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This week my thoughts traveled back a few decades to a long drink from a man I knew well. Sam was very thin, with a leathery face and large, working hands. The smile lines on his face were deep and gave the impression of a big heart and a generous soul.

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Sam was from Arkansas. He worked all his life. Of course he was a Democrat.

Near the end of his life, Sam was kind enough to give me one of his proudest possessions: a pin in the shape of a donkey butt with a moving chain link tail. I still have it.

Sam acquired the pin at the Democratic Party convention in 1960. At the time, the Democrats were the party of working people like Sam.

The Democrats represented change and renewal. They were not afraid to challenge established power to create a better country for a struggling middle class. Sam wore this pin with pride.

A few generations later, another old man seems lost in the memories of that time. In the fog of memories, Joe Biden seems to believe that he is still a scrappy kid from Scranton, Pennsylvania, fighting for the oppressed.

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But illusions aside, the Democrats are no longer Sam’s party. Over Biden’s long political career, Democrats have abandoned the working people of Scranton and most of America.

Four years ago, following the January 6 riots in Washington, Donald Trump was a spent political force. Biden resurrected it.

Ignore anxiety over inflation. Wrong border. Embarrassing the country in a failed exit from Afghanistan. Stick to progressive views on issues from gender to climate. At every step, Biden has kept Democrats from the streets of Scranton.

And, in a final insult to the electorate, Biden and the Democrats insisted until the eve of the Democratic Party convention that a failing octogenarian was capable of leading America for four more years. It was pure pride.

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The Democrats are no longer Sam’s party. They are now slaves to the elites and marginalize progressive ideas.

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This should give pause to Canadian Liberals.

Canadians are not Americans. We have different ambitions and expectations. And Justin Trudeau is not Joe Biden. He is a man born into the rarefied air of the Lawrentian elite.

Governments that disdain workers are doomed to defeat. The Trudeau government has repeatedly demonstrated an arrogant rejection of a large portion of blue-collar Canadians.

The signs of this disconnect are everywhere. Blatant anti-Semitism at state-funded universities. Diversity initiatives are backwards and deeply unfair. Public services that refuse to provide service.

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The Trudeau government has bowed to every marginal progressive initiative in an adolescent effort to appear woke. The workers are done with it.

The Liberal Party’s alienation from Canadian workers is well deserved. The question for the Liberal Party is whether or not it has any interest in doing the hard work needed to reconnect.
So far, the answer appears to be “no.”

I don’t know if Democrats will be able to reconnect with people like my late friend Sam. But I’m convinced that liberals’ fascination with virtue signaling will keep them from understanding and appreciating the people they want to govern.

Just like Biden’s virtuous Democrats, Trudeau’s Liberals fully deserve the fate they have created. I suspect Sam smiled.

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