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What you need from me right now is good cheer and reassurance.
My basket was empty of good tidings until I read Eric Grenier’s website thewrit.ca, in which he explained a Leger poll asking Canadians how they would vote in an American election.
The U.S. midterms have come and gone, a painful night dotted with stars. The deplorable J.D. Vance — who grovelled before Donald Trump, a man he despised — won. But Democrat John Fetterman defeated Mehmet Oz for the Pennsylvania Senate, despite cruel attacks on his disability after a stroke. Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer survived, both electorally and also a MAGA attempt to kidnap her.
The Democrats held the Senate and the Republicans’ hold on the House is narrow. Canadians were relieved, imagining a red wave that would sweep our southern neighbour, clots of mad Republican politicians out to hurt their own citizens, their country, the world.
Perhaps it was Canadian courtesy that caused an overabundance of interest in MAGA Canadians — the racist fringe, the anti-vaxxers and the hillbillies that occupied Ottawa in February, dirtying the place and terrifying people who lived there. We had Canadian MAGAs actually at the border blocking commerce. It was quite unreal.
So. Leger wondered: if Canadians voted in the American election, how would they cast their ballots? Going by the tenor of the news, I would have said there would be a Trump wave, especially in Alberta, Saskatchewan and maybe southeastern Ontario.
I was wrong, very wrong — as wrong as, say, Marcus Wrong, CEO of the Wrong Institute, which I imagine energetically packages and ships out wrong opinions at home and internationally. Its slogan: Never Not Wrong.
For as Grenier explained, Republicans would win but 14 per cent of Canadian votes, with 42 per cent for Democrats. Another 11 per cent would vote Independent, and 33 per cent either said they didn’t know or that dinner was on the table, could you come back some other time?
So if Grenier removed the Undecideds — which I wouldn’t because Undecideds helped defeat Trump in 2020 — that would leave 63 per cent for Democrats, 21 per cent for Republicans and 16 per cent for Independents.
That would still place Canada at D+42 on the state list, somewhere between Vermont and Washington, D.C. Overwhelmingly we vote blue.
What excites me is something I’ve always suspected. Even Alberta, which sees itself as Idaho, would be D+23 in a U.S. election, on par with New York. Saskatchewan and Manitoba would be D+20, which means Connecticut, Washington, or Delaware.
Grenier, a fine and questing journalist, took it further. If Canada decided to join the U.S. — I actually think a U.S. invasion is inevitable — its clump of electoral college votes would have given Joe Biden a sweeping victory.
The North American state map would look like this: coastal and scattered blues in the south with a giant crushing blue lump on top. So blue.
If I may borrow the lyrics of “Blue” by my current favourite American country musician Ingrid Andress, the CanAmerican states would be blue as “the ocean, a Bud Light neon sign, a California swimming pool, a faded pair of Levi’s 505s and the Colorado sky.”
That’s pretty damn blue.
I have worried greatly about Canada. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is choked with mysterious resentment he hasn’t yet burned off in therapy. He hasn’t yet decided how MAGA — or MCGA — he wants to go.
The answer is here. Don’t do it. Canadians don’t like it. Poilievre should give news conferences, sit down for one-on-ones with gentle feature writers, invite Canadians to his grand home (we have no idea what Stornoway is like) and pretend to be a nice man rather than a tiny Ted Cruz.
The misogynist hashtag concealed in his YouTube videos, a staffer’s mean-girl imitation of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s voice and manner, his childishness in Question Period — it’s too Trumpish for Canada.
Give it up, Pierre. Or head to Hicksville, Idaho or Dumptruck, Alabama where they like that sort of thing.
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