There are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Over the course of the last year Liberal supporters, and maybe some in the NDP had begun to realize that their time in government was over. The public was turning against them.
They were upset that the time of their parties in government was coming to and end.
Thus began the first stage in the grieving process: denial.
There was just no way this was happening. I post summaries and explanations of polls. I do this weekly. In mid-2022 the trend was starting, by 2023 it was growing, and in 2024 it was undeniable. The Liberal government and Justin Trudeau were not going to win the next election. Period.
Liberal and NDP supporters vehemently denied that. The polls had to be wrong. A string of by-election defeats showed the polls to be accurate. A string of provincial elections showed that the polling companies were competent.
Last week Justin Trudeau grievously miscalculated in dealing with his Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. She put a metaphorical dagger through the heart of the Liberal establishment.
By the end of the week NDP leader Jagmeet Singh joined with the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois in saying he too will vote to bring the government down.
Liberal supporters on social media stopped denying what was happening on Friday.
The denial phase was over.
What followed was anger.
They lashed out at everyone not on their side. Each interaction with them became tense. People have told me of their interactions that had gone from the typical back and forth with friends to something akin to walking on egg shells or tip toeing through mine fields. They took the words right from my mouth.
My Liberal and NDP friends, many today, have very short fuses. They are quick to anger. They no longer want to reason, to discuss, or to argue. They wanted to pigeon hole one as either with them, or against them. The middle ground has collapsed into a chasm.
Each political group on Facebook I go through the interactions are the same. Liberals and New Democrats are angry. Some of them are bordering on irrationality. A few are even outright hysterical.
The anger phase is now officially underway.
The stages of grief aren't always in order. So what is next? We can expect bargaining. That is the phase where people wonder what they could have done differently to avoid the loss. In the case of politics, they'll wonder what could the government have done differently. Then there is depression. That is the stage when they realize they were and were always powerless to prevent the loss.
It is acceptance that usually signals the end. People come to terms with the situation, they accept the loss.
In case you're wondering the feeling of grief for loss isn't something we experience just for people we lose. Loss can also be for pets, jobs and careers, long running television programs that get canceled, and even governments we have come to support, rely on, or admire.
The Liberal and NDP supporters online aren't experiencing something new either. Conservatives went through this in 2015 when they lost government.
All governments fall.
The Progressive Conservatives ran Alberta for generations only to fall to the NDP. The Social Credit party did the same in BC and met a similar fate. No government is immortal. Each sin the government commits, each mistake, each person or group of people they alienate is another piece of straw on the camel's back.
At some point, there is just one piece of straw that is too much weight for the animal to bear. It collapses.
ABOUT DEVON KRUGGEL:
I'm a 50-year-old Caucasian male and was a right winger of sorts from the age of 16 until I was about 47 or so. I have got a degree in History and Political Science and one in Computer Science. Bachelors. I've been in BC since 1990, and have lived on Vancouver Island since 1993.
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