Welcome to the latest in our series of Policy Conversations between Counsel Public Affairs Senior VP John Delacourt and Counsel PA Account Director Will Shelling about the 2024 US presidential election. John is a veteran Liberal strategist, longtime Policy contributor and novelist, and Will is a Vegas-raised, Vancouver-based NDPer. This is their sixth exchange in the series.

By John Delacourt and Will Shelling

October 26, 2024

Will Shelling: “Firstly, is it so over? With the BC election feeling almost exactly like a surreal fever dream of the 2017 election and polling for the US election looking drastically similar to the 2016 one, I feel like we’re all stuck in a time loop lately. Harris is only ahead by a thread and while she’s being funded by folks like Bill Gates, sending out former President Obama to campaign with Eminem, and deploying Walz to swing states, we’re still seeing Trump creep up in the polls. In the past, we’ve discussed the fact that it doesn’t matter what Trump says, people will still inevitably vote for him. What’s your read on this week?

John Delacourt: Will, the one thought I keep coming back to since the New Brunswick election is something our colleague at Counsel Ben Parsons said, given the resounding victory for Susan Holt’s Liberals: no elected leader is safe right now. To be clear, no one is safe from the albatross of incumbency, regardless of your party.

This summary of the landscape obviously applies in BC as well, given the significant loss of support Eby’s NDP is now coming to grips with. And it seems to be the issue that has come into the foreground for the Harris-Walz campaign. The unhinged, anarchic, disruptive energy that Trump exudes was neutralized – initially – by how effectively Harris managed to shake off the perception that she represented an incumbent government. It was a narrative, not a litany – to use James Carville’s phrase for what constitutes effective communications in a campaign. Harris seemed to be crafting a vision for the country that made you think Trump was the incumbent. The mantra of “we’re not going back” applied most effectively to Roe v. Wade, but it was not limited to the abortion issue. All the potent threats to American democracy seemed real and immediate, as if Trump was still the President.

And yet there’s clearly a distinction between not going back and going forward with a vision that is not evocative of what many Americans had tired of with Biden. It’s my understanding that the Harris-Walz campaign is acutely aware of this challenge now and have thrown significant resources into the ground campaign while fortifying the air war with every marquee draw they can summon from the old Obama rolodex – including Obama himself, of course. This should not even be close if that incumbency albatross wasn’t looking like an accessory for Harris to wear at the Met Gala (photo op with the Clintons), grieving for what might have been. I’m not saying it’s all over yet, but it seems that any messaging from Harris that can articulate, strongly, not just how she’s different from Trump but how she’d be different from Biden, is an urgent priority. Even then I still wonder if the attacks against Trump even resonate. Tom Nichols in The Atlantic, in his piece Trump’s Depravity Will Not Cost Him This Election, has written something that I’m still reflecting on:

“If Trump’s campaign was focused on handing out tax breaks and lowering gas prices, he’d be losing, because for his base, none of that yawn-inducing policy stuff is transgressive enough to be exciting … Some Trump voters may believe his lies. But plenty more want Trump to be terrifying and stomach-turning so that re-electing him will be a fully realized act of social revenge. Harris cannot propose any policy, offer any benefit, or adopt any position that competes with that feeling.” Given your read on what’s happening in America from your conversations with family and friends, does this seem accurate to you, Will?

Shelling: I think most of my family and close friends keep reciting the same sort of refrain: It doesn’t matter who they elect, things are still going to be the same. I think so many Americans right now (myself included) and especially those on the widening left, want so much more from Harris and Walz that we feel a bit let down by what we have now. I had a conversation with an American friend yesterday who quite literally, put money on the US Election for Harris, and while he feels she’ll win, her retail politics are drifting closer and closer to a continuity with Biden’s policies.

He’s not wrong. Harris’ policies on not raising taxes on Americans who earn more less than $400,000 is the same as Biden’s, the same commitments surrounding Roe v Wade (she has stated she would sign legislation immediately codifying it into law) is the same as her predecessor, and her positions on free trade with other countries are eerily similar. Another important piece to mention is that with the escalating situation in the Middle East now encompassing Lebanon, many of the same sentiments with voting “undecided” for Biden have returned, but for Harris. While the American people might “vote blue, no matter who”, it’s beginning to feel a bit like Groundhog Day, but not humorous if you’ve got skin in this game.

On the issue of foreign relations, Ottawa had some fireworks of its own set off last week, with a surprise announcement by the RCMP regarding foreign operations on Canadian soil by India. This was later followed up by the Prime Minister remarking that several members of the Conservative Party are implicated in foreign interference schemes, but this has yet to be confirmed. Similarly, Trump accused UK PM Keir Starmer of financing trips to the US for Labour Party, hinting at election interference. Especially with foreign tech giants implicating themselves in every election possible, how do you see the Canadian story and the US issues with foreign interference paralleling each other? Do you think in the US this could be seen as a means to cast doubt on the election outcomes?”

Delacourt: Great questions, Will. I note a former Indian government official was indicted in the U.S. on charges of directing the assassination attempt of a Sikh separatist leader in New York City just a few days ago, but we have yet to see any evidence of simmering bilateral tensions with the Biden and Modi governments. However, questions of foreign interference in election campaigns clearly transcend party lines here in Canada, and it remains to be seen if it will have any impact on electability for Poilievre or Trudeau. Contrast with the US where, given the evidence against Trump and Russia on this front, this should be a strong wedge issue.

I’m trying not to bang on about this, but you can file this as just another outrage that’s not outrageous at all for an alarming number of Americans. However, I wonder if there might be something more significant going on with this, that there is a reflexive pass given to Trump on Russian foreign interference because he’s said he’d “solve” the issue of the Russian invasion of Ukraine given how close he is to Putin, implicitly scaling down the support for Zelenskyy’s government once he’s in office. This speaks to a resurgent “America First” agenda which, as Fareed Zakaria has noted, should be seriously debated from an informed, historical perspective. Hope could spring eternal for that to happen, I suppose.

Will, how real do you think this resurgent America first sentiment might be, and if Trump gets elected, what do you think the implications might be for Canada?

Shelling: I think if Trump gets re-elected, we’re about to have a very rough couple decades. Not four years, but a couple decades. We saw the damage that Trump’s administration was able to cause globally through regional instability in several parts of the world, inaction on the COVID-19 pandemic, and for Canada, USMCA (for CUSMA, for our Ottawa friends). Now imagine if he actually had some competent people around him, instead of what Ronan Farrow described in his book War on Peace.

While I think the implications will be far-reaching, I think there are two really solid examples here. First is with CUSMA, and the review that is coming up quite soon. Trump recently stated that he would open up the six-year review clause and seek new protections for the American auto industry, with Trudeau remarking that they have been there before. While it’s difficult to call one country a winner or a loser (but with CUSMA, it’s deeply in favour of the US), this is the sort of thing that will have impact in Canada, especially with economists saying that this could throw Canada into a recession. This is the last thing that any Canadian party leader needs right now, especially since interest rates are finally creeping down and housing starts are coming back.

Another example of the “America First” policy that has deep impacts on Canada, was the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did so many people succumb to an illness, but vaccine procurement under the Trump administration was a nightmare, especially since Operation Warp Speed had a protectionist component. Something however, (that we’re still not talking about frankly) is that as Ed Yong notes, the next pandemic is coming, whether we like it for not. We’ve had a couple scares, Mpox and Ebola to name a few, but the larger issue is that the distinct vaccine skepticism that is echoed from the Republican Party is already here. A number of GOP supporters now identify as vaccine skeptics, and with Trump promising to cut funding to schools that mandate vaccines, we’re going to be less prepared for the next global pandemic.

These sorts of things feed into voter distrust of institutions, politics, and elections, and 2020-2022 showed us just how bad it could get. This is why I said that the implications will not only last for a couple years, but decades. It’s going to take a very long time to get modern political systems to a place where collaboration and trust are high.

John Delacourt is a Senior VP at Counsel Public Affairs. He has served in a number of portfolios in three federal Liberal governments, as well as in communications and stakeholder relations in Opposition. He is the author of five novels and a regular contributor to Policy magazine.

Will Shelling is an account director at Counsel PA and New Democrat who specializes in justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, Indigenous affairs, climate change, and Canadian culture. He is a director for White Ribbon Canada, a national non-profit dedicated to ending gender-based violence. He was raised in Las Vegas, and now lives in Vancouver, BC.

John and Will will be conversing until November.