Not mentioned was the cringe-inducing slither into calling Trudeau a racist for half his adult life, a blatantly untrue statement that so turned my stomach there is nothing Poilievre could do in my lifetime that would make me vote for a conservative. The $3 million makeover can never really cover up Poilievre's truly repulsive nature. The longer he campaigns the more we'll get to see his true self.
I was waiting for the “Great Porn War” column. From now on we should call Evan the PMO whisperer. This week we saw Trudeau and the Liberals taking Evan’s advice of the past weeks to heart and start doing the things that may make a difference in their electoral future.
This week Trudeau did not take the bait. He focused on housing announcements across the country, had a great interview in Alberta and dismissed the personal insults as noise. And on top of that his media team showed a bit of “Dark Justin” with a great beer jab back at Poilievre.
Poilievre on the other hand looked small and pitiful. The personal insults made all the image softening efforts of the past months worthless, the digital porn id does not seem to be the winner that he may have thought it would be and the bathroom regulations will likely become a future liability (Mr. Poilievre how do you intend to enforce this? Are we going to check gender at each bathroom? Should we call police if there is a suspected trans person? How would this work?). And the latter was an answer to the Rebel agitator who now seems to get the first question.
As we likely still have 18 months to go, there is a lot of time for the Liberals to do more of what they did this week: “Mr. Poilievre may want to talk about porn IDs and make personal insults, we are focused on housing, healthcare, etc.” there is no guarantee that it will be enough, but at least they have listened to the PMO whisperer.
Poilievre still has until October 2025 for a writ. Lots of time for him to open his mouth and put his foot in. Liberals need to start improving their coms. Start pointing out to people that you're now dealing directly with municipalities for housing because Conservative Premiers are diverting the funds. Point out the childcare issues in Alberta because of the Premier withholding funds. Point out Doug Ford hiring private nurses at 3 times the rate while crying poor to the Feds. The Liberals need to burn those bridges. There has been no loyalty from Ford, Smith, Moe, Higgs or Houston for ANYTHING the Feds have done. Make people aware of why many of these areas are failing or lacking funds. Put the blame where it belongs. Right at the Conssrvatives feet.
I keep reading how the Liberals need to improve their communications as if that entire environment hasn't been transformed by the internet into a siloed, splintered chaos where a growing number of low-level participants/eyeballs are sitting ducks for manipulative algorithms, a.k.a. misinformation, disinformation and outright LIES, all the more because it's all right there in your hand (a bird in the hand....)
AND as if most media isn't also mainly owned by conservatives, including Zuckerberg; does this guy strike you as a "democrat" insofar as you can even imagine him in that context?
But despite the altered, binary reality and all the chaos, the illusions of non-partisanship, bothsidesism and journalistic objectivity stubbornly persist as democratic values when it all comes down to which side is unscrupulous enough to actually USE deep-faking? And which side accepts science/expertise/education generally, but most important of all the science of climate change.
So as everyone goes into the weeds in excited anticipation of a horse race not even called yet, there are two sides and the one that's called "the right" has never been more wrong, period, OR more dangerous to the rest of us.
The time has come where we really need to just black and white it and unite the natural majority on the left however we can. The NDP/Liberal agreement is a shining example of this, deliberately low-key and so under the avid right wing radar, quietly and effectively GOVERNING, and progressively.
The low-key approach is a smart strategy in Canada, a country seen as the result of calm and reasonable "evolution," in direct contrast with the U.S., formed by "revolution," so simply NOT being American has been one of our primary identifiers. So it's another long nail in the conservative coffin that they're going all in on the crazy ass/religious nutbar GOP playbook.
But with the reality of so many conservative premiers (WTF?) it's politically unwise to burn bridges, even with the openly obstructive ones like Alberta and Saskatchewan (Ford is still sort of pretending.)
Politics isn't a science but certainly can be an art, which Trudeau very much gets and is capable of, despite being given zero credit for it whatsoever. Mind you, not giving credit where credit's due is classic churlish conservative, a nasty trait that has evolved since the Reform takeover into weirdly obsessive vilification, convoy style. He's now THE whipping boy of social media, tailor-made for the malicious, vicious right. It's a triumph of subliminal marketing too, because even a lot of progressives have unwittingly been swayed I've noticed.
But being the smart ones Liberals also recognize that standing together not only harkens back to what Canadians like to think about themselves, their government, and their country, it also contrasts with a more naturally fractious right. And remember, 30% of them are "social conservatives," a lurking threat as our society evolves steadily AWAY from religion.
Having said all that it's extremely satisfying to see Trudeau start to "drop the gloves" a bit with the prairie cretins like Denial Smith and PP, speaking of "sitting ducks."
I think a lot of Liberals actually like the idea that Poilievre is a good and skilled politician. It makes this a head-to-head contest. An external cause of any defeats.
Acknowledging that the CPC’s gains are almost all votes against the Liberals, rather than votes for the CPC, would require admitting to harder truths.
Skilled?? At what?? Rage farming is NOT an exercise that requires intelligence and that's all he offers. Every promise he has made is contradicted by his voting record. He's only leading because we have failed in our duty to educate people.
I think you should have ended your sentence there. The Liberals do not have a comms problem, per se. That would imply that voter’s perceptions of how the country is doing is meaningfully divergent from reality and that it is the false perception that is dragging down the Liberals.
The Liberals have a policy and action problem that their comms is failing to smooth over, which is very different.
Poilievre Is absolutely a rage farmer with no solutions. But his schtick is only effective because there are a bunch of issues where the Liberals have little or no policy, and have shown no action.
The Liberals are in the drivers seat, but I think a lot of them are more comfortable with a framing that says they’re not. It lets them pretend it’s not their own damn fault
I think it is just a bit more nuanced, there are several valid external causes that make life difficult for the Liberals (pandemic, global inflation, war in Ukraine, provincial governments running obstruction or outright sabotaging and a few more).
What the polls are telling us that the voters don’t care about these external causes. They are not looking for a discussion about finer details of federal and provincial jurisdiction or the argument that inflation in other similar countries is higher. They want to see what the government is doing about it.
Have voters ever cared about external causes? Has there ever been an issue where the government has pointed out that it’s not their fault, and voters have stopped caring about the problem?
Well, yes and no. In 2021 voters did accept the pandemic as something they could not blame the government for.
Maybe the words of Jean Cretien apply here. Canadians are not unreasonable, so be reasonable. Which I take to mean: work hard, show that you care and voters will recognize what you have control over and what not.
I think the Pandemic is the perfect case study. The Liberals didn’t just say “not our problem”. In many ways I think it was Trudeau at his best. The daily briefings outside his house. The clear messaging on what was known, what wasn’t and what was being worked on.
If they had brought that kind of energy to housing and inflation he’d be so far ahead in the polls that there’d already be rumblings about how long after the election the CPC would wait until they called a leadership contest
It is a false perception and in that case Liberals have been failing. Most of what Poilievre rages against is not federal jurisdiction. Liberals announce a housing plan because Conservative provinces are actively making it a mess and there is almost no mention of the fact that provinces have considered legislation to stop the federal government "overreach" while their complaining about homelessness somehow being the fault of the Feds. Trudeau also takes the heat for immigration policy while a 10 second search on Google will show articles from almost every province asking for more immigrants to combat labour shortages. Postmedia is a large part of the problem as well. I for one think Trudeau giving daily or at least weekly press conferences like he did during the pandemic a good idea.
It’s not a Liberal failure because it’s their responsibility. It’s a Liberal failure because, as you say, they’re not successfully making that case. That’s the failure
In many ways the fact that 90% of our current problems are provincial responsibilities should be a strategic gift to the Liberals. They were perfectly positioned to take the fight to the provinces on behalf of Canadians. But Trudeau has no appetite for political fights of any kind. It’s just not how he operates
He's started fighting back but it's an uphill battle with our media and Trudeau can't be as vulgar and nasty as Poilievre is with biased media. He would be crucified. He also has to try and make the relationship work with the provinces unlike the Premiers who make their demands and then badmouth him. I think we will shortly see a change in his communications. They really don't have any other options.
My somewhat uninformed take (which is similar to yours) is that Pollivare is generally a pretty weak leader but since the Liberals are so unpopular for a number of reasons (some deserved, some not) he’s able to play on easy mode. Any other leader would probably allow the conservatives to easily waltz into a majority but with Polivare at the helm it’s much closer than it needs to be. I do expect the conservatives to still win unfortunately but it will probably be a thin majority or even minority government instead of an overwhelming majority.
Not mentioned was the cringe-inducing slither into calling Trudeau a racist for half his adult life, a blatantly untrue statement that so turned my stomach there is nothing Poilievre could do in my lifetime that would make me vote for a conservative. The $3 million makeover can never really cover up Poilievre's truly repulsive nature. The longer he campaigns the more we'll get to see his true self.
I was waiting for the “Great Porn War” column. From now on we should call Evan the PMO whisperer. This week we saw Trudeau and the Liberals taking Evan’s advice of the past weeks to heart and start doing the things that may make a difference in their electoral future.
This week Trudeau did not take the bait. He focused on housing announcements across the country, had a great interview in Alberta and dismissed the personal insults as noise. And on top of that his media team showed a bit of “Dark Justin” with a great beer jab back at Poilievre.
Poilievre on the other hand looked small and pitiful. The personal insults made all the image softening efforts of the past months worthless, the digital porn id does not seem to be the winner that he may have thought it would be and the bathroom regulations will likely become a future liability (Mr. Poilievre how do you intend to enforce this? Are we going to check gender at each bathroom? Should we call police if there is a suspected trans person? How would this work?). And the latter was an answer to the Rebel agitator who now seems to get the first question.
As we likely still have 18 months to go, there is a lot of time for the Liberals to do more of what they did this week: “Mr. Poilievre may want to talk about porn IDs and make personal insults, we are focused on housing, healthcare, etc.” there is no guarantee that it will be enough, but at least they have listened to the PMO whisperer.
Poilievre still has until October 2025 for a writ. Lots of time for him to open his mouth and put his foot in. Liberals need to start improving their coms. Start pointing out to people that you're now dealing directly with municipalities for housing because Conservative Premiers are diverting the funds. Point out the childcare issues in Alberta because of the Premier withholding funds. Point out Doug Ford hiring private nurses at 3 times the rate while crying poor to the Feds. The Liberals need to burn those bridges. There has been no loyalty from Ford, Smith, Moe, Higgs or Houston for ANYTHING the Feds have done. Make people aware of why many of these areas are failing or lacking funds. Put the blame where it belongs. Right at the Conssrvatives feet.
I keep reading how the Liberals need to improve their communications as if that entire environment hasn't been transformed by the internet into a siloed, splintered chaos where a growing number of low-level participants/eyeballs are sitting ducks for manipulative algorithms, a.k.a. misinformation, disinformation and outright LIES, all the more because it's all right there in your hand (a bird in the hand....)
AND as if most media isn't also mainly owned by conservatives, including Zuckerberg; does this guy strike you as a "democrat" insofar as you can even imagine him in that context?
But despite the altered, binary reality and all the chaos, the illusions of non-partisanship, bothsidesism and journalistic objectivity stubbornly persist as democratic values when it all comes down to which side is unscrupulous enough to actually USE deep-faking? And which side accepts science/expertise/education generally, but most important of all the science of climate change.
So as everyone goes into the weeds in excited anticipation of a horse race not even called yet, there are two sides and the one that's called "the right" has never been more wrong, period, OR more dangerous to the rest of us.
The time has come where we really need to just black and white it and unite the natural majority on the left however we can. The NDP/Liberal agreement is a shining example of this, deliberately low-key and so under the avid right wing radar, quietly and effectively GOVERNING, and progressively.
The low-key approach is a smart strategy in Canada, a country seen as the result of calm and reasonable "evolution," in direct contrast with the U.S., formed by "revolution," so simply NOT being American has been one of our primary identifiers. So it's another long nail in the conservative coffin that they're going all in on the crazy ass/religious nutbar GOP playbook.
But with the reality of so many conservative premiers (WTF?) it's politically unwise to burn bridges, even with the openly obstructive ones like Alberta and Saskatchewan (Ford is still sort of pretending.)
Politics isn't a science but certainly can be an art, which Trudeau very much gets and is capable of, despite being given zero credit for it whatsoever. Mind you, not giving credit where credit's due is classic churlish conservative, a nasty trait that has evolved since the Reform takeover into weirdly obsessive vilification, convoy style. He's now THE whipping boy of social media, tailor-made for the malicious, vicious right. It's a triumph of subliminal marketing too, because even a lot of progressives have unwittingly been swayed I've noticed.
But being the smart ones Liberals also recognize that standing together not only harkens back to what Canadians like to think about themselves, their government, and their country, it also contrasts with a more naturally fractious right. And remember, 30% of them are "social conservatives," a lurking threat as our society evolves steadily AWAY from religion.
Having said all that it's extremely satisfying to see Trudeau start to "drop the gloves" a bit with the prairie cretins like Denial Smith and PP, speaking of "sitting ducks."
Sunny ways my friend, sunny ways
I think a lot of Liberals actually like the idea that Poilievre is a good and skilled politician. It makes this a head-to-head contest. An external cause of any defeats.
Acknowledging that the CPC’s gains are almost all votes against the Liberals, rather than votes for the CPC, would require admitting to harder truths.
Skilled?? At what?? Rage farming is NOT an exercise that requires intelligence and that's all he offers. Every promise he has made is contradicted by his voting record. He's only leading because we have failed in our duty to educate people.
“ He's only leading because we have failed”
I think you should have ended your sentence there. The Liberals do not have a comms problem, per se. That would imply that voter’s perceptions of how the country is doing is meaningfully divergent from reality and that it is the false perception that is dragging down the Liberals.
The Liberals have a policy and action problem that their comms is failing to smooth over, which is very different.
Poilievre Is absolutely a rage farmer with no solutions. But his schtick is only effective because there are a bunch of issues where the Liberals have little or no policy, and have shown no action.
The Liberals are in the drivers seat, but I think a lot of them are more comfortable with a framing that says they’re not. It lets them pretend it’s not their own damn fault
I think it is just a bit more nuanced, there are several valid external causes that make life difficult for the Liberals (pandemic, global inflation, war in Ukraine, provincial governments running obstruction or outright sabotaging and a few more).
What the polls are telling us that the voters don’t care about these external causes. They are not looking for a discussion about finer details of federal and provincial jurisdiction or the argument that inflation in other similar countries is higher. They want to see what the government is doing about it.
Have voters ever cared about external causes? Has there ever been an issue where the government has pointed out that it’s not their fault, and voters have stopped caring about the problem?
Well, yes and no. In 2021 voters did accept the pandemic as something they could not blame the government for.
Maybe the words of Jean Cretien apply here. Canadians are not unreasonable, so be reasonable. Which I take to mean: work hard, show that you care and voters will recognize what you have control over and what not.
I think the Pandemic is the perfect case study. The Liberals didn’t just say “not our problem”. In many ways I think it was Trudeau at his best. The daily briefings outside his house. The clear messaging on what was known, what wasn’t and what was being worked on.
If they had brought that kind of energy to housing and inflation he’d be so far ahead in the polls that there’d already be rumblings about how long after the election the CPC would wait until they called a leadership contest
It is a false perception and in that case Liberals have been failing. Most of what Poilievre rages against is not federal jurisdiction. Liberals announce a housing plan because Conservative provinces are actively making it a mess and there is almost no mention of the fact that provinces have considered legislation to stop the federal government "overreach" while their complaining about homelessness somehow being the fault of the Feds. Trudeau also takes the heat for immigration policy while a 10 second search on Google will show articles from almost every province asking for more immigrants to combat labour shortages. Postmedia is a large part of the problem as well. I for one think Trudeau giving daily or at least weekly press conferences like he did during the pandemic a good idea.
It’s not a Liberal failure because it’s their responsibility. It’s a Liberal failure because, as you say, they’re not successfully making that case. That’s the failure
In many ways the fact that 90% of our current problems are provincial responsibilities should be a strategic gift to the Liberals. They were perfectly positioned to take the fight to the provinces on behalf of Canadians. But Trudeau has no appetite for political fights of any kind. It’s just not how he operates
He's started fighting back but it's an uphill battle with our media and Trudeau can't be as vulgar and nasty as Poilievre is with biased media. He would be crucified. He also has to try and make the relationship work with the provinces unlike the Premiers who make their demands and then badmouth him. I think we will shortly see a change in his communications. They really don't have any other options.
My somewhat uninformed take (which is similar to yours) is that Pollivare is generally a pretty weak leader but since the Liberals are so unpopular for a number of reasons (some deserved, some not) he’s able to play on easy mode. Any other leader would probably allow the conservatives to easily waltz into a majority but with Polivare at the helm it’s much closer than it needs to be. I do expect the conservatives to still win unfortunately but it will probably be a thin majority or even minority government instead of an overwhelming majority.
Poilievre is obsessed with wood, isn't he.