Question for another podcast: I very much agree that the authenticity factor was key to the last election for the CPC. I think that a more honest, authentic Con leader can succeed. On the other hand, why do the Liberals, and Trudeau in particular, *seem* to not suffer from an authenticity gap? For example, he's for Reconciliation, cans an Indigenous minister; he's for middle class jobs, is dinged by the ethics commissioner for visiting an island, etc etc. These issues get covered and raised but then it doesn't translate into untrustworthiness.
I think what has helped Trudeau is that people who support him (or are open to supporting him) believe he is sincere, despite his mistakes or actions. After the 2019 campaign, I did a podcast with Liberal pollster Dan Arnold (who was on the show a few weeks ago). He had done focus groups during the campaign. From what he learned in these, he said that Trudeau survived blackface in part because people believed he wasn't racist, that it was just an error in judgement. When he doesn't live up to his stated ideals, I think some people attribute that to Trudeau being a well-meaning screw-up, not an insincere hypocrite.
If people had had a prior suspicion that he might've been racist, then I think it would have been very damaging. In the case of O'Toole, not trusting him on guns or vaccination policy was more dangerous because a lot of swing voters might have already suspected the Conservative Party was pro-gun and anti-vaccine mandates. And his leadership campaign on the right, election campaign on the centre made him vulnerable to charges that he was inconsistent.
Of course, we can also look at how well the Liberals have done in the last two elections and conclude that they HAVE suffered somewhat. Their share of the vote is down quite a bit from 2015, and I suspect a lot of that is due to disillusioned former supporters going elsewhere.
I think he has suffered in the sense that there's a very vocal contingent of Canadians who absolutely hate Trudeau, most people are meh about him, and that proportion of people who think he's a good leader and admirable is definitely shrinking. I think most people who voted for the Liberals see him as the best out of bad options.
I wonder if the Conservatives are also fighting the negative perception of conservatism as a result of the more unabashedly far-right politics of the United States. I'm of the belief that average Canadians follow American politics far more than do they their own (sadly). Anecdotally, when talking to a lot of 905ers (where I'm from) leading up to the 2021 election, I got the sense some people voted Liberal just because they "feared Trumpism coming to Canada," or (even if they didn't explicitly say this) because they wanted to symbolically assert their opposition to that style of politics coming to Canada. Even if, ironically, O'Toole is a very moderate conservative. They heard "guns and anti-vaxxers" and ran away.
Left wing Canadian nationalism ("we are not Americans!") is so strong, that I can't see a Conservative embracing populism and somehow avoiding being compared to Trumpism right now. Unless the pandemic and associated restrictions tire people out to such an extent that they want some sort of change.
Question for another podcast: I very much agree that the authenticity factor was key to the last election for the CPC. I think that a more honest, authentic Con leader can succeed. On the other hand, why do the Liberals, and Trudeau in particular, *seem* to not suffer from an authenticity gap? For example, he's for Reconciliation, cans an Indigenous minister; he's for middle class jobs, is dinged by the ethics commissioner for visiting an island, etc etc. These issues get covered and raised but then it doesn't translate into untrustworthiness.
I think what has helped Trudeau is that people who support him (or are open to supporting him) believe he is sincere, despite his mistakes or actions. After the 2019 campaign, I did a podcast with Liberal pollster Dan Arnold (who was on the show a few weeks ago). He had done focus groups during the campaign. From what he learned in these, he said that Trudeau survived blackface in part because people believed he wasn't racist, that it was just an error in judgement. When he doesn't live up to his stated ideals, I think some people attribute that to Trudeau being a well-meaning screw-up, not an insincere hypocrite.
If people had had a prior suspicion that he might've been racist, then I think it would have been very damaging. In the case of O'Toole, not trusting him on guns or vaccination policy was more dangerous because a lot of swing voters might have already suspected the Conservative Party was pro-gun and anti-vaccine mandates. And his leadership campaign on the right, election campaign on the centre made him vulnerable to charges that he was inconsistent.
Of course, we can also look at how well the Liberals have done in the last two elections and conclude that they HAVE suffered somewhat. Their share of the vote is down quite a bit from 2015, and I suspect a lot of that is due to disillusioned former supporters going elsewhere.
I think he has suffered in the sense that there's a very vocal contingent of Canadians who absolutely hate Trudeau, most people are meh about him, and that proportion of people who think he's a good leader and admirable is definitely shrinking. I think most people who voted for the Liberals see him as the best out of bad options.
I wonder if the Conservatives are also fighting the negative perception of conservatism as a result of the more unabashedly far-right politics of the United States. I'm of the belief that average Canadians follow American politics far more than do they their own (sadly). Anecdotally, when talking to a lot of 905ers (where I'm from) leading up to the 2021 election, I got the sense some people voted Liberal just because they "feared Trumpism coming to Canada," or (even if they didn't explicitly say this) because they wanted to symbolically assert their opposition to that style of politics coming to Canada. Even if, ironically, O'Toole is a very moderate conservative. They heard "guns and anti-vaxxers" and ran away.
Left wing Canadian nationalism ("we are not Americans!") is so strong, that I can't see a Conservative embracing populism and somehow avoiding being compared to Trumpism right now. Unless the pandemic and associated restrictions tire people out to such an extent that they want some sort of change.