Friday, July 05, 2024

People Usually Vote Against Someone not for Someone

That is a simple fact.

I know several people who are Conservative supporters and all of them do not really like Pierre Poilievre. Indeed, I heard one of them call him a f&*%King asshole a few months ago. However, most of these folks absolutely hate Justin Trudeau so they will overlook the general assholery of Mr. Poilievre if they can get rid of PMJT.

I bring this up because of all of the wingeing over Joe Biden's debate performance last week. The doom and gloom is misplaced. I can pretty much guarantee that the reason he became president is not because the voters liked him and were inspired by him. He became president because people hated Donald Trump and wanted him gone. 

Donald Trump is a polarizing figure. Those who love him really love him but those who hate him really hate him. Unfortunately for him there are more people who hate him than love him. That was proven in 2016 and in 2020. I imagine that it will be true in 2024. He has not done anything in the last four years to reach out to those who hate him, in fact, he did the exact opposite. So the biggest threat to Joe Biden's bid for a second term is not voters turning away from him to Donald Trump but people who voted for him in 2020 deciding to stay home. Donald Trump will probably not gain any more votes than he gained in 2016 and 2020. All the Democrats need to do is convince those who hate Donald Trump to come out and vote and they will win.

In the Canadian context this voter motivation is the reason why Conservatives and their media allies are trying so damned hard to get Canadians to hate Justin Trudeau and have him resign. After all, there are countless examples of people voting against a party over voting for one. I can assure you that very few people felt happy voting for the Harper or Ford Conservatives or the Trudeau Liberals. Voters were just voting against people and governments they really did not like and in those cases enough people did so to bring about a change in government.

Judging by the increasingly shrill and strident calls for his resignation by the media I would say that they are not succeeding in turning Canadians against PMJT. Certainly, there is a small minority of Canadians who hate him for many reasons but they have always hated him and I would guess that their number is not increasing fast enough to the liking of Conservatives. As well, I would like to point out that the media is focusing exclusively on trying to get Canadians to hate Justin Trudeau but no one is trying to get Canadians to like Pierre Poilievre, including Mr. Poilievre himself. They are content to keep preaching to their base while working diligently to get Canadians to hate Mr. Trudeau. 

Yes, yes, yes, I know what the polls are saying but I also know that polls never tell the whole story and in many cases the story they do tell is often wrong. 

By the time the election rolls around in 2025 the Conservatives might be successful in their efforts to turn Canadians against Justin Trudeau, or that might just happen organically as a result of the sheer amount of time the Liberals will have been the government. However, at the moment, judging by the actions of the Conservatives and the media, they have not done that yet.

If they have not been able to do it and if Conservative opponents can be somewhat successful in reminding voters of why they do not like the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre then the next election will not be the shoe in for the CPC that most political commentators are saying it will be.

So in 2025 the ballot question is going to be who are the voters going to be more against? I am not even going to attempt a guess at this point.

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