According to many pundits and journalists, i.e. people who like to think they actually know what's going on in this crazy old world of ours, the amazing phenomenon known as "Trudeaumania" is now all but dead.

"Trudeaumania," of course, is what we called the frenzied love affair us Canadians once enjoyed with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a leader who was perceived not so much as a man, but as a political god, someone who transcended mundane, regular politics and who would surely lift the entire planet into a blissful state of "sunny ways" nirvana.

But now, if the polls are to be believed, that rosy, utopian-tinged perception about Trudeau has apparently all but evaporated.  (Though it still seems to exist as strong as ever in certain corners of the CBC and Toronto Star.)

What killed Trudeaumania is no mystery: it was the SNC-Lavalin scandal, a sordid affair which, among other things, put on open display Trudeau's less than god-like weaknesses as a leader his vacillation, his arrogance, his poor communication skills, his "fake feminism" and his astounding ability to take a mole hill and turn it into Mount Everest.

Although it could also be argued that Trudeaumania has, in fact, been petering out for about a year now.

The Prime Minister Trudeau's ill-fated trip to India, his fights over oil pipelines, his proposed carbon tax, have all combined to tarnish Trudeau's once idolized brand.

So I guess you could say the SNC-Lavalin affair was essentially the final nail in Trudeaumania's coffin.

At any rate, to paraphrase Shakespeare, I write this column to analyze Trudeaumania, not to praise it.

Wait… now that I think about it, forget Shakespeare, I actually do want to praise Trudeaumania.

At least, in a way.

After all, love him or hate him, you have to agree that Trudeau's undeniable charisma and affable, boyish charm managed to accomplish something rather remarkable and astonishing: it saved the Liberal Party from the very brink of political extinction.

Yes I know that sounds a little dramatic, but keep in mind that back in the party's dark days following the thrashing it took in the 2011 federal election the Liberals seemed to have little hope.

Not only was the party  reduced to an embarrassing third-party status, not only was it having trouble raising money, not only had it suffered through a string of ineffective leaders, not only was it losing votes to the NDP's vaunted "Orange Wave", but in addition to all that, it faced a determined foe in then Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Indeed, in all their long history, the Liberals had never had to face an opponent quite like him.  Intelligent, ruthless and calculating, Harper was focussing all his power and all his skills to exploit every Liberal weakness to the fullest.

To be blunt, his goal was nothing less than to destroy the Liberal Party, to crush it into little bits of red dust.

This is why in those days pundits and journalists were saying the only way to defeat the Conservatives was to "Unite the Left,", i.e. to merge the Liberals with the NDP.

And one more electoral defeat would likely have pushed the Liberals over the edge.

In short, if it was to survive intact, the Liberal Party desperately needed a miracle.

That miracle arrived with the advent of Trudeaumania.

Indeed, when the Liberals picked him as their leader in 2013, Canadians could not help but love him; his magic last name, his rock star persona, his adorable enthusiasm for Canada, made him all but irresistible.

But he was still an untested novice when he took the reins of the Liberal Party, and rushing him into the leadership role to take on the battle-hardened Harper in the 2015 federal election was a huge gamble.

And as well all know, it paid off big time.

Why?  What explains the miracle of Trudeaumania?

Well, as it happens, in 2015 Canada was more than ready to embrace a "fun" leader, regardless of experience.

For one thing, Canadians wanted their own version of the hip Barack Obama; for another thing Harper, with his dour, boring personality, had more or less worn out his welcome, especially with the Canadian media, for another thing, the NDP had replaced as leader the popular late Jack Layton with the lackluster Thomas Mulcair.

In such an environment, Trudeaumania soared.

But hey, as they say "what goes up, must come down."

And the danger for the Liberals is that once the Trudeaumania craze truly crashes, their party might turn back into a pumpkin.

In other words, it'll be what it was before Trudeau's arrival, namely, a party that lacks vision, a party that lacks ideological consistency, a party that lacks roots outside of Canada's major urban centres and a party that's identified with scandal and with eastern-based big money capitalists.

And in this day and age, when populism of both the left and right variety is all the rage, that could be a bad look for the Liberals; really bad.

It's no coincidence, for instance, that Liberal Parties lacking the Trudeaumania magic have recently lost power in British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec.

Plus, let's not forget the media will likewise miss Trudeaumania.

After all, journalists have grown addicted to writing reams of copy praising prime ministerial socks.

So in a post-Trudeaumania world, the Liberals and the media will need another miracle.

Hence, get ready for Freelandmania!

Photo Credit: Rolling Stone