Canada's Donald Trump

In case you didn't notice, Kevin O'Leary has announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Conservative Party in Canada.

If you've ever watched Shark Tank, Kevin is the investor who is always sitting in the middle of the room. Shark Tank was actually developed from the Canadian version (called Dragon's Den) which originally had Kevin on, but when Tank was made he moved to that.

Kevin's getting a lot of comparisons to Donald Trump because they are both very outspoken, made it big on reality TV, and have no government experience. And while I've talked to several Canadians who have mostly laughed off his candidacy ("He would NEVER get elected here!") there are probably a few things people should know.

Can he Win?
Yes. Although I find it doubtful that a majority of Canadians approve of Kevin, they don't have to for him to win. The conservative leadership race is now between a grand total of fourteen people. They all are essentially nobodies to the general public, and the race isn't nearly as publicized as the Republican primaries were. Through name recognition alone, Kevin O'Leary is the favorite.

In polling Kevin consistently breaks 20%, while the candidates do at best 15% (including polls that don't have him listed). The reason is simple; each conservative "brand" is being filled by several people. There are a few reformers, a few traditionalists, and a few radicals. If Kevin gets 25% in a contest of 14 people who split the remaining 75% fairly uniformly, he wins easily.

Another factor is that candidates are elected in a ranked ballot. This means that voters rank their candidates instead of picking one. Although the most politically in-tune may actually figure out how they place the 14 people, it is more likely that Kevin will drift to the top consistently because he's memorable (people tend to remember 7 variables at most at a time).

And although Kevin isn't that popular for PM among general Canadians, he isn't playing for them (yet). To become conservative leader you need a plurality of conservative voters. So it is definitely feasible for Kevin to win 25% of conservative voters.

How are Trump and Kevin alike (or not)?
Apart from the reality TV, Kevin and Trump share some personality quirks. Kevin is the poster-boy for Shark Tanks for his one-liners, put downs and general cruelty to contestants. Kevin also has no government experience, though he has appeared several times on BNN or CBC to comment on how he thinks the government should be run.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWspMJNgT6w

But apart from crude language, the two are pretty different. Kevin is actually fairly articulate in policy and has nailed his persona as a Gordon Gecko-esque investor in a dog-eat-dog world. Comparatively, Trump can hardly stay focused, constantly contradicts himself, and steps into scandal repeatedly.

There isn't any evidence Kevin is racist or sexist, though he probably lacks a proper amount of empathy (its hard to imagine a genuine photo with a baby). And on policy the two agree on little.

Trump can often appear as populist as it gets, simultaneously promising a ban on Muslims while offering "the best healthcare for everybody." O'Leary has been fairly consistent, though he hasn't truly articulated many of his policies outside of economics.

But on economics he isn't populist at all. On the contrary, he sounds more like a Wall Street broker running to create a capitalist paradise. He has spoken mostly on how he is against government waste, high taxes and a low Canadian dollar, and has said he believes the Liberal government will lead to an economic collapse in Canada. When told that the richest 85 people on Earth were equivalent in wealth to the poorest half of the global population, he replied that such a statistic should be applauded as an inspiration for anyone to work hard to become wealthy as well.

The French Challenge
The biggest challenge Kevin probably faces is uniquely Canadian. He isn't bilingual, and has only started learning the language in the past year. In Canada it is thought a necessity to be bilingual to be a national government figure, for the simple reason that the second biggest province, Quebec, gets royally annoyed when they don't.

This has become a bit of a contention already between the various conservative candidates, as the most experienced members who worked for previous PM Harper tend to be from Alberta, where French is completely unneeded. The others who are fluent try to point out that without being bilingual you cannot lead all Canadians.

But at the end of the day, the next conservative leader isn't going to be chosen because they can speak French. Although Quebec is an important battle-ground in elections, it isn't the conservative heartland. Quebec is ahead of the rest of the country in subsidies, protests, unions and corruption, and is more fertile territory for every party except the conservatives.

The voters who are consistently conservative are from the Midwest provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. If new conservatives register it will be from Ontario, where the Liberal premier Kathleen Wynn has plummeted in popularity (she is currently the most unpopular premier in Canadian history in any province).

The bilingual problem becomes more pronounced when the candidates do bilingual debates, but Kevin has waited until the last moment to announce and has therefore avoided this problem so far. But there are still two more debates to go before voting.

So my guess? If Kevin doesn't trip over his own feet in the next coming months, he may be a shoe-in for leader. And then PM Trudeau is going to have a merciless capitalist nipping at his sides right until 2019.

The Inevitable Democratic Comeback

Since the 2016 election I've read more than one article or column that has described how the Democratic Party is in disarray. Their chosen candidate was defeated, and the party was thrown into a crisis of identity; is the party neoliberal, or progressive? Will the party ever truly recover from the devastating loss of every branch of government?

But these articles aren't new. Similar ones were made when Obama won in 2008, winning not just the presidency by the Senate and House as well. But instead of the end of the Republican party, it gradually recovered, winning the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and now the Presidency in 2016.

That is the interesting (or boring) thing about American politics. Unlike Canada or Europe where there are at least three parties realistically competing for governance, the US has only two. And the tradition has always been when the party in charge states a policy, the opposition plants a competing argument.

Originally, the Republican party was the party of Lincoln, and the Democrats were the party of slavery. Then with FDR the Democrats were firmly pro-government and the Republicans pro-business. Then with Lyndon Johnson the Democrats were for civil rights and the Republicans against.

The last time one of the parties truly dominated the government was in the wake of the civil war, when the Democratic Party was viewed as the "traitors" who wanted to break up the union. It wasn't until vote-splitting between candidates Taft and Teddy Roosevelt that the Democrat Woodrow Wilson claimed victory (an unapologetic racist who also won WWI and tried to establish the League of Nations).

Ever since then the government has flipped back and forth pretty consistently between the two parties. The last time a party had the presidency for three terms was Ronald Reagan for two and Bush Sr. for one more. Ever since it has consistently been two terms for each president and their respective party.

So what can we expect in the Democrats future? Though they all disagree on the future of the country, they all agree to oppose most of what Trump and the Republican party propose. And it is likely they will make gains in the Senate and House in two years when most of the Trump promises remain unmet.

In four years it is difficult to say what will happen. Either the electorate will feel more comfortable with Trump's leadership and he will win reelection by a bigger margin (similar to Bill Clinton and Bush Jr.) or the electorate will feel the president has not met his promises enough and lose votes (just like Obama did). If Trump loses votes a loss is almost guaranteed as his margin of victory in 2016 was so small.

When I bring this up to people they remind me how the Democratic Party is pretty barren of recognizable national candidates. Hillary Clinton is now politically dead (if you can't beat Trump you can't beat anyone), the only other that easily comes to mind is Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who will be 78 and 79 respectively in 2020.

But the next Democratic nominee is probably someone no one really knows right now. Some Democrats are going to get a bit more famous by taking dramatic stands against Trump's agenda in the coming years. And there are still many Democratic governors (and there will be more) across the United States. Most noticeably, the Democrats do best in elections for mayors (only 13 of the biggest US cities have Republican mayors, the biggest being San Diego).

So the candidates exist. The only thing one has to do is beat the other no-names to win the Democratic nomination, and once you've done that you are a national candidate. Very few people knew Obama's name before 2008, or Bill Clinton's before 1992. Even Trump was not recognized for politics until he actually announced he wanted to build a wall.

In four years, there will be a Democratic nominee, and he'll get the national platform to take on the President. All this nominee needs to do is hope Trump is as bad a president as every Democrat thinks he'll be, and someone you don't even know will be president in 2020.