Canada a progressive exception to global Conservative trend?

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Trudeau needs to dial back the wokeness, and get Pharmacare done.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Global political trends is a pseudoscientific phenomenon.

I'm inclined to say that Germany became much more polarized with the concurrent rises of the AfD and the Greens. If anything, western Germany is moving to the left, while eastern Germany is moving to the right.

What about south Germany? It may be that my study of German politics, being predominantly based in the 1871-1932 period, has given me an antiquated view of German political culture, but I seem to think of Germany as Northern, with the subsections or West/East, and Southern - Baden, Wurttemberg, and Bavaria.

Baden-Württemberg has now a Green minister-president, although a pretty centrist one who's also supported by a lot of former CDU voters.

I'd say southern Germany is located politically somewhere between eastern Germany and western/northern Germany. Southern Germany is also trending towards the Greens now although their brand of Green politics is definitely a bit less leftist than in the rest of the country (see the Baden-Württemberg remark above).

I also think that eastern Germany is actually moving from the Left Party's kind of left-wing populism towards the AfD's kind of right-wing populism now while neither the Left nor the AfD is particularly strong on southern Germany. The south is still largely a CDU/CSU stronghold with the Greens being on the rise there.

This divide between East and South can be explained culturally. The East is predominantly an atheist region, while the South is still heavily influenced by Catholicism. Hence the South's affiliation with old school religion-derived conservatism and the East's affiliation with the more secular "New Right". Coincidentally, the aforementioned Green minister-president of Baden-Württemberg happens to be a member of the Central Committee of German Catholics.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Total Left Vote in Germany in random postwar elections:

1949: 34.9 (SPD+KPD)

1961: 38.3 (SPD+DFU)

1972: 49.3 (SPD+DKP)

1980: 45.8 (SPD+Greens+DKP)

1990: 43.6 (SPD+PDS+B90Grune+Greens(West)+Grau)

2002: 51.7 (SPD+Greens+PDS+Animal+GRAU+Feminist)

2009: 48.2 (SPD+Greens+Linke+Pirates+Animal+MLPD)

2017: 41.3 (SPD+Linke+Greens+Partei+two Animal Parties+Pirates+basic Income+V Partei+ML)

Forsa poll for next election (24th-28th Feb): 50 (Grune+SPD+Linke)

[T'Chenka]

After Brexit and Trump happened, Ontario elected Doug Ford - essentially an American Republican politically more or less - to be our Premier in June 2018. Fast forward 1 to 1.5 years and he is massively unpopular and I think will lose re-election. We never seem to swing too far left, but Ontario will probably end up Liberal (center-left) again.

[jaymichaud]

The CPC won the popular vote lol

[King of Kensington]

Really hard to see the Conservatives make major inroads in Quebec, Ottawa, the Greater Toronto Area and the Lower Mainland of BC any time soon.

[T'Chenka]

Really hard to see the Conservatives make major inroads in Quebec, Ottawa, the Greater Toronto Area and the Lower Mainland of BC any time soon.

They might need to move leftwards to win, which might require the Liberals to move left first (which might require the NDP to move left first).

[CumbrianLefty]

Really hard to see the Conservatives make major inroads in Quebec, Ottawa, the Greater Toronto Area and the Lower Mainland of BC any time soon.

They might need to move leftwards to win, which might require the Liberals to move left first (which might require the NDP to move left first).

"Do the hokey-cokey"

[King of Kensington]

Really hard to see the Conservatives make major inroads in Quebec, Ottawa, the Greater Toronto Area and the Lower Mainland of BC any time soon.

They might need to move leftwards to win, which might require the Liberals to move left first (which might require the NDP to move left first).

Doesn't seem to be really happening.  Peter MacKay, the moderate favored to win, has said social conservativism in an albatross on the party but doesn't really seem to departing that much from Andrew Scheer otherwise.  His main opponent, Erin O'Toole, is running a "cultural conservative" campaign focusing on attacking the media, the left and political correctness, and support for a strong military and the resource sector. 

[King of Kensington]

After the 2011 election, a Globe and Mail journalist John Ibbitson and pollster Darrell Bricker claimed that Canada was the Conservative Party was set to be the natural party of government, uniting the West with suburban Ontario.  That thesis did not stand the test of time (it's not as good as Kevin Phillips with the Emerging Republican Majority which was quite prescient in many respects).  Ontario was lost, and BC wasn't really part of a "united West."  In the last federal election, the Conservatives received less than 35% of the vote in every province outside the Prairies.

[T'Chenka]

After the 2011 election, a Globe and Mail journalist John Ibbitson and pollster Darrell Bricker claimed that Canada was the Conservative Party was set to be the natural party of government, uniting the West with suburban Ontario.  That thesis did not stand the test of time (it's not as good as Kevin Phillips with the Emerging Republican Majority which was quite prescient in many respects).  Ontario was lost, and BC wasn't really part of a "united West."  In the last federal election, the Conservatives received less than 35% of the vote in every province outside the Prairies.

The way I see it, the federal Conservative Party isn't taking advantage of an opportunity to wreck the Liberals. If the Conservatives would move just a little bit left, they'll create a situation that puts the Liberals at a disadvantage. One o two things will happen:

(1) - The Liberals stand firmly and the elections become " do you want the leftist NDP or do to you want one of the two centrist(ish) parties?" Almost every election would probably go Liberal or Conservative, but Conservatives would be more likely to steal swing voters. The legitimate right ringer voters would be mildly disgusted with their party for moving towards the center, but 95% of them are definitely still gonna vote Conservative.

(2) - The Liberals make sure the Conservatives stay differentiated as "the right wing party" but moving a bit left. and the elections become "do you want the center-right Conservatives or do you want one of the two leftist parties?" This puts the Liberals in direct competition with the NDP, and on the NDP's turf too. This makes a Conservative prime minister slightly more likely, an NDP prime minister actually possible, and a possibility that Liberals become the forgotten third party again. We've seen this play out before under Conservative PMs and under NDP provincial governments.

No matter how the Liberals respond, it's bad for them and good for the Conservatives. The fact that the Conservatives win't inch leftwards at the cost of making their die-hard voters slightly annoyed at them is puzzling.

[King of Kensington]

Erin O'Toole, the new Conservative leader, is interesting.  He's offering economic populism and an appeal to the non-metropolitan left behind working class, communitarianism and a dose of cultural conservatism/anti-wokeness. 

Almost like a 21st century version of John Diefenbaker.

[Red Velvet]

We're not that progressive; almost all the provincial governments are conservative right now. Canada is very much a centrist country. We don't do extremism.

This is true, I actually always saw Canada politically as a lighter version of US, where the right isn’t as extreme. Kinda a similar thing as other English speaking countries, like Australia or the UK. But I never really saw Canada as left-wing, quite the opposite, it leans more to the right. Same thing for the others.

I think the perception of being “left” comes more from the US, which is more right wing in comparison and also tends to see cultural/identity behaviors being related to political ideology. Because Canadians are seen as polite and nice, they’re also seen as progressive since an “agressive” behavior is stereotypically more associated to conservatism/republicans by people in the main urban centers.

[Hope For A New Era]

Canada also remember moved rightward when everyone else moved leftward in the late 2000s so maybe Canada is just the opposite

Canada seems to be a bit of a lagging indicator for politics generally in the world. Harper = Bush and Trudeau = Obama.

[Samof94]

Canada also remember moved rightward when everyone else moved leftward in the late 2000s so maybe Canada is just the opposite

Canada seems to be a bit of a lagging indicator for politics generally in the world. Harper = Bush and Trudeau = Obama.

Trudeau’s Canada feels like it is facing challenges Hillary Clinton’s America might have faced. Imagine Hillary trailing with scandals, having both the left and right hate her, social activists and imagine George Floyd under Hillary, and doing an okay job with Covid, but losing the progress in the fall. They did turn 150 and it did lead to a lot of uncomfortable questions.