The Liberals should resolve their leadership issues now, before it’s too late

HALIFAX—If the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister's Office aren’t watching the political train-wreck playing out south of the border, they should be. In both countries, the progressive parties are in a crisis of leadership. For very different reasons, the parties themselves are deeply conflicted about their incumbents: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau here, and President Joe Biden in the United States. The polling and approval ratings for both leaders are abysmal. They are so bad, in fact, that even though they are incumbent leaders of governments, they have each been invited by members of their own party to step down. After nine years in power, the Liberals are dealing with the public’s “Trudeau fatigue.” The Democrats in the United States are saddled with a wobbly president deemed to be too old for a second term by two-thirds of Americans. Another similarity? Both beleaguered leaders have not only refused to resign, but insist they will carry the party banner into the next election. Grit or denialism? The problem for the Democrats exploded in the wake of Biden’s disastrous performance in the first televised presidential debate last last month. It wasn’t just that he looked like a star of the silent screen who stumbled into the talkies, as was once said about John Turner when he tried a political comeback. It was that the man seeking the most powerful office in the world collapsed into incoherence and dysfunction in front of an audience of 50 million viewers. For what seemed an eternity, Biden was slack-jawed with a blank look in his eyes. When his rival, Donald Trump, was asked to respond to the president’s aimless rambling, he gave the response that everyone was feeling: “I don’t know what he just said.” Neither did Joe. Since that disastrous moment, the story has been covered in a superficially binary way: would Biden hold on, or would the party force him out? Does loyalty trump infirmity, or should the truth dictate what happens next? Those who support the president—including the panicked staff in the White House, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, and much of the Democratic leadership—talk about colds, jet-lag, and all the wonderful things that Biden has done over his long career. They are on the loyalty train, possibly of the misguided variety. Then there are those who “love” the president, but think he is too old and diminished for the job, include a growing chorus of elected representatives, pundits, and celebrities. Actor and Democratic fundraiser George Clooney made that case in a guest essay in The New York Times on July 10. After singing Biden’s praises for winning a lot of important battles in U.S. politics, Clooney delivered a crushing blow. It was made all the more credible because of his deep friendship with Biden over the years. “But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” That is no longer the point. The bottom line of what is now being covered as a political soap opera is that the Democrats have delivered a master class in how to destroy themselves. And it all began with a fundamental and almost always fatal flaw in politics: getting the big shapes wrong while there was still time to fix things. Clooney has it right, but his words come a year too late. The time to have the conversation about Biden’s fitness for office was July 2023, not July 2024 with a presidential election a mere four months away. This isn’t any longer a question of changing horses mid-stream, but changing them on the riverbank with the bad guys closing in. In political terms, Clooney’s argument comes down to saving American democracy by dumping Biden at one minute to midnight. That is not a very inspirational message to the troops girding for a major battle with Trump World. But there is an even more daunting implication of dumping Biden. If the Democrats were to choose anyone other than the vice-president as his replacement, the party’s nominee would not have automatic access to the huge amounts of money raised by the two politicians currently at the top of the ticket. Remember, Biden has already won his party’s nomination. Will the party brass overrule the votes of the millions of people who endorsed him? And if they do, will Biden supporters even bother to vote? And if Kamala Harris were to be bypassed, as the first person entitled to the job should Biden quit or be forced out, what kind of message would that send to a vitally important part of the party’s base? It is said that Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party. They would not be happy see Harris passed over, particularly when she has carried the ball for the Biden administration on abortion rights. But keeping Biden at the top of the ticket poses momentous issues of its own. As Clooney wrote in The New York Times, every Congress member and governor he has spoken with has told him that, with Biden as the nominee, the Democrats would lose enough down-ballot races to cost them the House, the Senate and the White House. If a person really wanted to become a dictator, it doesn’t get more accommodating than that. It is hard to imagine what the remaining four months of the campaign would look like if the Democrats stand by their man. At every appearance, every campaign stop, and every interview, the media world will be watching for confirmation of what everyone saw on the debate stage. And then there is the financial issue. Will the millions of dollars in donations keep pouring in for a party led by someone who is falling further behind Trump in all the battleground states that will decide who gets to be president, a candidate who might crash and burn at any public moment the way he did in the debate? The Democrats have put themselves into a no-win situation either with or without Biden. It is a demonstration of what happens when you don’t do something about a problem until you have to. It usually doesn’t work out. Trudeau is not Biden. He is mentally sharp, still youthful, and formidable on the campaign trail. But there is no pretending that the Liberal Party in Canada does not have a major leadership issue to resolve. Based on how the Democrats have fractured their party by ignoring Biden’s age and competency issues until that became impossible; based on the fact that this has happened just months away from what might be the most consequential election in U.S. history; the Liberals should resolve their leadership issues now. Unlike the Democrats, they have the time to do it. The question is: do they have the will? Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist. The Hill Times

The Liberals should resolve their leadership issues now, before it’s too late

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The Liberals should resolve their leadership issues now, before it’s too late

Justin Trudeau is not Joe Biden, but there is no pretending that the Liberals don't have a major leadership issue to resolve. Unlike the Democrats, they have a little bit more time, but do they have the will?

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