What happened in Edmonton during the NDP palooza and the live execution of Tom Mulcair as leader was a modern "Ides of March."
And even though it is April, the story is almost the same: the who's who of the NDP had their knives out for Mr. Mulcair, and it became apparent throughout the weekend that "Caesar must die" was on at least 52 per cent of everyone's' minds. In the end, Mr. Mulcair appeared so alone, I wondered if he even had anyone to say "et tu, Brute?" to.
Many pundits have said this is just another growing pain of the NDP. But there are layers to the events that unfolded over the weekend, and these implications are wide reaching for both the New Democratic Party (at all levels) and Canadian democracy in general.
The first lesson is that no good deed goes unpunished and, for all of our smugness about how polite Canadians are compared to our American cousins, we are brutally mean to our former leaders - unless they're Liberal PM's or resting their souls. Angry Tom had his failings - he was a mercenary, a Thatcherite and tried to market a beard in the 21st century. But his delivery in the House was incredible and he managed to make an untried Official Opposition a powerful force.
For all his efforts, he was politically crucified by the leadership hungry demagogues that dominate the "progressive" side of the NDP.
What these forces have to gain except for more accolades from the most delusional members of their own party is hard to see.
In the brave new world of post-Harper Canada and Trudeau Mania 2, the NDP could have marketed Tom as an experienced, "conservatively progressive" leader and capitalized on Liberal embarrassments.
This ties in directly with the decision by party delegates to allow further discussion of the Leap Manifesto, a piece of leftist drivel I will not stoop to explain. But the key point is that the NDP, having lost the election by misreading the electorate and leaving the left wide open to the Liberals, is doubling-down on radical ideas of every "ism" - particularly regarding the environment.
The joke is that's yesterday's news.
The modern Conservative Party only defeated the Liberal machine by forcing voters to see the egregious lies and missteps of a party that had ruled Canada for 81 years from 1900-2006. And even then, Harper had to rule in minority for five years.
There is no way forward in trying to take back the left from the Liberals. That will only yield the center open to PM Trudeau's advances. And during the next election, those voters will in turn believe that all the Liberal's broken promises appear to be sensible, discretionary decisions compared to the new NDP party platform - meaning another Liberal victory and NDP defeat.
To be clear, I'm not arguing Angry Tom alone would be all the NDP would need to put the Grits back on their heels - but it would have gone a long way to help.
And regardless of the party's or the leader's positioning, past or future,
Mr. Mulcair had the provincial experience and personal integrity to sincerely try and reach out to all parts of his party and his country.
That's the other major headline coming out of last weekend's social-democrat hootenanny; the one success story the NDP has had over the last year, Rachel Notley, was all but roundly rejected, even as she very politely and moderately encouraged fellow Dippers to have some empathy for the many unemployed oil patch workers in the very city they were meeting. It was the epitome of ideological sanctimony over democratic sanity - and it was hard to watch.
The takeaway from all of this is that if voters are looking for a "progressive-conservative" party of principle, they ought to go elsewhere, as the NDP has chosen extremism.
And to those moderate Dippers who doubt my words, recall the fate of Rome after the murder of Caesar; the Republic ended, and each successor was more excessive than the last.
Happy leader hunting.
