Harrop: Democrats should heed Canada’s win against Trump

By Froma Harrop / Creators.com

Most remarkable about the recent Canadian election is that patriotism rather than raw economic interest propelled voters to resist Donald Trump. Canadians rejected the MAGA-fied Conservative Party, despite an economy suffering from anemic growth and high housing costs, all pinned on Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party.

Trump’s devastating tariff war would have sent a submissive electorate toward appeasement. The opposite happened. The Liberals, headed by Mark Carney, overcame a recent 20-point-plus deficit in the polls to score a narrow win.

He may be a sober banker, but Carney knows how to deliver some fire and brimstone to Canadians traumatized by Trump’s lunatic attacks on their friendly nation. “President Trump is trying to break us so he can own us,” he said. “That will never happen.”

For Canadians, it’s not the money. It’s the country.

Trump thus finds himself in the unusual role of unifier. His insults and threats prompted Canadian voters to overcome long-standing differences. Many French-speaking Quebecois abandoned their regional party to vote for the Liberal Party. Members of the left-wing New Democratic Party followed suit.

Here lie lessons for Democrats. The path to defanging Trump is not to convert other Americans to their ideology, whatever that may be. It is to get people who normally vote another way to unite in saving their country from a dangerously erratic leadership. The midterms will be the first big opportunity for that.

Canada’s Liberals were smart in their choice of prime minister. Carney is a sober figure who headed both the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada. He understands the economy’s weaknesses and what tariffs do. And he undoubtedly has the measure of the clownish Trump. He’s not about to leap at Trump’s latest burst of hot air.

As Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s former spokesman and now critic, put it, “The best that Trump did in 100 days” was help elect Mark Carney.

The Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre lost more than an opportunity to speak for Canada. He lost his own parliament seat in Ottawa. Poilievre was skewered as the “Maple MAGA” after railing against “radical woke ideology” and promising to cut foreign aid. Some Conservatives now accuse Poilievre of failing to pivot after Trump became an abuser of Canadian dignity.

Democrats in the U.S. should note that the oncoming recession and, perhaps, financial crisis, gives them an opening to further rebrand. They should redouble efforts to put their cultural hobby horses on the back burner and focus on the public’s current obsession: a parade of scary economic news.

Carney meanwhile vows to find new alliances and trading partners. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we shall never forget the lessons,” he said. Trump has vandalized over a century of warm relations with Canada, and what does America have to show for it?

That’s only the iceberg tip of the lasting damage he’s inflicting on U.S. power and prestige. A country that could elect Trump — and whose Republican-controlled Congress has proven impotent against his excesses — no longer seems a stable world leader. That price continues to inflate.

On the morning of the election, Trump the buffoon told Canadians to vote for him. With midterms coming closer, Democrats would do well to stop using the loaded word “resistance” but push back in a sophisticated way.

The Canadian election offered an example of identity politics done right. The identity was Canadian, not Alberta oil driller, not French-speaking Quebecois, not Inuit in Labrador, not the recent immigrants from everywhere and their descendants.

Thanks to Trump, Canadians have come together as a people. Democrats should learn from them and bring the growing numbers of alarmed Americans under one banner, the American flag.