Liberal icon to MAGA joke: The waning fortunes of Justin Trudeau

Toronto: Justin Trudeau's career is the stuff of 21st-century political drama, with an arc that has taken him from glamorous liberal standard-bearer to the butt of jokes by President-elect Donald Trump and his acolytes.

He burst onto the international scene in 2015, a newly elected young leader of Canada whose father had also once been a popular prime minister.

And he spent the next decade building a brand around being a feminist, an environmentalist, a refugee and Indigenous rights advocate, pursuing the same message of change and hope as Barack Obama.

While he drew fawning reviews in the news media -- including over his poster boy looks -- his honeymoon with Canadians really lasted only about two years; by 2017, a series of controversies had already tarnished his picture-perfect image.

His party went on to lose the popular vote in two elections, in 2019 and 2021, requiring him to form minority governments propped up by a left-wing opposition party. That support, too, has now evaporated.

Today, Trudeau finds himself -- like other Western leaders -- facing an angry constituency and losing control.

He will soon either call elections that he'll most likely lose, or he'll step down as leader of his party and as prime minister and let a different leader take the Liberals to the ballot box next year.

The Prince

In Stephen Maher's 2024 biography of Trudeau, the author recalls separate occasions in which Trudeau's family members called him a "prince."

"I've always known my whole life that this would be available to me if I want," Maher quotes a young Trudeau as saying about entering politics.

When deciding where to start telling Trudeau's political story, chroniclers have several choices.

There's a 2012 charity boxing match that he, then a young member of Parliament, won against a tough Conservative who had black belt in karate. People still bring up the fight.

Or the moment in 2015 when he, as prime minister, unveiled the country's first gender-balanced Cabinet and -- asked why this mattered -- quipped, "Because it's 2015." Male leaders around the world were put on notice.

One might also look back to the eulogy he delivered in 2000 for his father, former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, for an early glimpse of Justin Trudeau the politician.

"We have gathered from coast to coast to coast. From one ocean to another, united in our grief to say goodbye," Trudeau, then 29, told a packed cathedral of mourners. "But this is not the end."

Trudeau, who turns 53 on Christmas Day, was born while his father was in his first of four terms in office.

The elder Trudeau had swept Canada off its feet in the late 1960s, in what came to be called "Trudeau-mania." Eventually, voters soured on him too, though he stayed in power for 16 years, and his legacy helped launch his son's career.

"There was this nostalgia that was associated with the name that really worked for Justin," said Darrell Bricker, a seasoned pollster and CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs.

"We were coming out of the time of tempestuous Canadian politics run by a lot of old men," he added, "and even young men who just seemed old, so Justin was like a breath of fresh air."

Liberal Icon

The "Because it's 2015" comment on his Cabinet's gender parity catapulted Trudeau to global political renown.

Glossy magazines swooned; Vogue ranked him as one of 2015's 10 "convention-defying hotties," referring to him as a "Canadian politician-dreamboat."

One former European leader from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies said early meetings with Trudeau were marked by people lining up to take selfies with him and treating him like some kind of rock star. The former leader asked not to be identified discussing past diplomatic meetings.

As the United States switched from the Obama to the Trump presidencies in 2016, Trudeau seemed to offer continuity with Obama's politics. Few moments exemplified this more than Trudeau's decision to offer refugees an open welcome in 2017 as Trump cracked down on immigrants.

"To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith," Trudeau posted on the social platform X, then known as Twitter. "Diversity is our strength."

At the time, Trump had issued his so-called Muslim ban curtailing travel to the United States for people from some Muslim-majority nations. Trudeau even went to the airport to personally welcome Syrian refugees arriving in Canada.

Trudeau was also at the forefront of postcolonial nations reckoning with the legacy of their treatment of Indigenous populations. While Trudeau has been criticized for not going far enough, it has been during his tenure that a reconciliation with Indigenous populations in Canada began in earnest.

Change All Around

But starting in 2017, his political fortunes at home had already started fading.

As he headed to the polls in 2019, Trudeau was rocked by scandal, including a luxurious free vacation he took that he failed to declare and videos from the 1990s and 2001 that surfaced showing him dressing up in blackface.

It took a toll: He could secure only a minority government, leaving his party dependent on allies to pass legislation.

And then came the pandemic. Critics describe Trudeau's push for restrictive measures as a key reason for the animus against him.

Within two years, in the middle of the pandemic, Trudeau called an early election, believing it might return him to a majority government; he was wrong. He ended up again commanding only a minority of representatives in the House of Commons.

By that point, the Western world's center of political gravity was already shifting to the right over vaccine and restrictive mandates. In Canada, that set off protests in various parts of the country that came to be known as the Freedom Convoy, including weeks of demonstrations in Ottawa, Ontario, the capital, that paralyzed the city's downtown.

Canadians found themselves battered by persistent inflation, setting off an affordability crisis, while an open migration policy to bring in workers backfired, turning one of the world's most immigrant-friendly societies against newcomers.

Trudeau also faced turmoil on the family front, last year separating from his wife of 18 years, with whom he has three children.

A Walk in the Snow

Trump's election victory in November has brought into focus Trudeau's weakened position. Trump has threatened to impose blanket 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, which would devastate Canada economically. Trump has also been mocking Trudeau online, referring to him as a governor, and to Canada as the 51st state.

This time, a political brand that appears antithetical to Trump's isn't working for Trudeau. "He caught a wave on his way in, and when you catch a wave, it can lift you up," Bricker said. "But on the other side, if you don't get off, it will ground you."

With elections required by October because of Canada's electoral rules, Trudeau's departure is increasingly seen as a foregone conclusion. The question is where this leaves his Liberal Party. The latest Ipsos poll, published Friday, found that the Liberals trail the Conservatives by 25 percentage points.

On Monday, his deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland resigned with a bombshell letter, accusing him of engaging in "costly political gimmicks" and being ill-prepared to face the challenge posed by Trump.

Then on Friday, the opposition party that has propped up his Liberal minority said it would bring a vote of confidence against it after Parliament resumes in January.

"Like most families, sometimes we have fights around the holidays," Trudeau mused at a party for Liberal staff in Ottawa on Tuesday, in a nod to Freeland's departure. "But of course, like most families, we find our way through it. You know, I love this country. I deeply love this party. I love you guys."

But the party, like the country, may no longer love him back. Trudeau's allies say the prime minister will take time over the holidays to decide his next steps.

A growing chorus is asking Trudeau to "take a walk in the snow," a phrase that became part of political lore after his father, in February 1984, facing calls to resign, took a long walk in the snow.

When he came back, he had decided to resign.