that most fickle of masters and mistresses

voters and public exposure

Justin Trudeau’s anticipated but subdued announcement yesterday that he is stepping down not only as our northern neighbor’s Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader set off a competition for successors. We so rarely, if ever, appreciate how incredibly lucky we are that Canadians are our neighbors as that race will be non-violent and, by all measures, healthy for their democratic system. Do we even know the U.S. border with Canada is the longest peaceful border in the world? And they are such nice people by and large. Good on ‘em, eh?

I can’t help but be struck that Trudeau’s resignation, signaling the end of the Dominion’s most storied political name in over the past sixty years, occurs the same month as Joe Biden’s long public life closing. These men share one commonality above others every political figure ought keep in mind in a participatory system.

Trudeau’s Liberal “blue blood” lineage is the stuff Americans love in many ways. Born to a Quebecois Liberal and his allegedly flighty, younger wife in the early 1970s was the stuff of movies. Margaret Sinclair, hardly the matronly dutiful political wife, enchanted the more staid Pierre Trudeau until she disappeared in 1977, from both the Prime Minister’s side and her sons’ lives; evidence now is that she suffered from depression, anxiety, and the other triggers making her role as First Lady pretty tough. Pierre Trudeau got credit for raising his sons solo before stepping down as Prime Minister when Justin, the eldest, was thirteen.

Justin was merely 42 when he became the Liberal leader in 2013, marrying a stunning wife of his own with whom he had three children. Trudeau won his first election as Prime Minister in 2015, embodying much hope, energy, and popular enthusiasm. Trudeau was a terrific symbol for the NAFTA partnership he inherited. The Prime Minister cut a young, bridging figure to much of the rest of the world as Canada continued welcoming a substantial number of migrants. India long had ties with British Columbia which he initially nursed. Trudeau’s regime also navigated a nuanced relationship with an ever-growing concentration of Chinese ex-pats who drove up housing prices in Vancouver to make it one of the world’s most expensive cities. At the same time, Trudeau’s tenure included prickly political questions and skepticism of China’s benevolence as an interlocutor. Through it all, Canada maintained its historic bonds with Europe, especially the United Kingdom, while remaining a cornerstone in NATO.

Joe Biden, while only winning a single term, has been on the national political scene as long as Justin Trudeau has been alive. First elected Senator in 1972 as Richard Nixon secured a second term in the White House, Biden’s stretch in the public eye is comparable to any of the major figures in U.S. politics. We forget that Lyndon Johnson won his first election during the 1930s, before in the House, the Senate, and the White House through January 1969. Franklin Roosevelt was a known national figure as New York Governor, then president for only a quarter of a century (I don’t know how many Americans paid much attention to him as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in World War I). Biden’s exposure, whether as a Senator who lost his wife and daughter in 1972, served on the Judiciary Committee during the highly controversial Robert Bork nomination fifteen years later, ran briefly for president in 1988, then as the major voice leading Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was multi-faceted and indicative of the power of a Senator from the next to smallest state in the country. All that preceded his two terms as Barack Obama’s vice president between 2009 and 2017 before winning election himself four years later. In other words, it’s hard to name a political voice as pervasive in this country as Joe Biden between Watergate and the present.

Both Trudeau and Biden had their successes. It’s easy to forget that both won multiple campaigns. Trudeau arrived in Ottawa as Prime Minister in 2015, retaining the position even with a slimmer vote in 2019 and 2021 forced him into coalition with other parties. He was integral to the updated Canada-United States-Mexico trade pact under the first Trump regime. Trudeau led the government through several significant social policy changes while having to navigate tougher relations with Beijing as tensions rose about Chinese interference, then with India as Ottawa accused the Modi government of conducting assassinations on Canadian soil.

But, politics is based on elections where voters, fickle creatures, become impatient and frankly bored. It is not for me to judge our Canadian partners’ policies but the last several years, roughly coincident with separation from wife, have been rocky so yesterday’s announcement had an inevitability. Last month’s decision by his Deputy, Chrystia Freeland, to break with the Prime Minister over Trudeau’s positions on the incoming Trump administration was the final but far from only indication he was flailing.

While many Americans disdain Joe Biden, he too had successes early in his term. His infrastructure bill remains the largest investment in this country’s transportation system since the Cold War choices under President Eisenhower. The choice to support public internet and enhancing social safety net policies were major accomplishments, even if not uniformly supported; that is how democracy works. But Biden struggled in his final two years as the unrelenting partisan divide of America overwhelmed skills he had as an aging figure along with his determination to cling to the belief bipartisanship was still possible. He chose some battles, like support for Israel, that upset so many. The ultimate choice to stand again in 2024 was disastrous, coupled with inflation after COVID loans, both leaving a bitter taste for so many who originally supported him. Various court cases rolling back some of his policies, such as student loan debt relief, did not help.

Voters in participatory systems have a curious tendency to tire of their elected officials. Perhaps it’s access to perpetual online resources, the freedoms of speech, assembly, and other fundamentals but governing after extended time in the public eye strikes me as rather uncommon

Don’t misunderstand: I am most definitely not advocating monarchy or some open-ended welcome to any elected official to stay in power in perpetuity. As any reader knows, I obsessively hue to the governing documents of any country first, then the will of the voters to carry those out second.

The question, however, is why do voters become enamoured with rejecting a well-known figure in search of the next Prime Minister or President or party head? Surely poor performance and the attendant rejection of those outcomes head the list. Jimmy Carter’s or George H.W. Bush’s single terms in Washington evidenced this rejection, fair and square. Turns out policy, whether in a Parliamentary or presidential system, is harder than it sounded on the campaign trail. Then again, few politicians flame out quite as spectacularly as Liz Truss who managed a whopping fifty days of 2022 (not weeks but days) in Downing Street; it did not go well. Carter and Bush finished their terms as Biden will, hardly the only presidents offered a single term by the voters.

Trudeau and Biden, however, strike me as something rather different. You may well disagree, which is perfectly fine so don’t hesitate to speak up, but they also wore out their welcomes. They became too common, too predictable, too too too too. Their successes seem long relegated to the deep recesses of the public’s collective mind.

My husband has been a pilot for decades, often reminding me of one of the things he learned early in naval flight training. Preventing catastrophe by not running out of “airspeed, altitude, and good ideas at the same time” is a key to flying—and I would argue also the key wisdom for those in the most lofty of political roles. Both Trudeau and Biden, along with even the Iron Lady, now almost forgotten Margaret Thatcher, ran out of those three attributes. These three individuals hailed from across different countries but all faced failure when their publics asked “you again?? what have you done for me lately?”, only to be completely unsatisfied by the answer. In Thatcher’s case, the problem was within her Tory Party as her successor, John Major, did serve as Prime Minister for several years following her ouster at the Party’s head but it was the same phenomenon. Iron can become tarnished easily, it seems.

Politics demands satisfying fleetingly short memories on the part of voters to assure them any candidate or leader is up to snuff. While I, like one reader who unequivocally opposes age (rather than term) limits for politicians, am reluctant to say no one over 75 can govern, I do believe the taxing element of the job in the United States makes it dicey to elect someone of that vintage. Joe Biden’s debate performance in June sealed that argument for many, on top of the sense he was too passe’, an argument my much younger kids were telling me they heard repeatedly from friends their age well earlier in his term. Trudeau’s problems weren’t age but he sure has been around in Canadian politics forever, hasn’t he? Wasn’t he born to politics?

Voters in a participatory system have strong views, often negative, but want their opinions heard and demand new, different, and fresh. Neither Trudeau, Biden, or other long central figures in political systems seem able to provide that far too often. It appears the aging figures of the LDP in Tokyo are finding this out as well. it doesn’t mean the systems won’t register “voters’ remorse” almost instantaneously but voters know they want CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE.

And yet Angela Merkel was a dominant force for three decades with seemingly fewer of these reactions. Perhaps the opposition was too broken, perhaps Germany too thankful for what she delivered. But, her experience seems the sole exception in this news-centric, internet age. I have yet to read her biography so perhaps I misrecall.

Trudeau’s party will hold their party fight, then the country will likely hold an election before long; Democrats too will hold an internal competition over the next four years. We will see what new faces and ideas appear as Donald Trump, another aging figure with a transactional style leading often to hourly policy reconfigurations, brings a new team to a new term in Washington.

How long it be until that fickle thing kicks in again in any of these places or for these incoming figures?

I welcome your thoughts. You may have a radically different explanation for the political phenomena i am describing so I welcome it. Please feel free to voice your thoughts!

I appreciate your time reading Actions today or any other day. I am especially thankful for those of you who subscribe to this work with your financial support as it means a lot to producing each column. A basic membership is less than a dollar a week.

We had nine inches of fluffy beautiful snow. Sun and strong winds have returned. I just shoveled off the cars which felt good to get outside, but a sunny day in January is always most welcome, n’est pas?

Be well and be safe. FIN

Politico’s staff, “From low blows to Obama Bromance: 11 Moments in the political life of Justin Trudeau“, politico.com, 6 January 2025, retrieved at https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/06/justin-trudeau-resigns-career-moments-00196564