KINSELLA: Expect 2024's political winners to keep winning in the new year

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For many politicians and political parties, 2024 was a horrible, awful, nasty, no-good year.

Incumbent politicians and political parties, that is.

The year 2024 was the worst year ever – ever – for incumbents, the political scientists tell us. Either they all lost ground, or they plain old lost. It was nasty, brutish and (sometimes) short-sighted.

The reasons are myriad and multiple, as they always are. But topping the list are the surging cost of living, and the surging numbers of migrants. Both issues made voters cranky, everywhere. (Elites, too. Voters got really mad at the elites.)

All of this was very good news for politicians or a political parties challenging incumbents. All they needed to do is maintain a pulse, most of the time, and they’d win.

That’s the big caveat attached to this year’s “winners” list. They may be political winners, but – in many cases – they didn’t actually earn it. They just had to show up and be the anti-incumbent.

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1. Pierre Poilievre: Poll after poll show the Conservative Party dramatically ahead of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Interestingly, poll after poll also showed more voter enthusiasm for the Conservative Party than for the Conservative Party’s leader. That may be because voters don’t really know Poilievre, yet. Or, maybe they do, and they find the Mr. Angry stuff wearying. But it doesn’t really matter. At this point, Poilievre is going to win the biggest majority in event Canadian history, which makes him a big winner.

2. Donald Trump: This writer deeply detests Donald Trump, and so do many of the 75 million Americans who voted against him. But he won, decisively – despite two impeachments, one criminal conviction, and one civil finding that he sexually assaulted a woman. To win despite (and perhaps because) of those things also makes Trump a very big winner, indeed. Until the midterms (when the Democrats come roaring back) or until J.D. Vance wins the Oval (when he dislodges Trump using the 25th Amendment, perhaps), Trump remains an undisputed winner.

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3. Doug Ford: Justin Trudeau and most of the Premiers have dropped the ball on the aforementioned Trump’s insane tariff threats. Pierre Poilievre has done very well. But Ontario’s Premier? He’s been transformed into Captain Canada by the issue – appearing on American TV shows to defend us, leading Team Canada, getting up in Trump’s grill. Aided and abetted by smart staffers (hello, Patrick, Ivana and Travis), Ford has been terrific, and accordingly looks to be a shoe-in for re-election in 2025.

4. Chrystia Freeland: The former Finance Minister may have been complicit in Justin Trudeau’s serial scandals and missteps but this month, all of that changed. Firing off a rocket disguised as a letter, Freeland blew a hole in Trudeau’s fiscal record, his professed feminism and his legacy. She also made it impossible for former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney to be shoehorned into cabinet. It was mean, it was nasty, and it was politically brilliant. A winning move.

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5. Israel – not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who still faces three separate corruption prosecutions. No, the undisputed international winners are Israel’s military and intelligence forces, who have effectively reduced Hamas to a rump, eviscerated Hezbollah with exploding pagers, and dramatically reduced Iran’s influence in the region. Other potential threats loom ahead for the Jewish state in 2025 – such as an al-Qaeda offshoot taking control of Syria – but 2024 saw Israel responding to the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023 with ferocity and justification. It was overdue and needed.

There you go: 2024’s big winners. They are all likely to keep on winning in the new year.

Next up: the losers of 2024!