Has Canadian politics become more Americanized since Trump?

[T'Chenka]

Yes and no.

It has become more like American politics, but it was 85% of the way there already. All the ingredients were in place in terms of voter ideology, and Trump's 15/16 election campaign simply cooked the meal.

Three massive differences though are the huge influence of the Bloc Quebecois party in Quebec, our Bernie-crat leftists having their own large(ish) third party (New Democratic Party) and our versions of Pelosi (actually Hoyer) and McCarthy getting to be Prime Minister if they win the House Of Commons (Representatives) with us having no third co-equal branch of power besides congress and the courts.

[T'Chenka]

No right-wing government will be formed in Canada for a long, long time that is not premised on accepting multi-cultural dogma that is predominant in Canadian politics.

I'll just add to the pile on top of pro-multiculturalism...

-  pro-choice LAWS
- universal healthcare
- gay rights (not necessarily trans rights though).

Conservatives do better when they virtue signal that they're pro-life in their personal lives, and they tend to do well with anti-trans dog whistling, as long as it's subtle enough and they non-enthusiastically claim to be pro-trans when pressured.

[T'Chenka]

No right-wing government will be formed in Canada for a long, long time that is not premised on accepting multi-cultural dogma that is predominant in Canadian politics.

I'll just add to the pile on top of pro-multiculturalism...

-  pro-choice LAWS
- universal healthcare
- gay rights (not necessarily trans rights though).

Conservativees do better when they virtue signal that they're pro-life in their personal lives, and they tend to do well with anti-trans dog whistling, as long as it's subtle enough and they non-enthusiastically claim to be pro-trans when pressured.

The fulcrim of any such winning coalition seems to be a mix of libertarianism (so against the most extreme kinds of gun control at the very least, among other things), and fiscal conservativism, right?

Yeah I guess that sounds about right. Conservative leaders usually have to appease lots of little sub-groups with hard-right views on specific topics to win, without appeasing them too much and alienating the relatively large group of centrist swing voters / occasional voters that decide most of our elections. It's like trying to attract and retain Trump voters AND non-leftist Hillary voters by not being Sanders. Delicate balancing act.

[T'Chenka]

No right-wing government will be formed in Canada for a long, long time that is not premised on accepting multi-cultural dogma that is predominant in Canadian politics.

I'll just add to the pile on top of pro-multiculturalism...

-  pro-choice LAWS
- universal healthcare
- gay rights (not necessarily trans rights though).

Conservativees do better when they virtue signal that they're pro-life in their personal lives, and they tend to do well with anti-trans dog whistling, as long as it's subtle enough and they non-enthusiastically claim to be pro-trans when pressured.

The fulcrim of any such winning coalition seems to be a mix of libertarianism (so against the most extreme kinds of gun control at the very least, among other things), and fiscal conservativism, right?

Yeah I guess that sounds about right. Conservative leaders usually have to appease lots of little sub-groups with hard-right views on specific topics to win, without appeasing them too much and alienating the relatively large group of centrist swing voters / occasional voters that decide most of our elections. It's like trying to attract and retain Trump voters AND non-leftist Hillary voters by not being Sanders. Delicate balancing act.

And all this merely puts them within striking distance of the Liberals. The Liberals still have to be weakened for this strengthened conservative movement to actually win government.

Exactly. The Liberals have to just not f___ up and they've basically got federal politics by the bollocks.

I suggested in the Canada megathread that the Conservatives shift a little bit left. IMO it would help them a lot. They would anger their die-hard supporters, but ultimately 90%+ of those die-hards are still going to vote Conservative, they're just gonna pinch their noses a little bit when they do it. There are a lot of centrist voters that could be potentially won that way, and you also back the Liberals into a corner. Do they become the party that's almost the same as the Conservatives or almost the same as the NDP?

[T'Chenka]

No right-wing government will be formed in Canada for a long, long time that is not premised on accepting multi-cultural dogma that is predominant in Canadian politics.

I'll just add to the pile on top of pro-multiculturalism...

-  pro-choice LAWS
- universal healthcare
- gay rights (not necessarily trans rights though).

Conservativees do better when they virtue signal that they're pro-life in their personal lives, and they tend to do well with anti-trans dog whistling, as long as it's subtle enough and they non-enthusiastically claim to be pro-trans when pressured.

The fulcrim of any such winning coalition seems to be a mix of libertarianism (so against the most extreme kinds of gun control at the very least, among other things), and fiscal conservativism, right?

Yeah I guess that sounds about right. Conservative leaders usually have to appease lots of little sub-groups with hard-right views on specific topics to win, without appeasing them too much and alienating the relatively large group of centrist swing voters / occasional voters that decide most of our elections. It's like trying to attract and retain Trump voters AND non-leftist Hillary voters by not being Sanders. Delicate balancing act.

And all this merely puts them within striking distance of the Liberals. The Liberals still have to be weakened for this strengthened conservative movement to actually win government.

Exactly. The Liberals have to just not f___ up and they've basically got federal politics by the bollocks.

I suggested in the Canada megathread that the Conservatives shift a little bit left. IMO it would help them a lot. They would anger their die-hard supporters, but ultimately 90%+ of those die-hards are still going to vote Conservative, they're just gonna pinch their noses a little bit when they do it. There are a lot of centrist voters that could be potentially won that way, and you also back the Liberals into a corner. Do they become the party that's almost the same as the Conservatives or almost the same as the NDP?

What exactly do you think they should shift left on? And what do you think should be the strategy for that?

Most issues, just a little bit, both economic and social. Climate change definitely. They can keep being trans-phobic but they can pretend they aren't a little better.  They need to get Alberta onto green energy and get off of big oil's d___.

[T'Chenka]

No right-wing government will be formed in Canada for a long, long time that is not premised on accepting multi-cultural dogma that is predominant in Canadian politics.

Or if they push for electoral reform... the Tories won the popular vote in October.

Well, if electoral reform does happen - it would not happen from the right, I suspect. Remember that the Tories in 2015 had a manifesto pledge to entrench FPTP in as the nation's electoral system for federal elections, specified as such in the Constitution itself iirc.

The only party that could potentially cause federal electoral reform without damaging itself is the NDP. In the future, if the NDP steal the Liberals "spot" as one of the two main federal Canadian parties, then the Liberals could conceivably get election reform done as an attempt to regain power.