EDITORIAL: Trudeau and Biden sinking their parties

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Why is it that Canadian Liberals are incapable of coming to the logical conclusion that U.S. Democrats already have?

That is, that all indications are they can’t win the next election with their current political leaders.

After all, Canada’s Liberals worship at the shrine of the U.S. Democrats.

Remember how much they made of the “bromance” between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-U.S. president Barack Obama when Trudeau was elected in 2015, until Obama left office after serving two terms in January 2017?

Today, Obama is reported to be among many leading Democrats, including active, senior politicians such as Nancy Pelosi, urging U.S. President Joe Biden to put party first and resign, given that all indications are he will lose badly to former president Donald Trump and the Republicans on Nov. 5.

Their concern is not just that Biden will lose the White House to Trump, but that his continuing candidacy could result in the Republicans winning the Senate and the House of Representatives as well.

By contrast, in Canada, while there have been a few isolated calls for Trudeau to resign, mainly from former Liberal politicians, for the most part there has been radio silence from the Liberal cabinet and caucus.

Instead of confronting the elephant in the room — that the primary problem the Liberals are facing in light of months of polling showing a double digit lead for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives is with the prime minister himself, the Liberals are collectively acting like a deer caught in the headlights.

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Trudeau resigning is the only potential game-changer the Liberals have left in their political arsenal — not a cabinet shuffle, or a national caucus meeting or some magical new policy or whether Mark Carney replaces Chrystia Freeland as finance minister.

Granted, in Biden’s case as well as Trudeau’s, the resignation of the current party leader is no guarantee that either the Democrats in the U.S. or the Liberals in Canada will remain in power the next time they face voters.

But all indications are that with the leaders they currently have, both parties are facing a potential political Armageddon.

Unlike Canada’s Liberals, Democrats in the U.S. are increasingly coming to terms with this simple reality.