William D. Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industryWell, it was quite a month. And to quote Elon Musk we should “Let that sink in.”Needless to say the world didn’t change much when Blain Higgs was out-campaigned by Susan Holt to usher in a Conservative-lite ‘Liberal’ government in New Brunswick. However, when Donald Trump eviscerated the Harris/Obama Democrats it seems that a lot of folks believe the world will end shortly. Take a breath ... please. (This advice goes for both sides who seem to have lost any sort of reasonable, sensible, perspective.) The wheels of government turn slowly and the main political operatives, as well as their supporters in the civil service, are alive and well and still functioning. Democracy is not dead, it is just really, really alive.Does that mean there are no serious implications to all these results? Hardly, there are some massive lessons. But, we need to look beyond individual outcomes. Are there any overarching conclusions that we make about long term effects? Yes. Plenty.First, this has been a major hit to the woke “progressive” agenda. The major components of this agenda; sexual identity and sexual practice, extreme environmentalism, diversity equity and inclusion, and anti-Semitism, all took a drubbing. The ideologies will live on but have lost serious political backing. It also appears that the left became the right and the right became the left. Trump and Musk, the big billionaires, turned out to have more in common with soccer moms than with the global elites in the World Economic Forum. It appears as if the American Dream is alive and well. Who knew Trump would be the catalyst that would usher in Karl Marx’s final words in the Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the world unite?”Second, the political influence of the legacy media is now virtually zero.If you are reading this it means that you are now a consumer of the new mainstream “independent” news and opinion. The sad part is that the legacy outlets have no self-awareness that they are out of touch and are largely ignored. This isn’t simply a difference in nuance or emphasis. As columnist Sue-Ann Levy so rightly points out they have become “unhinged”. But will the corporate media industrial complex reform itself back into a respected institution of western democracy? Not likely, even if the CBC is seriously de-funded and Canadian media subsidies are eliminated. They are in an echo chamber that is self-congratulatory and self-sustaining and will opt to go extinct before reforming themselves.Third, Trump’s commitment to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution means the ability of the political class to control information or “dis-information” will have to await an even more authoritarian version of the Democratic Party. Trump on this front is not getting much press, but listening to him you get the feeling he has a serious plan and will execute it. In his first term he didn’t really know how Washington worked. But now he does and also has a super-majority for at least two years. The power of a focussed US president is a fearsome thing indeed. And there are implications of this to what happens to Canadian attempts to censor the media as well.Fourth, the mainline pollsters were not even been close in their predictions. This isn’t about the statistical science of sampling but rather about the framing of the questions and the basic reading of the public mood. Then there is the fact that many of the pollsters are affiliated with political parties or candidates, thus almost guaranteeing a built-in bias for their work. One of the benefits of a soon extinct legacy media is the end of their endless reporting on polls, many which they commissioned, to the exclusion of attempting to identify what issues and attitudes are actually dominating active voters. These were not difficult to see both in BC and in the US and yet they were under-reported or dismissed as being insignificant to the actual results. In the future you should add about 5% points to all poll numbers for Conservatives.Fifth, it is possible to bridge the rural/urban voting divide. This was true for Trump but more importantly for Danielle Smith as she and her UCP volunteers invited great swaths of regular people to come to a political shindig in Red Deer. Many first-timers came and they liked the idea of contributing to the development of policy. Who knew that Albertans could be interested and enjoy being involved in their own political processes? And they rewarded Smith generously, with 91.5% approval.Sixth, you can’t really “buy” an election. Otherwise, the reported more than a billion dollars spent by Harris would have had more impact at the ballot box. Admittedly, Musk was reported to have spent more than $200 million, but at least he spent it on the GOTV (get out the vote) effort which actually makes a difference on election day. His new role along with Vivek Ramaswamy as ‘government efficiency bosses’ will strike terror into the hearts and minds of federal bureaucrats from the Florida Keys to the Alaskan Panhandle. Nothing but good can come from this.Finally, good campaigning matters. Trump's final election ad was brilliant in winning over both soft Republicans and soft Democrats. RFKjr’s line “We have to love our children more than we hate each other”, first used with a different target by Golda Meir, resonated with every parent and grandparent that heard it. And Trump even borrowed a line from Pierre Poilievre “You know, we're the party of common sense”. Works every time.What does all this mean for Canada? Simple, the trend will continue. The Nova Scotia PCs will win decisively the provincial election on November 26. The federal Liberals and NDP will get trounced in the Cloverdale-Langley City federal by-election on December 16.When the federal election finally comes after a failed Liberal budget this spring, Elizabeth May and the Green Party will disappear and the NDP will be reduced to single digit status. Jagmeet Singh will likely lose his seat. Quebec will split the vote between Conservatives and the Bloc and the Liberals will face years if not decades in the political wilderness.Sunny days indeed.William D. Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industry.
