The Dictatorship
Trump’s presidency has already completely upended Canada’s elections
Most Americans are familiar with Canada, a country to America’s north that loves hockey, maple syrup and mispronouncing the word “about.”
But by and large, they don’t pay much attention to our Northern neighbor and certainly not its politics. But, in the era of Trump 2.0, what’s up is down, left is right, and as Darrell Bricker, the Global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs and a prominent Canadian political analyst, joked to me, “Americans are actually paying attention to Canadian politics … which is weird.”
Then again, at no point in recent memory have U.S. actions played such a decisive role in roiling Canadian politics. Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, the president has transformed the upcoming Canadian elections into a referendum on which Canadian leader is most effective at standing up to America’s bully-in-chief — and, more decisively, on the future of the U.S.-Canadian relationship.
A few months ago, the outlines of Canada’s next election, which must be held by next October but could come as soon as April, were pretty straightforward: The incumbent Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, would get walloped.
The credit or blame (depending on one’s politics) for the narrowing polls doesn’t lie entirely with Trump.
The opposition Conservative Party, which hasn’t won a national election in nearly 15 years, led in the polls by as much as 25 points. Considering that most recent Canadian elections have been relatively close, this was a shockingly large margin. But in the last few weeks, polls show a dramatic shiftwith several surveys showing the two parties neck-and-neck. According to Bricker, he’s never seen as dramatic a shift in political fortunes in Canadian political history.
The credit or blame (depending on one’s politics) for the narrowing polls doesn’t lie entirely with Trump. The Conservatives’ early advantage had little to do with the United States and nearly everything to do with public antipathy toward Trudeau.
The son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the current prime minister entered office in 2015 on a wave of public acclaim. But the younger Trudeau has been on a downward spiral for much of his nearly 10-year tenure as prime minister. According to Bricker, Canadians see Trudeau as “insincere and “ineffective,” with a tendency for drama and arrogance. To make matters worse, says Bricker, the “things Justin Trudeau seems to care about are not the things that the public really care about.”
In January, Trudeau announced that he would be stepping down as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party. That decision immediately boosted Liberals in the polls, particularly as some anti-Trudeau voters, who had gravitated to smaller parties like the more liberal New Democrat Party, returned to the Liberal fold. But even with Trudeau heading to the exits, the Conservatives and their leader, Pierre Poilievre, still had a clear lead.
Then came the second whammy — what Andrew Coyne, a columnist at The Globe and Mail, calls “the whole Trump thing.” What began with the imposition and then near-immediate cancellation of tariffs in January, and escalated with the president deriding Canada as the “51st state” reached a crescendo this week with yet another trade war. The result, says Brinker, is that Canadians are “afraid, perplexed … and pretty p—– off.”
“There is no space anywhere in the country,” says Coyne, “for anyone who is not ‘Elbows Up’” to the Americans. (“Elbows up,” as you may have guessed, is a hockey term that means keeping your elbows out to protect yourself … or fight back.)
Both agree an election that a few months ago looked like a referendum on the Liberals’ decade in power has been flipped on its head. Now Canadians are looking for a prime minister who can both stand up to Trump and deal with his impulsiveness. The problem for the Conservatives — and one reason for their dramatic polling decline — is that Canadians don’t seem to be sold on Poilievre as that leader.
Canada’s fight with Trump is about more than just the personality of the country’s next leader.
Though a conservative, Poilievre doesn’t easily fit into the MAGA mold. Like Trump he demonizes the media, plays the populist card and occasionally dabbles in conspiratorial rhetoric. But there’s a limit to his rhetoric. He’s “borrowed the nutty stuff from Trump and MAGA,” says Coyne, “but not the nastiness.”
Reflecting Canadian public sentiment, Poilievre has pushed back on any potential guilt by association by attacking Trump even more forcefully than the Liberals. Indeed, Trump did the Tory leader a favor last week when he complained about Poilievre’s comments about him and said he was “not a MAGA guy.”
Poilievre’s problem, however, is not necessarily an association with MAGA and Trump. It’s that he has a reputation as being more of a political bruiser than a statesman. He’s “been an effective critic,” says Coyne, “but it’s not clear he’s graduated from that.” He “comes across as a bit callow,” and with Trump’s onslaught, that is “more a liability than an asset at this point.”
According to Semra Sevi, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, Poilievre had initially planned to base his campaign around opposing Trudeau and an unpopular carbon tax that Liberals have promised to jettison. “But now that both are no longer central issues, he has struggled to adjust his message.” Poilievre’s continued attacks against the Liberals “no longer resonates as effectively with voters,” Sevi said.
Compounding the challenge for Poilievre is Trudeau’s most likely replacement as head of the Liberal Party, Mark Carney. Carney is an unusual figure in Canadian politics because he’s never before sought or held elected office. However, he has served as governor of the Bank of Canada and helped the country navigate the 2008 financial crisis, and he was also governor of the Bank of England during Brexit. With Canadians looking for a grown-up who can deal with Trump, the urbane and seemingly unflappable Carney seems to more than foot the bill. Coyne notes that when Carney is mentioned as the head of the Liberals, the party actually polls better than when he goes unmentioned.
But Canada’s fight with Trump is about more than just the personality of the country’s next leader. As it becomes increasingly clear that Trump isn’t joking about wanting to turn Canada into the 51st state, Canadians are asking: Has their country hitched its wagon too closely to the United States?
There have been hiccups in the U.S.-Canada bilateral relationship before, but rarely on this scale and never in recent memory.
Before Jan. 20, 2025, that question was unheard of. But Canadians, says Bricker, are starting to wonder: “Why are we so dependent on the United States? Why is our military in disrepair? Why have we not diversified our partners?” Last month, for example, Poilievre held a “Canada First” rally in Ottawa and laid out a plan for lessening reliance on the United States. According to Sevi, “Canadians, regardless of political affiliation, seem more unified than ever in their stance on the U.S.-Canada relationship.”
Even if Trump should exit the White House in four years with minimal additional damage done (which seems highly unlikely), what guarantee does Canada have that a post-Trump American president won’t act the same way? As Coyne put it, “If Americans are going to elect these lunatics,” then Canada needs to be prepared.
There have been hiccups in the U.S.-Canada bilateral relationship before, but rarely on this scale and never in recent memory. Canadians are united in their anger at the Trump administration and uncertain about the path forward with a neighbor that appears mercurial, unbalanced and untrustworthy. Though undoubtedly not his intention, Trump’s anti-Canadian tantrums have raised tough questions in Canada. Unfortunately for Americans, the main one is how much should Canada distance itself from the United States.
Michael A. Cohen is a columnist for BLN and a senior fellow and co-director of the Afghanistan Assumptions Project at the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He writes the political newsletter Truth and Consequences. He has been a columnist at The Boston Globe, The Guardian and Foreign Policy, and he is the author of three books, the most recent being“Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans.”
Many of America’s global competitors — and adversaries — are no doubt cheering President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. They know that countries who out-educate the rest of the world will out-compete it. And now brand new Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Trump want to neuter, if not completely shutter, the entity that helps give all children in the United States access to the great public school education they deserve. On Tuesday, the department announced plans to cut nearly half of its staff. McMahon says these catastrophic firings, alongside hundreds of so-called “buyouts,” are about “efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.” The reality is far more cowardly.
The president claims he wants the states to run education — but states and local school districts already operate schools and make curriculum decisions. Nobody wants that to stop. Similarly, nobody wants more red tape or unnecessary, inefficient bureaucracy. But here, too, there are ways to achieve “efficiency” without betraying the promises made to America’s children.
Nobody wants more red tape or unnecessary, inefficient bureaucracy.
The department in its modern form was establishedhed by Congress in 1979 to level up access to education, to help working families pay for college, to boost student achievement and to pave pathways to good middle-class jobs.
According to its 2025 fiscal year budget summarydepartment grants help close to 26 million children from poor families get extra support to reach their full potential.
It helps meet the individual needs of around 7.5 million children with disabilities. It provided tens of millions to help the over 5 million English learners in U.S. classrooms improve their proficiency and assimilate into our communities. And it provided nearly 9 million students with the financial aid they need to attend college or trade programs, including work-study programs.
Why would anyone allow Elon Musk to steal that money, which Congress appropriated for children, to pay for tax breaks for the rich and corporations?
Indeed, much of the department’s total annual budget helps Americans trying to secure a college education. Why does Trump want to make it even harder for the children of low-income and middle-class families to cover skyrocketing college and university costs?
A gutted department would mean fewer teachers, more crowded classrooms and increased mental health and behavioral challenges for students. We’d most likely see increased absenteeism and decreased graduation rates. Fewer students would be able to obtain the degrees or credentials they need for well-paying jobs, meaning more students would have to settle for low-wage work or simply drop out of the workforce. And many cities and states would have to increase school budgets to make up for these cuts, resulting in higher state and local taxes.
Instead, this move sends a clear message that, in Trump’s America, only kids from wealthy families are entitled to opportunity. How does that help make America great?
Of course, opportunity comes in many forms. The world is a complicated place, and we need to prepare students for an increasingly complicated workforce. And yet, just days after the president signed a proclamationdeclaring February “Career and Technical Education Month,” Career and Technical Education, or CTE, programs are on the chopping block.
Secretary McMahon and I agree that high school can’t just be college prep. We both back the engaged, hands-on learning that students receive through CTE. We both believe in the Swiss apprenticeship program I had the honor of visiting last month. In the United States and Switzerland, students graduate from CTE programs ranging from construction and plumbing to manufacturing and health care with the skills, credentials and real-world experiences they need to secure good jobs, often right in their backyards.
I taught in a CTE high school and saw firsthand the potential of these programs, but states don’t have the resources to scale such transformational pathways alone. The federal government should and could turbocharge CTE to support millions of future electricians, EMTs, coders, plumbers, automotive technicians, early childhood educators and workers in countless other professions. But that won’t happen if Trump eliminates the department.
These changes will inflict tremendous harm on kids’ futures. If Trump follows through with an eventual executive order demolishing the department, his actions may also be illegal. I’m a civics teacher and a lawyer, so here’s a bit of Civics 101: Congress created the Department of Education, and only Congress can abolish it. Neither the president nor Musk has the right to appropriate or eliminate funds or ax entire federal departments — only Congress does. Many legal experts agree with me.
The American people did not vote for chaotic and reckless attacks on public schools.
The American people did not vote for chaotic and reckless attacks on public schools. Even in Nebraska and Kentucky, states that Trump won overwhelmingly, voters rejecteden masse, measures to defund and privatize their public schools. Ironically, the funds Musk wants to take away go disproportionately to supporting children in rural red states.
My union will continue to fight to protect our kids and to fund their future, because it is both the smart and the right thing to do. Last Tuesday, we held over 100 events across the country to protect our kids.
Diverting billions from our children to pay for tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy is a callous decision that short-changes everyone. If we want to engage kids, if we want America to be a nation of “explorers, builders, innovators [and] entrepreneurs,” as Trump said in his inaugural address, then logically it follows that we should be investing more in education, not less.
The dreams of millions of kids, and the promise of America, depend on it.
Randi Weingarten is a high school social studies teacher and president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers.
The House narrowly passed a spending bill on Tuesday, clearing the first hurdle to avert a government shutdown as the bill now moves to the Senate for a vote.
The six-month continuing resolution passed 217-213, with all Republicans — except Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — voting for the bill at the urging of President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the only Democrat to support the bill.
Although House Democrats have historically voted to support such stopgap measures, Democratic leaders have said that this time around the spending bill would only help Trump and billionaire Elon Musk continue to enact sweeping cuts across the federal government.
A handful of House Republicans were tight-lipped on how they were leaning ahead of the vote. Massie was the only one among his GOP colleagues who publicly refused to support the measure, criticizing such short-term extensions to keep the government open.
“It amazes me that my colleagues and many of the public fall for the lie that we will fight another day,” he wrote on X.
Massie ultimately remained the lone Republican to defy Trump and Johnson by opposing the bill.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for BLN Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
The Dictatorship
USDA axes study into safer menstruation products, citing single reference to trans men
On Friday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins bragged on social media platform X about the cancellation of a $600,000 grant for Southern University in Louisiana, touting that her department had revoked funds for a study into “menstrual cycles in transgender men.” The only problem? According to the department’s website, that’s not what the grant was intended for.
According to reporting from CBS News, citing the project’s publicly filed documentation posted on the USDA websitethe goal of the study, titled “Farm to Feminine Hygiene,” was to examine the potential health risks posed by synthetic feminine hygiene products and to develop alternatives using natural materials.
In her social media post, Rollins thanked the American Principles Project for the “tip.” The conservative think tank flagged the grant as part of its database of federal spending on what they call the “Gender Industrial Complex.”
Critics pointed to a single sentence in the grant document that referenced “transgender men and people with masculine gender identities, intersex and non-binary persons.” In a statement to CBS News, a USDA spokesperson said the grant was revoked because it “prioritized women identifying as men who might menstruate.”
“This mission certainly does not align with the priorities and policies of the Trump Administration, which maintains that there are two sexes: male and female,” the spokesperson said.
But, as a statement from Southern University’s Agriculture and Research Center made clear, “The term ‘transgender men’ was only used once to state that this project, through the development of safer and healthier [feminine hygiene products]would benefit all biological women.”
Throughout the grant document, the authors made repeated references to women and young girls, including explicitly stating that one of the study’s major objectives was to “educate young women and adolescent girls about menstrual hygiene management through an extension outreach program.”
Southern University is a public, historically Black land-grant institution located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As part of the project, researchers planned to establish the first fiber processing center in the state, according to Dr. Samii Kennedy Benson, who oversaw the program. In July, she told Louisiana First News the center would be especially beneficial for “local farmers who often grow fibers on a smaller scale.”
USDA’s decision to revoke the grant is part of a much wider effort within President Donald Trump’s administration to slash government spending, often with little consideration for the actual consequences of those cuts. USDA also recently cut more than $1 billion in funding for programs that help schools and food banks purchase food from local farmers and has fired nearly 10% of the United States Forest Service workforce ahead of wildfire season.
Allison Detzel
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for BLN Digital.
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