One thing that has been true of Canadians throughout President-elect Donald Trump's campaigns is that they don't like him—his policies, his cultural attitudes, or his apparent comfort with chaos. A recent poll of Canadians showed that they preferred Vice President Kamala Harris as president over Trump by a three to one margin.

For a nine-year incumbent Liberal government that consistently trails badly in the polls, Mr. Trump's re-emergence is a political lifeline. Some say it is an opportunity to remind voters that Prime Minister Trudeau dealt calmly and smartly with the President during Trump’s first term. Seeing Trudeau standing up again to Trump, or so the argument goes, will encourage voters to re-embrace his leadership.

But the argument doesn't stop there. It goes on to say that Trudeau is also ideally positioned to connect the anticipated chaos of the new Trump with the leader who is characterized in some quarters as Canada’s Trump: Pierre Poilievre. Proponents of this belief point to Poilievre's tendency to borrow from Trump's playbook. He communicates with a Trumpian aggressive edge, routinely targeting legacy media—particularly the CBC—as being in the Liberals’ back pocket. His messaging features Trumpian flourishes such as “anti-woke, “anti-DEI” and “anti-WEF.” He has gone so far as to call the Prime Minister a Marxist, an allegation Trump made against Kamala Harris on a daily basis.

It’s understandable that Liberals think Trump's re-election offers them political hope. Indeed, it was for some of these reasons that in our Hot Takes this year, we suggested the only person who hoped for Trump's re-election more than Trump was the Prime Minister.

But it is likely a false hope. In the first place, it relies on the premise that there is a latent source of support for the Prime Minister. For well over a year now, the polls have indicated that Canadians just aren’t listening to him anymore. Resetting this tendency in a Trumpian context would require something truly earth-shaking.

Even if Trump were, indeed, to provoke outrage in Canada, for Trudeau to rally voters as the anti-Trump would require that there be no credible alternative to leadership. For that to work for the Liberals, it would require Poilievre to play into the Trump stereotype. But though he certainly has dabbled in Trump-adjacent themes, Poilievre has never gone all in.

Poilevre's rise in the polls has not been due to cultural fights but a relentless focus on pocketbook issues that have struck a chord with economically stressed Canadians: inflation, housing and rental costs, and interest rates.

And judging by their initial square off on who is best to handle the new Trump challenges, Poilievre will not allow himself to be sucked into this trap, smartly calling into question the Prime Minister's failures when dealing with the first Trump administration.

Yes it is understandable that Liberals are grasping at the Trump straw. But at this point in their troubled mandate, it is most telling that they now find themselves grasping at any straw at all.