The Decline of the Liberal Party- Swerved Into a Confederation Topic

[dimsum]

It doesn't matter. As we continually here from their supporters on this website, this current government is the only option.

I've said it before that I've been holding my nose in the past few elections.

If the CPC has any hope of winning, they need to get back to the middle somehow. Poilievre doesn't seem to trend that way - and I don't think the party is either given O'Toole's ousting - and I don't think there are enough CPC and farther-right supporters to give them the lead.

I'm fine with the fiscal conservative aspect of their party, not the social conservative aspect. But, the current CPC knows that they need that SoCon vote, so I don't see them turning back.

 

[FSTO]

I'm fine with the fiscal conservative aspect of their party, not the social conservative aspect. But, the current CPC knows that they need that SoCon vote, so I don't see them turning back.

Is the CPC advocating banning abortions? Stopping immigration? Banning gay marriage? What LPC iterations of the “Hands Maid Tale” are you thinking of?

 

[Halifax Tar]

Is the CPC advocating banning abortions? Stopping immigration? Banning gay marriage? What LPC iterations of the “Hands Maid Tale” are you thinking of?

The whole "fear of conservatives" thing is so 2015. And at this point it's a red herring.

Look into PP. Jesus, his father is a member of the LGBTQ+ community and he's married to an immigrant woman of the Latin community.

Why can't people just admit they are ok with the corrupt and broken politics of the current Gov ? Just be honest.

 

[Quirky]

Liberal Logic: PP/CPC don't have any ideas of their own to fix the problems our dear leader created, so we will keep voting for dear leader.

Love it.

 

[RangerRay]

It doesn't matter. As we continually here from their supporters on this website, this current government is the only option.

As I said in another thread:

It doesn’t matter what (you or) I think of which party or leader. As long as the suburbs think the CPC is full of cranks and hicks, they will vote for incompetence and corruption.

Perception beats reality every time.

 

[Halifax Tar]

As I said in another thread:


Perception beats reality every time.

You'll get no argument from me.

The Liberals have been brilliant in painting their main opposition in one shade and the getting away with being, probably the most, terribly corrupt and ineffective government we will see in our lifetime.

As we've seen, Canadians will easily give into unreasonable and unsubstantiated fear.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I've explained it a few times here; what the heck, once more.

The socon fraction of the CPC is a minority. There aren't enough socon-leaning ridings in Canada to elect enough socon CPC members to effect the kind of social change that some people here keep wringing their hands over. It is mathematically improbable that any elected CPC majority would also contain a socon majority (as in, majority of the entire House, not merely the party's share). Watching private members' bills go down to defeat may antagonize pundits who think there is a politics which dare not speak its name, but the end state is still status quo.

I don't know whether the current CPC iteration contains people in it with the fiscal competence of Harper/Flaherty, but there's no point complaining about inflation, interest rates, rust-out, counterproductive market-meddling economic and environmental policies, etc, unless you're willing to vote the party least likely to aggravate all those things.

 

[dimsum]

Is the CPC advocating banning abortions? Stopping immigration? Banning gay marriage? What LPC iterations of the “Hands Maid Tale” are you thinking of?

None. The CPC knows that any of the above would pretty much doom it as a party.

The reason I believe what I said is when O'Toole (a moderate) got turfed, they didn't pick another moderate.

Or if Poilievre is a moderate, he isn't really showing it.

 

[Good2Golf]

The socon fraction of the CPC is a minority. There aren't enough socon-leaning ridings in Canada to elect enough socon CPC members to effect the kind of social change that some people here keep wringing their hands over. It is mathematically improbable that any elected CPC majority would also contain a socon majority (as in, majority of the entire House, not merely the party's share). Watching private members' bills go down to defeat may antagonize pundits who think there is a politics which dare not speak its name, but the end state is still status quo.

While entirely true, it matters not a whit. The CPC does not have the collective maturity to appreciate that it matters not.

 

[Good2Golf]

Is the CPC advocating banning abortions? Stopping immigration? Banning gay marriage? What LPC iterations of the “Hands Maid Tale” are you thinking of?

The CPC need only state that it won’t stop any of its MP’s from putting forward legislation to restrict abortions in any way.

That the LPC is led by a Roman Catholic who has clearly separated his personal, religious-based views of the issue, yet has established a clear pan-party position could be a lesson to the CPC, but won’t be.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The same thing is happening in Canada as the US. Progressives are moving left a lot faster than conservatives. Centrists hoping that conservatives are going to catch up by leaps and spurts to become centrists are on a fool's errand. The CPC isn't going to become the Centrist Party of Canada to suit centrists. But it might become the fiscally responsible party of Canada. Some will argue the LPC is capable of that, but the federal NDP is not and the LPC is pulled by the NDP.

To me, everything else other than finances is what you do after you secure your finances, and by all means argue far and wide about what those secure finances should be put to. So that's my "single issue". Hoping the situation is somehow going to sort out while supporting or even merely not opposing parties with ideologically rigid anti-market policies is not a strategy.

 

[RangerRay]

I haven’t heard the socon boogeyman being dredged up recently. It’s more the populist/nationalist/Trumpist/conspiracy theorist bogeyman I hear about. Tories, federal and provincial, don’t help the cause when they snuggle up to those elements. Despite their own press releases, that kind of stuff turns off normie voters in the suburbs. It might go well in Fort Bumfuck, SK where everyone is reading Facebook posts Uncle Bob is sharing from EaglePatriotMAGAnews.ru, but not in the 905.

I remain convinced that had Erin O’Toole was given a second chance, he could win the next election (although his sucking and blowing during the Convoy didn’t help). Harper was given a second chance after his first defeat and enough voters saw that he wasn’t what the Liberal press releases said he was. Constantly changing leaders isn’t helping making Canadians comfortable with them either.

 

[dimsum]

I haven’t heard the socon boogeyman being dredged up recently. It’s more the populist/nationalist/Trumpist/conspiracy theorist bogeyman I hear about. Tories, federal and provincial, don’t help the cause when they snuggle up to those elements. Despite their own press releases, that kind of stuff turns off normie voters in the suburbs.

You said it better than I did.

 

[CBH99]

None. The CPC knows that any of the above would pretty much doom it as a party.

The reason I believe what I said is when O'Toole (a moderate) got turfed, they didn't pick another moderate.

Or if Poilievre is a moderate, he isn't really showing it.

I've always enjoyed reading your posts & appreciate your opinions.

I know out east, Poilievre is definitely being taken as 'not a moderate' - as you put it.


My question is why?

Why is he not coming across like a fairly moderate person?

(To me, he's come across as pretty moderate, with common sense solutions to silly problems that shouldn't exist in the first place. And he asks a lot of the same questions that I have of the current government.

But how he's coming across to a lot of people out west is apparently different than how he's coming across to people out east.

Genuinely curious is all. (Open question btw...)

 

[dimsum]

I've always enjoyed reading your posts & appreciate your opinions.

I know out east, Poilievre is definitely being taken as 'not a moderate' - as you put it.


My question is why?

Why is he not coming across like a fairly moderate person?

(To me, he's come across as pretty moderate, with common sense solutions to silly problems that shouldn't exist in the first place. And he asks a lot of the same questions that I have of the current government.

But how he's coming across to a lot of people out west is apparently different than how he's coming across to people out east.

Genuinely curious is all. (Open question btw...)

I don't know if it's a "east v west" party thing.

But, I agree with the article below.

Pierre Poilievre, political arsonist

Pierre Poilievre has been starting political fires all across the country over the last year, columnist Max Fawcett writes.

www.nationalobserver.com

 

[FSTO]

I don't know if it's a "east v west" party thing.

But, I agree with the article below.

Pierre Poilievre, political arsonist

Pierre Poilievre has been starting political fires all across the country over the last year, columnist Max Fawcett writes.

www.nationalobserver.com

Max Fawcett is the Brian Lilley of the centre left.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I don't know if it's a "east v west" party thing.

But, I agree with the article below.

Pierre Poilievre, political arsonist

Pierre Poilievre has been starting political fires all across the country over the last year, columnist Max Fawcett writes.

www.nationalobserver.com

It's a bit of a head scratcher. So it's not the actions/inactions of the sitting government that has caused the anger it's PP.

That's a bit of a stretch for me. Biases, of course, admitted.

 

[Good2Golf]

I don't know if it's a "east v west" party thing.

But, I agree with the article below.

Pierre Poilievre, political arsonist

Pierre Poilievre has been starting political fires all across the country over the last year, columnist Max Fawcett writes.

www.nationalobserver.com

Spin, spin, spin.

Throwing some critical thought at Fawcett’s parroting of the Trudeupian take on the infamous pre-Christmas Angus Reid poll, one could assess how bad, or not at all, Poilièvre truly is.

Let’s look at Fawcett’s view of PP as stated in his article:

Canadians seem to be taking notice. The most recent Angus Reid Institute poll showed more than half of Canadians (54 per cent) have a negative view of Poilievre, while only one-in-three like what he’s offering. “These levels of unfavourable sentiment are much higher than those of previous leaders Andrew Scheer, Erin O’Toole, and Stephen Harper at the beginning of their own leadership ventures.”

Do Canadians hold such a disparate view of Poilièvre relative to Trudeau? From Fawcett’s words, one would think so.

As critical thinkers, why don’t we take a look at the data in the poll that Fawcett quotes…



‘Over half’ have an unfavorable view of Poilièvre.
38% v.unfav + 15% unfav = 53% overall unfav. Okay, that math checks out (well, Fawcett can’t add, it’s 53% not 54%, but he’s not a mathematician I suppose; I’m willing to cut him some slack to see where he’s going with things).

Just taking a quick moment to check out Trudeau’s numbers…
36% v.unfav + 17% unfav = 53% overall unfav.
Hmmm …that’s strange, I must have missed the sentence in Fawcett’s article where he noted that Trudeau had the exact same “more than half of Canadians view him unfavorably” as Poilièvre…53%. Funny that. Let’s keep thinking critically…

Favourable. …”only one-in-three like what [Poilièvre] is offering.” 17% + 16% = 33%. Okay, I’ll buy that.

Quick check at Trudeau’s numbers…33% + 9% = 42%. Oh, so only slightly more than four-in-ten people like what Trudeau’s doing? Rewording Poilièvre’s approval to slightly more than three-in-ten Canadians. That’s only one more per ten people for Trudeau than Poilièvre….or just 10% more popular (9% to be precise) than Poilièvre.

Heck, it appears by the numbers that more people disapprove of Trudeau, than approve. I must have also missed that part of Fawcett’s article as well.

So in unbiased language, Poilièvre and Trudeau have identical unfavourable views by Canadians (53%). Both are also viewed more unfavourably by Canadians than favourably.

Check.

Where were we again? Oh right, Poilièvre bad. I mean, not as bad as Harper…clearly, but still bad.

 

[Remius]

It's a bit of a head scratcher. So it's not the actions/inactions of the sitting government that has caused the anger it's PP.

That's a bit of a stretch for me. Biases, of course, admitted.

Fareed Zacharia had an interesting OP Ed this weekend on the decline of populism across the globe. It may be that PP’s entry late in the game is what is driving it.

2023 could be the year that exposes populism for the sham that it is — Fareed Zakaria

It’s hard not to be fixated on the drama unfolding in the House of Representatives, where the Republican Party is having a nervous breakdown in full public view. This crisis is entirely of the party’s own making. For decades it has whipped its base into a righteous fury by promising radical policies

fareedzakaria.com

(Could be behind a paywall, apologies)

While looking for a few other articles on that I came across one that claims that the pandemic sowed deep distrust in populism and populist ideas. It does specify though that it did not reinforce liberal democracy (in fact it also showed distrust in it)

Support for populist politics 'collapsed' during the pandemic – global report

Support for populist parties and politicians, and agreement with populist sentiment, has diminished during the pandemic, according to a “mega-dataset” taking in attitudes of over half a million people across 109 countries since 2020.

www.cam.ac.uk

It could be that PP’s embrace of a populist approach is what is the issue. It would explain why he hasn’t said a word on the convoy in some time and said nothing about anything regarding the inquiry into the EA.

 

[IKnowNothing]

So in unbiased language, Poilièvre and Trudeau have identical unfavourable views by Canadians (53%). Both are also viewed more unfavourably by Canadians than favourably.

Which is fitting, because they're opposite sides of the same ambitious, vapid, political animal coin.