The Democratic Party is a Master at Self Sabotage

Seeing the Democratic Party reaction to the allegations against Graham Platner I am reminded of post I wrote many years ago.

One of the key features of the Democratic Party is they are insane losers. They are losers because they have only been able to watch helplessly as the Repblican Party has implemented their objectives largely unopposed for that last 50 years, despite the Democrats occupying the White House and having majorities in the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court for many of the years during that period. They are insane because they keep doing politics the same way despite the obvious failure of the approach they have been following.

I will not comment on the specifics of the allegations against Graham Platner because that is all they are. However, I will comment that Graham Platner is one of a handful of Democratic hopefuls for the November elections who are breaking away from the losing approach to politics the Democratic Party has been following for half-a-century. 

Unless the allegations against him are proven true Democrats who really want to affect change in the US should be supporting him. There are not enough of them to discard even one at this point. Maybe in a few years, when this democratic socialist insurgency either grows unstoppable or it peters out, they can be more discerning about who they allow in the club but not now.

However, they will not do that of course because Democrats very much prefer the moral victories over actual political victories. Or to put it another way, the Republicans approach to politics is to win by any means while the Democrats approach is to win the "right way". The results of the last 50 years in American politics should clearly show which approach is the one you should follow if you really want to achieve your political objectives.

Many would say that progressives should not stoup to the level of the Republicans and that is BS. The only way to turn things around is to consistently beat the Republicans. Once that happens the Democrats can go back to doing politics the "right way" but until then the Democrats should be trying to win political victories and if that means they have to give up winning moral victories sobeit.

PM Carney is Showing He is Not Politician

The alternate title to this post is he is showing himself to be a political idiot. I mention here that Mr. Carney can agree to all of Alberta's demands for its oil industry and it will not help him one bit in Alberta. Mark my words, during the next election the Liberals will lose seats in Alberta despite the decision to support this new pipeline to tidewater. It is a simple fact that you can dress up a rock in Conservative Blue in that province and voters will support it. Pierre Poilievre, I am looking in your direction!

It is also true that the only time the Conservatives win is when the progressive vote splits. This decision provides the other progressive parties in this country with the stick with which to beat the Liberals, who I will remind everyone, will be going for election victory number five the next time. That is a difficult enough task without handing a gift to the parties that can really hurt you while not really gaining anything from the other side.

Mark Carney is doing yeomen work in expanding Canada's trade and security relations with the world. That is where he seems to thrive but when it comes to domestic policy his performance is much more spotty and this agreement is an example of that.

The Rise of Left Wing Populism

Seeing the rise of democratic socialism in the United States I am reminded of a statement I made in a post in 2017.

"In democracies there is usually a pendulum effect in politics.  Society will move from one end of the political spectrum to the next and back again several times within the lifetime of one individual.  As well, if that pendulum swings a great distance in one direction it will swing a similar distance in the other direction once that swing begins. So right now the pendulum has swung far to the right, which makes it virtually guaranteed that it will swing a similar distance to the left once society begins to move in that direction.  Right wing extremism will be replaced with left wing extremism.

For those of us in the political centre the coming years will be very uncomfortable. We will be just as leary of the left wing Donald Trump as the current right wing Donald Trump. We will be just as uncomfortable with the left wing Stephen Harper as we were with the original."

The Republican Party in the United States failed miserably to reign in the Tea Party movement. That lead directly to its morphing into MAGA. There is a direct line between them.

Now the Democratic Party is having its tea party moment. Like the original it will be nothing but an insurgency within the Party at first but it will grow. Especially since the establishment Democrats and Republicans will find common cause after November on many issues that will prevent the social democrats from actually enacting real change.

That will inevitably lead to another Republican victory down the road and they will decide they no longer need to work with the Democrats, which will lead to the further radicalization in the Democratic Party. 

So buckle up, we are just seeing the beginning of the swing of that pendulum. It will swing further and it will not stop in the centre or even near it. My only question is what these new left-wing extremists will call themselves. MAGA is taken.

Strategic Defeat

There is enough credible public information regarding the "peace deal" between the US and Iran to reasonably conclude that the US suffered a strategic defeat in their war with Iran.

Although the US did not unconditionally surrender, surrender they did.

The result is the United States will be generally weakened on the world stage and particularly weakened in the Middle East. As well, Iran is likely going to emerge as a great power in the same Middle East. Allowed to take full advantage of its energy wealth, as well as, collecting tolls on the energy wealth of its neighbours cannot but make them way more powerful that they are now. We will also see if they decide to formalize their security arrangement with China to increase their power even more.

Predictably Israel is trying to scuttle the agreement by violating the very first clause of the agreement. So now we will get to see if the Iranians are as strategically minded as I believe them to be or if the Israelis have found their blind spot.

Iran has the opportunity to become completely unfettered and work towards becoming the unrivaled power in the Region. All they have to do is work to implement all of the other clauses in the agreement in full. 

Yes, that would allow Israel to continue bombing Lebanon in the short term but in the medium to long-term that will become very counterproductive if the peace deal is fully implemented. To put it another way, working to implement all of the other clauses of the agreement will make Israel's actions in Lebanon irrelevant to how the power dynamic in the Middle East shakes itself out over the next few years.

Added to this, Iran working with the US to implement the agreement, without Israel's participation, is the worst case scenario for Israel. When this war started there was always the chance that Israel would suffer a strategic defeat, along with the US. However, they had the added danger of the US negotiating and implementing a separate peace with Iran, which is what the Iranians should be working towards if they have any strategic acumen. That would make the strategic defeat of Israel decisive.

This defeat at the hands of Iran will weaken the US but not as much as many anti-American commentators would like to believe. The US will still be the most power country on the planet but its influence will be sharply curtailed, particularly in the Middle East. On the other hand this defeat could lead to an existential crisis for Israel. Once a country the size of Western Europe, with a well educated population of around 90 million people, begins the realize its full potential Israel will be in mortal danger if they continue with their current policies towards their neighbours.

Some Observations on Canadian Politics

There has been many things happening in Canadian politics recently but none of them really warrant their own posts so I am just going to put them all in this one.

First, Canada is not in a recession. Yes, we have seen two quarters of negative growth, which economics defines as a recession but I have lived through four of the damned things and this does not feel like them. There is no widespread unemployment. There is no crashing real estate market. Wages are not crashing. There is none of the oppressive fear and malaise that comes with a recession. It is true that the Canadian economy is going through a rough patch and it is entirely possible that the Canadian economy could go into a real recession but the same is true of the global economy. (More on that in another post).

Second, Pierre Poilievre's reaction to the announcement of the two consecutive quarters of negative growth shows just how little political instinct and political acumen he and his team has. They sounded almost gleeful. I cannot say that I blame them. Mark Carney has been unassailable for over a year and if things do not begin to change soon Pierre Poilievre is in real danger of losing his job. However, that does not mean he should be cheering the fact the Canadian economy is going through a rough patch. If we had a media worth anything he would be roundly condemned for doing so. 

Third, the Conservatives have to acknowledge the damage Donald Trump is doing to the Canada/US relationship. I realize the Conservative tend to prefer the greater integration with the US approach to that relationship, which I explained in an earlier post, but they have to begin realizing that such an approach will never be popular with the majority of Canadians as long as Donald Trump remains in office. I also realize that a sizable chunk of the CPC base actually likes Donald Trump but Mr. Poilievre could finesse that if he had any political acumen. For example, instead of gleefully cheering on the "recession" he could have stated that the policies of Donald Trump have created great challenges for the Canadian economy and the policies of the Carney government have been ineffective at addressing them. That approach might have been more impactful. As long as the Conservatives continue to ignore that giant mammoth in the room none of their critiques of the economic policies of the Carney government will be taken seriously.

Fourth, apparently Mark Carney yells at his MPs. Who knew and who cares? Mark Carney and his government have been very busy making decisions and pursuing policies that could use some real critical examination but no one is actually doing it. The Opposition parties are all grandstanding and our media is doing its usual shit of focusing on the trivial. So, just more of the same.

Fifth, the environmentalists are pissed at the Carney government because it has stepped back from some of the Trudeau environmental policies. Steven Guilbeault even resigned his seat. Of course by doing so he effectively eliminated any influence he had with the government. If he believes he will be more effective outside of government he is gravely mistaken. As well, if environmentalists think that deserting the Liberals will advance their cause you have less political acumen than Pierre Poilievre. It is a simple fact that there are only two parties that Canadians trust to govern the country, the Liberals and the Conservatives. So if the Liberals lose the Conservatives will win and environmentalist will have to sit by and helplessly watch them do to Canadian environmental policies what Donald Trump did to US environmental policies. Environmentalism has always been a "nice to have" for ordinary people when things are going well economically. If that is no longer the case then they will choose bread and butter economic issues over the environment every time. That is the case now. If there are any politically savvy environmentalists out there I hope you are encouraging your brothers and sisters to maintain the lines of communications with the Liberal government. They are still the only option for advancing environmental policies of the two real choices for government.

Sixth, Danielle Smith is the same type of federalist as Robert Bourassa used to be. That is, a transactional federalist. Some may recall that Mr. Bourassa, as the Liberal Premier of Quebec, used the threat of separation to force the Mulroney government to sign the Meech Lake Accord and then the Charlottetown Agreement. Of course, that approach came back to bite him on the ass when the failure of those two agreements cost him the government to the Parti Quebecois, lead by Jacques Parizeau, who with Lucien Bouchard came within a hair's breadth of winning the 1995 Quebec separation referendum. Ms. Smith's flirtation with separation will probably not cost her an election but it will cause chaos, which will inevitably negatively impact Alberta. 

Liberal Majority Government

Surprising no one the Liberals secured a majority government last night by sweeping the three by-elections. Then again, the victory in Terrebonne was not a foregone result but they still won.

For the first time in decades these by-elections actually had a profound impact on Canada's politics. On Monday morning Mark Carney was leading a minority government and by midnight he was leading a majority government. However, that is the only significance of the results of last night's by-elections.

Of course, that is not stopping people from asserting that the results have much bigger implications for Canadian politics.

The Conservatives underperformed compared to the 2025 general election so I am seeing some commentators stating that this could spell the end of the Conservative Party of Canada. 

I saw one NDP supporter cheer the fact that the NDP overperformed in one of the Toronto ridings by over 10 points, compared to the 2025 general election, and that person was cheering the the "NDP are back!" They still lost by over 40 points but that did not dim this person's enthusiasm. 

I say this after all by-elections. They are wrong. You cannot make these kinds of assertions based on their results. By-elections are a different beast from general elections, on several levels, so trying to extrapolate their results to the broader political landscape is silly and actually asserting that they are a harbinger of how the next general election will turn out is bordering on the criminal. (Not really but....)

These were the most significant by-elections in decades because they changed the nature of the government. However, that is the only conclusion you can draw from them. Any other assertions on the broader Canadian politics is drivel, and often self-serving drivel.

Incompetence

That is the only description that can be applied to how the US and Israel conducted the war on Iran.

They were stupid to start it to begin with but once the quick victory did not come to pass they should have ended it immediately. It would have cost them but not as much is it is going to cost them now.

Starting the war is just plain stupid but continuing it after the second week turned a misadventure into a disaster.

A few days into the war I wrote a post about the opening positions each side stated for negotiations. At the time the damage to US, Israeli and Iranian interests and infrastructure was relatively light and although the Strait of Hormuz had been closed it had not been closed long enough to cause real economic harm.

Neither side would have had the advantage so neither side would have been able to dig in. The US and Israel would have had to make some major concessions but so would have the Iranians.

Now, with the Strait being closed for almost six weeks and with it being proven that the US cannot do anything to change that fact the Iranian negotiation position is much stronger than it was in week two and probably stronger than the US/Israeli negotiation position.

That is why the Iranians dug in this weekend during the first round of peace negotiations in Pakistan. The US needs to end the war more than the Iranians do and the Iranians are going to take full advantage of that position.

In week two the Iranians would have probably had to give up their nuclear program and they would have had to curtail their missile production in exchange for sanctions being dropped and control of the Strait of Hormuz being formalized.

In week six that is no longer the case. 

So we will see where this goes. Donald Trump is going to rage, whine, lie and thump his chest but he will eventually be compelled to go back to the negotiating table and pretty much give everything the Iranians want. The only other alternative would be to start shooting again, which will just further strengthen the Iranian strategic position, making peace even more costly for the US in the future.

So he will make peace and probably before his two week deadline is up. Although it may take longer as he extends that deadline.

Israel would be happy with a renewal of the shooting but I believe that their worst nightmare is going to unfold over the next few weeks. Donald Trump is going to make a separate peace with the Iranians, leaving Israel to face a much strengthened Iran alone. He has no loyalty to anybody but himself and you can tell that he is reaching the conclusion that he needs to make peace with the Iranians or face political disaster at home.

So, there is a pause in the peace talks, which will lead to all sorts of posturing by the main combatants and low level violations of the cease fire but in the end a deal will be struck.

Once I see the final deal I may provide my assessment of it in this space at that time.

Maple MAGA is Going to be Going Through Some Stuff

Maple MAGA is already melting down. Through the defection of 5 opposition MPs to the Liberals, in the last few months, they are within one seat of gaining majority government status. There are three by-elections tomorrow and the Liberals are expected to gain at least two of the three with a reasonable probability that they will sweep them. That would give the Liberals a three seat majority. As well, it has been reported that other Conservative caucus members could move to the Liberal caucus in the coming weeks, giving the Liberals a more comfortable majority.

If this comes to pass we can probably expect Maple MAGA to react poorly.

By-elections being what they are no Liberal should take them for granted. In the past by-elections did not mean anything. They were just elections to fill vacant seats in between general elections and did not have any real impact on the political situation and they could not be taken as a harbinger of future elections, although commentators, both professional and amateur, often tied themselves into knots to prove otherwise.

This time it will be different. The results will lead to a majority government or force the Liberals to continue to work as a minority government. That will change the dynamic of them, from voter turnout usually being very low and many turning out to cast a protest vote, to voters actually voting to have a real impact on the federal political scene. 

However, assuming the Liberals win at least two of them, what is going to happen to Pierre Poilievre.

There are reports he may resign but I would bet money that he will not. If the Conservatives want to be rid of him they are going to have to push him out. He will not go voluntarily. 

I have stated the reason in this space before. If the next election is held in 2029, which would be the most probable outcome of the Liberals gaining majority government status, the leader of the CPC at that time will have a very good chance of becoming PM. There is no way that the Liberals will be able to fly as high as they are currently for the next three years. They will come back down to earth. Combine that with the fact 2029 will see the Liberals governing for 14 years, the chances of the Liberals winning the election in 2029 is probably less than 50/50.

Pierre Poilievre has to know this so unless he is forced out he will stick around. Ironically, if the Liberals gain enough seats for a majority the pressure will be reduced on Mr. Poilievre, even if more of his caucus leaves. The political dynamics of a majority government are much different from the dynamics of a minority government. He would have the luxury of just waiting out the Liberal surge and then attempt to take advantage of any downturn they experience. Without the prospect of a snap election he would have the luxury of time.

All of that will not reduce the extreme angst of Maple MAGA however so expect them to really lose their shit in the coming weeks if the by-elections results from tomorrow night play out as expected.

More Ridiculous Polls

I usually ignore the media polls. They are usually not worth my time. However, if you visit any kind of social media they are hard to miss. Someone is usually posting them so they are hard to miss.

About 18 months ago the media polls were indicating that the Conservatives were leading by 20 points, on average, with the seat models indicating that they would win up to 220+ seats. At the time I expressed the opinion that they were ridiculous for a whole host of reasons and that when an election looked imminent they would equalize. That's exactly what happened.

Now we are seeing the same trend, only favouring the Liberals this time. It is all BS. Yes, I would agree that Mark Carney is liked and respected by Canadians. Even my conservative relatives, who never had anything good to say about Justin Trudeau, like him. Yes I would agree that is rubbing off on the Liberal Party but not to the extent the media polls are indicating.

I will use the same arguments for that opinion. If they were true election speculation would be rampant. It would be the top domestic issue that the media would discuss. It would take second place to the ongoing war in Iran but even that is going to leave the front pages soon, if nothing really mind blowing does not happen in the next few days.

As well, I would remind you that the companies that publish these polls do not make money on them. They are marketing tools so they do not need to be super accurate in between elections because their estimates are not tested against actual election results. 

Judging by how the political parties are acting I would say that the Liberals are in a good position politically. However, I would argue that position is not nearly as good as the media polls are indicating.

As well, I would also like to point out that the "Conservative collapse" a year ago became part of the story of that election, which is also something I stated would happen.

The Liberals are in the same position. If they actually call an election you will see the leads in the media polls evaporate almost immediately, guaranteed. We saw that in the 2021 election. The Liberals opened up a10 point lead in the media polls, they foolishly called an election, and that lead evaporated literally the day after the writ was dropped. The Liberals still won but not the majority government the polls were saying they would sale to just 37 days before election day. That collapse would be the story of the campaign and media would never stop talking about.

So the Liberals should just ignore the noise and govern and hope that the media polls are right enough to win all of the by-elections on April 13.