so, will this wave of kneejerk "anti-liberalism" in favour of magical thinking that conservatives will act like liberals if we all think hard enough that they will take justin trudeau down?

the truth is that it already did. and, he reacted. and he won a landslide on top of it.

rewind to a year, or even a few months, before the election. trudeau was ahead in the polls. then, he started talking about balanced budgets. he screwed up badly on c-51. and, canadians turned to our systemic bernie sanders - the ndp. history may forget to record that they nearly won. and they really nearly did.

then, harper started playing the anti-islam card. you can say what you will about this, but what it comes down to is that trudeau had the brand recognition necessary to fight back against it. kellie leitch? no, we just had that election, and that tactic lost.

trudeau had the political smarts that clinton didn't have. he saw it coming and he reacted. he beat the ndp at their own game, and they're still figuring out what to do.

it was paul krugman that pointed out that canada is always ahead of the curve, that we should look to canada for a taste of the future. yet, we're constantly told to expect the effects of american elections to be felt, here. i think that certain voices in the canadian commentariat may want to adjust their analysis.

it already happened, here. and, he co-opted it. we may even get a renegotiation of nafta out of it. hey - a girl can dream.

trudeau is the anti-elite backlash.

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but, really. you gotta wonder if you should be dusting off the pavlov in your post-mortem, here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmarginal_inhibition