I’ve always resented the idea of voting strategically: voting for someone other than your ideal choice in order to prevent a worse outcome.

I thought (and wished and hoped) that people should vote for the candidate they think is best. Otherwise we’ll always end up in the middle-of-the-road, at best.

Then Donald Trump became president of the United States. Twice.

The middle-of-the-road sounds great.

I’d vote for a toad if it meant keeping a demagogue (or whatever Trump is) out of power.

Here in Canada, we’re voting later this month. While I don’t think Pierre Poilievre is exactly like Trump, I do think he would move Canada closer to a system that devalues journalism, environmentalism, social support systems like health care, and organized labour.

Given the frightening instability we’re seeing from the United States, voting in a stable, predictable leader who believes in climate change is the least we can do.

There is a trade off in voting strategically. We need more than just stability and sanity in political leaders. We need to push back hard on racism, nationalism, and general selfishness.

For now though, let’s vote in a Liberal party in Canada that won’t set things on fire.

On a related tangent, if Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre actually believes in all of the “Political positions” listed out on his Wikipedia page – addressing climate change, access to abortion, same-sex marriage, pro-immigration, etc – then why doesn’t he vote for the Liberal Party?