I think being afraid of scaring people off got them where they are.
Voters were overwhelmingly willing to vote for Pollievre, a man everyone detests, simply because he was a fuck you to Ottawa and the status quo.
That 'burn it down' energy has been tamped down by the threats from the south, but sooner or later it will be back (or we'll no longer be talking about Canadian elections), and when it does the NDP needs to be ready to point the molotovs at where the real blame is.