What Canada tells us
Beating Trumpism requires a moderate approach, not simply railing against oligarchy
If you want to know how center-left parties can win, look at England and Canada: they ran moderates with backbone who tacked to the center, and they’re beating conservatives.
It’s not complicated. The Labour Party under Keir Starmer stopped scaring swing voters. Starmer ditched the Jeremy Corbyn socialism and focused on making Labour seem normal, safe, and mildly competent. Starmer’s campaign slogan was “stability.” He doesn’t promise a revolution; he promises a government that won’t embarrass you. It worked, ushering Labour into a historic majority and the Tories their worst ever performance.
Meanwhile, in Canada, the Liberals have been doing a similar thing for years. Justin Trudeau ran his 2015 campaign explicitly from the center: fiscal responsibility, moderate social liberalism, and just enough change to make voters feel optimistic without making them nervous. When he deviated too far left, like on spending or gun control, his numbers sagged.
But when the Liberal party replaced him with a different leader - even more boring, with even more backbone - their polling numbers shot back up again. Far from a populist who railed against “oligarchy,” Carney is a former Goldman Sachs banker who led the Canadian central bank through the 2008 financial crisis. Instead of embracing a progressive policy agenda, Carney’s first act as leader was to end the consumer carbon tax.
Voters aren’t actually that interested in radical change, from the left or from the right. They want to be able to afford groceries, get a doctor’s appointment, and not be embarrassed by their national leaders. Conservatives have been losing because they look chaotic and weird — Liz Truss crashing the British economy, Doug Ford bumbling through COVID, Boris Johnson lying about everything.
The winning formula for the center-left isn’t revolutionary socialism. It’s “please calm everything down and fix stuff.”
Instead, too many Democrats in the U.S. want to fight the last election, or the last civil rights movement, or whatever Twitter is yelling about this week. They treat politics like a vibes war among hyper-engaged activists.
Voters don’t want that. They want boring. They want center-left parties that are less crazy than the right and more serious about running a government.
England and Canada figured it out. America should try it sometime.
Starmer’s win seems to have more to do with voters getting tired of the Tories after 16 years in office than about them liking Labour all that much. On Election Day Starmer was already underwater in net favorability by double digits and he’s even more unpopular now. Disapproval of the British government is nearly back to where it was under Sunak. If there was a snap election today Starmer would probably lose: polls show a three way tie at 24% of the vote between Labour, the Tories, and Reform UK; the most recent More in Common MRP poll has that translating into a Reform UK plurality in the Commons. As it stands right now, Starmer is going to end up like Olaf Scholz.