. A number of Liberal operatives are furiously pumping out columns on how the Conservative campaign is in trouble. Meanwhile - Mark Carney is drawing 20 Liberals to his events, while Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives are drawing 4 - 5,000 for their events. 😉 When the Liberals start attacking the other parties campaign - you know it’s not going well for the unpopular incumbent party. 💀
Nonsense. Poilievre is a populist -- populist draw large crowds of supporters. The faithful. The acolytes. What he's not getting is any pick-up from the undecided. Those flocking to cheer him don't care what he says because they're already on board. He just has to hope that there are enough of them. If you think this election is between Liberals and Conservative, you're not paying attention. It's between Poilievre and Carney. Poilievre appears to be unable to change to suit the changing circumstances, which only goes to show that he's an ideologue, so wedded to his view of how things should be that he's deaf to the reality of where things are now, let alone where they're going. The point about Carney is that he's a man used to thinking about and planing foir the future -- and for various scenarios of that future. He's developed the kind of flexibility you only get from experience of carrying great responsibility in exceedingly difficult circumstances. Carney doesn't need love-ins; he's convincing Canadians by what he's actually accomplishing, and we see that in real time, on our TVs and our social media. He's already doing the job, and, in so doing, showing all too clearly how Poilievre is not the Prime Minister we need at this time.
He will never be the PM we need because we need a PM who wants to unify us rather than governing through the politics of division.
I did not know that Kory Teneycke is a Liberal operative. Learned something new today.
As I posted the Conservatives are giving me a ride to the polls where I will vote Liberal.
Okay, I have to comment on this. Liberal operatives are furiously pumping out articles? Have you seen the latest polls? What part of liberals could be in a majority gov’t based on the latest polling do you not understand? You are unattached from reality. PP is drawing crowds of thousands and Carney 20. Carney is campaigning and dealing with Trump fiasco. Most of his conversations are with the press or heads of states. Which draws more attention. Sounds a lot like Trumps behaviour. You add your opinion , tha if the liberals start criticizing the CPC you know things aren’t going well. Or again. Look at the polling.
Such anger! 😬 What happened to “Diversity is our strength” ?
What’s anger got to do with diversity? Or were you trying to channel your inner MAGA?