tmpear.bsky.social
Born 318ppm. Retired. Lefty ex-comms refugee from you know where. Connoisseur of post-punk. #NFFC fan. There’s no place for hate. #ElbowsUp 🇨🇦
191 posts
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725 following
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Correction: if they had a hate child...
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And what did he say?
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Never claimed to. The body language alone is enough. It's a terrible look and there's no getting away from it.
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Munro's, Victoria BC
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A beauty. West Ham only have themselves to blame though, failing to close him down quickly enough.
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They're clear favourites and the trend is of little or no trend, with most parties' numbers holding steady within the margins of error. Since the campaign began, the Liberals have been hovering in the low- to mid-40s, with the Cons 37-39 (granted, with outliers for both).
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Both, for sure. Absent Trump, I think the Conservatives would still be ahead in the polls, although I suspect Carney would have closed the gap somewhat.
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Carney is a rookie politician, who granted has performed well so far, but he has to navigate the leaders’ debates (French today; English tomorrow) and Poilievre is nothing if not an effective attack dog. Whether or not Canadians are looking for a Trump-lite attack dog remains to be seen. 16/16 fin
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... and a lack of policy boldness has left the NDP lacking a compelling appeal to clear constituent groups.
Right now, the polls seem to have hardened into a relatively static pattern, which if it holds will lead to a Liberal victory. But there are still a little less than two weeks to go. 15/n
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The NDP’s woes also come against a background of the kind of policy malaise that will be familiar to followers of other progressive/social democratic parties. Decades of accommodation to neoliberal orthodoxy, a shift of emphasis away from working class concerns toward identity politics... 14/n
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...—the rise of national populism as an appeal to working class concerns about their economic and social position in a rapidly changing, increasingly unequal world. 13/n
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This is a long-term trend we have seen in the US going back to Reagan Democrats in the 1980s, in the UK with Thatcher and the Conservatives’ subsequent responses to UKIP etc, and in many European countries... 12/n
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One additional background factor is that the Conservatives’ success branding themselves as the party of “the little guy” (however specious that may be) has pulled away a significant chunk of the NDP’s voting universe. 11/n
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Had the NDP and BQ vote held, the Conservatives would be on course right now for at least a minority government and quite possibly a majority. 10/n
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As the ballot question became “Who can best deal with Trump?” voters coalesced around Carney’s Liberals.
In fact, it’s interesting to note that Conservative voting intention is currently 4-6 pts *better* than the result of the 2021 general election (which delivered a Liberal minority). 9/n
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So why did we also see the polling numbers for the NDP and to a lesser extent the Bloc Québécois (Québec’s independence party) collapse? It’s mostly a case of “My overriding priority is to stop the right.” 8/n
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But absent Trudeau and with Trump's arrival he was vulnerable. Could he really take on the man whose policy positions he had aped and whose language he had often copied? (The Liberals have run ads that show Trump and Poilievre saying the same thing in identical or near identical wording.) 7/n
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And then there is Poilievre’s achilles heel: his Trump-lite ideology, policy positions and persona. Poilievre had used inflation as a cudgel to very effectively beat Trudeau into retirement, building a huge lead between mid-2023 and late-2024. 6/n
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A career politician, Poilievre has little gravitas and—despite concerted efforts to package him as a likeable family man who “gets” working people—Canadians have failed to warm to him. There’s a strong argument his advantage was simply that voters disliked Trudeau more. 5/n
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... through the 2008 financial crisis and Brexit respectively apparently proved him the steady hand the crisis demanded. Carney’s attributes contrasted well with his principal opponent, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. 4/n
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... and his subsequent antagonisms toward Canada: his trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st state. In Mark Carney, the Liberals chose a leader who seemed tailor-made for the moment: he could be packaged as a “serious” politician whose experience leading the Banks of Canada & England... 3/n
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Trudeau had long ago reached his best-before date and there had been concerted efforts within the Liberal Party to oust him well back into 2024. Trudeau’s departure would not have had the effect it did, however, if not for the election of Trump... 2/n
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In answer to @jonnelledge.bsky.social's original question (I’ll come to the NDP collapse in due course), it was Justin Trudeau’s resignation in early January that triggered the dramatic swing in poll numbers. @internetthought.bsky.social
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We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Does seem to be a bit of a chasm between your perception and the fact he was awarded MOTM, but there you go.