Éric Blais: Donald Trump will blame Canada if he loses bigly in Tuesday’s midterm elections - Toronto Star
Canada makes the perfect suspect. For two years, Americans have heard that Canada is “ripping us off.” Ripping off an election is a short step. In marketing, you don’t launch a new claim, you evolve one the audience already believes.
Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump during a rally in Port Huron, Mich., on Oct. 25. Trump accuses Canada of interfering in the elections in Michigan and Maine.
Éric Blais is president of Headspace Marketing in Toronto and the author of "Normal Nation: How Normalcy Could Play in a Third Québec Referendum."
In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh with a Super Bowl commercial most Americans saw exactly once. A young woman outruns the thought police and hurls a sledgehammer through Big Brother’s screen. Then the promise: “you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984.’ ”
Americans are owed a warning Orwell would recognize about a government deciding which results count. Whatever happens in Tuesday’s midterms, the fight that follows won’t be like 2020.
A party that sees a loss coming usually limits the damage, concedes and promises to do better. In the Trump era, the instinct is to build the case that the other side won unfairly.
In 2020, Trump fought the result as a candidate, with lawyers and a social media account. It ended with a mob storming the Capitol. This time, the danger is the machinery of government more than another riot.
In September, Trump had a crowd repeat a pledge that included “I’m going to try and cheat like hell, like they do.” Asked whether he’d rule out an emergency before the vote, he brought up the Insurrection Act himself. Last Monday, he offered $1 million to anyone whose voter-fraud tip leads to a conviction.
His Justice Department has asked a federal court to block certification of Alaska’s Senate race if the Republican loses narrowly. “I’m one that said, ‘Do it,’” Trump said. The challenge was filed before anyone voted.
He’s rehearsing abroad, too. After Lula won Brazil’s runoff, Trump called the election “a disgrace,” declined to say who had won, and let the defeated Flávio Bolsonaro, who claims the vote was stolen, into the country.
He has reason to fight. In January, he told House Republicans that if they lost, “I’ll get impeached.” Impeachment he can sell. Two years as a lame duck, upstaged by subpoenas, is harder. Being called a loser is unbearable.
U.S. Trade adviser Peter Navarro warned that if Canada interfered in Maine or Michigan, it would “pay even more dearly.” The U.S. embassy in Ottawa published a fact sheet listing the evidence: tariff complaints, statements by Canadian politicians, anti-Trump ads.
On its own, the charge is absurd. Alongside everything else, it looks like an exhibit being filed for later.
Last Tuesday, Ambassador Pete Hoekstra stopped leaving it to inference. At a private lunch at his Ottawa residence, according to three people who spoke to CTV News, he warned that Canada could be blamed if Republicans lose key Senate races in Michigan and Maine. The embassy says he was taken out of context, but declined to say what the context was.
Two days later, the file grew. Federal prosecutors in Wisconsin charged two Canadians with voting illegally, one of them in both 2022 and 2024. That’s three ballots, in a country where more than 150 million people voted in 2024.
It would be reassuring to note that Trump keeps losing in court. His Justice Department has lost 27 of 31 lawsuits demanding states’ voter rolls. Courts blocked his order on mail ballots.
But 2020 already settled whether losing in court matters.
Trump lost more than 60 cases and still convinced most of his party the election was stolen. As election expert Michael McNulty told the New York Times, the goal “is to create doubt about the process and then use that doubt to justify later intervention or interference.”
Which is why Canada makes the perfect suspect. For two years, Americans have heard that Canada is “ripping us off.” Ripping off an election is a short step. In marketing, you don’t launch a new claim, you evolve one the audience already believes.
Trump keeps insisting America needs nothing from Canada. He may soon need us to explain a loss.
Ottawa should have its answer ready before Wednesday morning, not after the first post blaming Canada for a lost House.
Canada has had this role before. In 2020, Trump’s allies claimed Dominion voting machines had flipped votes to Biden. Dominion was founded in Toronto. Fox News later paid it US$787.5 million to settle a defamation suit over those claims.
This time, Trump and his crew may skip the middleman.
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Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details
Éric Blais is president of Headspace Marketing in Toronto and the author of "Normal Nation: How Normalcy Could Play in a Third Québec Referendum."
