Ford thinks love will soothe Trump

Time for Canada to start worrying about Donald Trump again.

- MARTIN REGG COHN

Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday. Even if he returns to the White House and again threatens free trade with Canada, the show must go on, Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday, suggesting we are too interconnected economically to disconnect from one another politically.

With election day a mere 144 days away, the clock is ticking toward a comeback for the once and future U.S. president. If the vote were held today, he’d win.

That’s the latest verdict from David Axelrod, the celebrated strategist who guided Barack Obama to the presidency before Trump moved in. Axelrod’s sobering analysis set the table for a day of gloom, doom and déjà vu at a Canada-U.S. conclave of politicians, diplomats and financiers in Toronto on Tuesday.

Bottom line: If you are hedging against risk, hold tight and huddle together.

Axelrod isn’t predicting the outcome on Nov. 4 with certainty, merely talking about today’s trend lines with sagacity. The polls are not moving in the right direction and the battleground states are not lining up behind President Joe Biden’s re-election.

“We are a deeply polarized country,” he mused, but that’s only the half of it. The bigger problem is that Democrats are disconnected from disgruntled voters, while Trump is disrupting and reconnecting.

Against that backdrop, Premier Doug Ford waded in to the debate.