Common Sense
Something Canadian politics lacks
At the end of September, David Herle on Substack’s Notes commented on this Barack Obama post with the words “This is the same language Pierre Poilievre uses.”
Literally true.
Yes. Pierre says it alot. Calls himself a commonsense Conservative.
But so what?
In the United States, Obama was clearly taking a word associated with a sub-set of Republicans.
But it’s also a strong sub-set of Democrats who talk about common sense. They occupy a space in between the two parties, one that is susceptible to shifting to the Republicans and in a tight race, shoring them up or appealing to soft Republican CommonSensers who might switch to the Democrats makes a whole lot of political sense.
In Canada, common sense - using the compound word version - is something only the Conservatives talk about and there’s a reason for it. They’ve been using the term for a long time. Check out Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution from Ontario in the 1990s.
This is not a term Liberals or New Democrats have tried to use and - not surprisingly it isn’t a word that former CBC host Carol Off thinks the Left must “take back” from the Right, which she will tell you is always wrong. The federal Liberals these days are no exception and remain dominated by a lot of narrow thinking such that you either fit inside their limited range of beliefs or you are someone they aren’t interested in. They are not the big tent party of the old days and they are not the big tent coalition of either American party. Canadian political parties used to bridge social cleavages. Now they exploit them.
And that’s why Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are desperately stuck in the bottom of the polls and refuse to change. Justin Trudeau is not going anywhere and you can see all sorts of Liberals doubling down on both the attitudes and the issues that have dug their political graves. Most of them are from central Canada and most of them are from urban Toronto ridings, which is not surprising since that’s where the crowd currently running the current think is Canada.
The day before Herle commented on Obama, he suggested that maybe the federal Liberals should “re-litigate” COVID - as Herle put it - and contrast how Trudeau handled the pandemic with how Pierre Poilievre might. Seriously. That’s what he said. With a straight face, presumably. Herle’s not the only one thinking like this. That’s basically the same genius move that has led to a couple of comments by Gerry Butts and others, since picked up by Liberal mouthpieces, about the looming threat of a separatist government in Quebec and another referendum. We need Justin, cannot risk Pierre so the argument goes.
The Liberals won’t change. They have no idea how they got into the mess they are in and have no idea how to get out so they invent a crisis that doesn’t exist or they seriously want to go back and give Poilievre more ammunition to cement the CPC base solidly in place.
Democrats in the United States learned their lesson with Hillary Clinton and the arrogance of the “undesirables” comments. That is precisely where going back to COVID would take the Liberals since it was the Prime Minister’s unrelenting arrogance toward people who disagreed with him that helped drive so many Canadians away once the pandemic was over.
Going back to the same schtick would drive more votes away from the Liberals. Trying to make Quebec separatism an election issue would only show how desperate and dimwitted Trudeau and his Liberals are. Literally no one in the right might could think of a way to make the fiction of a future Quebec referendum a vote-driving issue in any sense. It would just be a waste of energy. Plus, if you look at it, the entire premise of the argument is - yep, you guessed it - just more of the arrogance that just drives people away from the Liberals.
We’re beyond the COVID thing. Herle’s panel on Curse of Politics laughed that one out of the room. But we are not beyond the mess of the Prime Minister’s appearance at the foreign interference inquiry and the quite obvious efforts of Liberal political staffers to interfere with security investigations that were inconvenient to them on a partisan basis. They couldn’t even come up with plausible lies to cover their tracks, thereby doubling down on their obvious incompetence. Compromising national security for partisan reasons - or even the appearance of doing so - should be the kiss of death to any political party. In this case, it certainly won’t help. Handling the Indian assassination file properly won’t make up for that, not by a long shot, nor will the slow-motion lunacy of the Letter from Caucus that isn’t a letter.
The only upside to the federal Liberals’ political woes is for the provincial Liberals in Newfoundland and Labrador. They have massive problems of their own and have no idea how to fix them. Justin’s problems mean the Furey crowd have more time to squeeze in an election. They need to go before Justin because the inevitable federal slaughter will seal their fate.
Look now for an election in the spring for Newfoundland and Labrador. The only way they’d go faster and try to sneak a vote in before Christmas is if the New Brunswick Liberals pull off a miracle and unseat the New Brunswick Conservatives. Since that’s not likely, Andrew Furey’s plans will have to wait until the New Year.
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Suggested Reading
Bonus Video
Is there a Justin match to this?
Common Sense is not an extreme position. Its middle of the road. Which is what most people want. Most people dont want this extreme green garbage. Sensible people want common sense stuff.