It's hard to disentangle because they happened right on top of each-other, but I think the Conservative collapse (after their, let's not forget, unprecedented historic high) was about equal parts: 1) that voting Conservative was no longer the only way to get rid of Trudeau; 2) Trump scaring the hoes.
For the Trump stuff, keep in mind that Trump is the defining central figure of conservativism to the would-be Canadian Conservative swing voter, not much less than he is to Americans. And then he:
Really quite painfully betrayed and attacked Canada, in an unignorable and materially destructive way (this was less the "51st state" talk than it appears now: remember Canada was hit with the tariffs alone before everyone else)
Did a bunch of wild and unpredictable shit that went way beyond what people centrally wanted out of him
These things were discrediting of conservativism to the marginal swing voter, so the Conservatives' burgeoning "it's okay to vote conservative, it's okay, nothing bad will happen, I promise, come in the water's fine" moment was cruelly cut out from under them.
Of course there could (as in, counterfactually) have also been other factors beyond Trudeau and Trump, but Poilievre failed to make it happen.
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It's hard to disentangle because they happened right on top of each-other, but I think the Conservative collapse (after their, let's not forget, unprecedented historic high) was about equal parts: 1) that voting Conservative was no longer the only way to get rid of Trudeau; 2) Trump scaring the hoes.
For the Trump stuff, keep in mind that Trump is the defining central figure of conservativism to the would-be Canadian Conservative swing voter, not much less than he is to Americans. And then he:
These things were discrediting of conservativism to the marginal swing voter, so the Conservatives' burgeoning "it's okay to vote conservative, it's okay, nothing bad will happen, I promise, come in the water's fine" moment was cruelly cut out from under them.
Of course there could (as in, counterfactually) have also been other factors beyond Trudeau and Trump, but Poilievre failed to make it happen.
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