Endless fealty to a single leader is at odds with the core principles of democratic nations.
Many Canadian political pundits tend to enjoy comparing Justin Trudeau to Kamala Harris, and Pierre Poilievre to Donald Trump.
This comparison is easy to make at the most superficial level, as Trudeau is the supposed ‘centre-left’ leader in Canada, while Poilievre is the ‘centre-right’ leader in Canada, so people tend to map that to the Democratic vs Republican divide in the U.S.
Of course, that comparison breaks down with even minimal scrutiny.
The Canadian Conservatives are far to the left of the American Republicans, and the Canadian Liberals are akin to the far-left faction of the Democratic Party, rather than the overall Democratic Party itself.
We see this in voter data as well, as even Canadian Conservative voters split almost 50/50 when asked who they would support in the United States.
And there is another big reason the comparison doesn’t work. And that reason is that of all the leaders in North America, Justin Trudeau & Donald Trump are the most similar in their cultivation of and reliance upon personality cults, the purging of critics within their parties, and the absence of any ideological coherence.
As you can see, both Trudeau & Trump have followed a similar trajectory:
Winning an unexpected victory (Trudeau 2015, Trump 2016).
Initial reliance upon party stalwarts before purging all internal critics.
Pushing their supporters to defend deeply unethical actions.
Divisive rhetoric focused on splitting the country rather than uniting it.
Losing the popular vote in the past two elections (Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020, while the Trudeau Liberals lost it in 2019 and 2021 though stayed in office by winning a plurality of seats).
Trudeau & Trump even both locked down their respective nations during the pandemic, though Trump has tried to pretend that didn’t take place.
Both were also born into elite, powerful, and wealthy families. By comparison, their main opponents – Poilievre & Harris – are much more ‘self-made.’
Further, if you went back in time and told Liberals they would defend a candidate who wore blackface, they would have called you crazy, while Republicans defend many Trump statements and actions that they would never have accepted before his takeover of the party.
Both Trudeau & Trump managed to push their supporters outside of their previous ethical boundaries. Consider how Trudeau sought to portray the Liberals as a ‘centrist party,’ only to align himself with the far-left Jagmeet Singh while ignoring the NDP’s disgraceful embrace of anti-Semitism. Consider as well how Trump attacks his critics as ‘RINOs’ (Republicans In Name Only), yet has now embraced far-left anti-Western pro-Russia former fringe Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard and RFJ Jr. There is no sense of ideological coherence with this, only demands for loyalty and the perpetuation of power.
By contrast, both Pierre Poilievre and Kamala Harris are more ‘normal politicians.’
Kamala Harris is popular among the Democratic Party base (largely because there was so much disillusionment with Biden’s inability to communicate), and Poilievre is popular among the Conservative Party base.
But there is no Kamala Harris cult.
There is no Pierre Poilievre cult.
And this is why normalcy is so important.
As we have seen with both Trump and Trudeau, the danger of personality-cult-driven movements is that they are deeply unpredictable.
A leader who can make their supporters flip on every ethical norm and ideological issue is a leader who can push their nation and their supporters to a very dark place.
By contrast, conventional politicians maintain their support only so long as they deliver results and adhere to ideological norms.
In democracies, leaders should be servants, not rulers. We should not worship politicians, we should not hold them above ourselves, and we should always hold them accountable.
It’s time for North America to move beyond the personality cults.
Spencer Fernando
