— Feature, Musings —12.21.2024 01:20 PM
My latest: the alien
The thing you need to understand about Justin Trudeau is that he doesn’t live a life like you and I do.
It’s like he’s David Bowie in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth – impossibly good-looking, fabulously rich, effortlessly charismatic. But an alien.
Gerald Butts and I used to be close. One time, he invited me to his birthday dinner. It was him and his wife, and me and mine. Trudeau swept in, late, and it was really the first time I encountered him close up. If you had said he breathed a different air than the rest of us, I would’ve believed it. Trudeau was the centre of the room, and everything was in his orbit.
Later I asked my wife about his obvious charisma. “Every woman wants to be with him,” she said. “Even the married ones.” (She used different words than “be with.”)
Being a political guy, I was always on the lookout for talent. I thought Trudeau should run. “Not yet,” Butts said. “Wait.”
When Trudeau’s Dad died, he gave the eulogy. Butts told me he wrote it, but Justin Trudeau delivered that eulogy like every single word and dramatic pause had been forged in the crucible of his soul. It seared. It soared. It was the start of his Prime Ministerial campaign.
Me, I was concerned. Everyone else in Canada thought that eulogy came from the depths of Justin Trudeau’s grief. But I knew it came from Gerald Butts’ keyboard. I started to wonder if Justin Trudeau was a bit of a phony.
Now, look: I know the political species. I’ve been around it my entire adult life. They’re almost all phonies. Like the Liberal MP I ran into a few days ago at the liquor store. I remarked about him making the big and selfless decision to leave politics. “Oh, there may be a cabinet shuffle,” he said. “I’ll stay for that.” He did. On Friday, he got his wish. Good morning, Minister Phony.
So, they’re all actors. They don’t say that Ottawa is Hollywood for ugly people for nothing, you know.
But Justin Trudeau’s acting ability was like nothing I’d ever seen. As the country would eventually discover, he could be hooked up to a battery of lie detectors and say that he’s a fiscal conservative – or that he’d never ever worn blackface to parties with other rich white people to get a laugh, or that he’d never ever been accused of groping a woman at a beer festival in BC – and it wouldn’t register a blip. The needle wouldn’t move.
He’s one of those liars who lies so effortlessly, you can tell he believe the lies, too. He achieves that state of gracelessness by never exposing himself to contrary facts.
So – and this is the God’s truth – he doesn’t pay any attention whatsoever to the news media. He regarded news as fake news long before Donald Trump and his winged monkeys claimed to copyright the phrase. Trudeau will do an event, hop back on his Challenger jet, and start scrolling through pictures of himself on Instagram. He doesn’t give a damn about what the commentariat says. Never has.
He’s aided and abetted in this by his Lady Macbeth, Katie Telford. I explained the Telford-Trudeau relationship to a Liberal Senator recently, describing it as akin to coaching a sumo wrestler. “She feeds him candies and keeps him completely in the dark,” I said. The Liberal Senator was laughing so much I thought he was going to pass out.
That’s the main insight I can offer about Justin Trudeau: he’s a space alien, and he doesn’t read me and Brian Lilley, ever. Or anyone. It’s never occurred to him to even try.
Until the past week or so, that is, when his universe shifted on its axis. He, the anti-racist feminist middle classist, fired Chrystia Freeland to clear the runway for another rich white guy, and she hit back with a ferocity that only spurned cultists possess. (Kinsellian Political Rule Number Two: never fire someone who knows lots of stuff about you during a crisis.)
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Never fire your Finance Minister just moments before she’s going to give her fall economic update. That was very foolish.
Re: Nathaniel Erskine-Smith’s reversal on running again. All that for a Cabinet job that will last, what, 5 months tops? The NDP now wants to defeat the government. HoC resumes end of January. Not sure when the first Opposition day occurs, but let’s say the government falls mid-February, setting up an election to be held in early April.
NES might well win Beaches-East York but he’ll be in a 3rd or 4th place caucus of maybe 30 MPs and likely to be that way for 2 decades. I’m of the view we are witnessing a paradigm shift. Once the NDP gets a new leader oriented to the working class, the nation’s debates will be reconfigured between the main actors of the Conservatives and the NDP. The Liberal party will be an annoying neoliberal corporatist rump representing the luxury beliefs of old-money non-meritocratic inherited wealth in the most exclusive neighbourhoods of the 3 biggest cities.
Or maybe that’s why NES took the job. These 4-5 months will be the only time in his career that he will get to experience a Cabinet post, at least at the federal level, so why not enjoy it? Hope it’s worth his dignity.
Gold:
“The Liberal party will be an annoying neoliberal corporatist rump representing the luxury beliefs of old-money non-meritocratic inherited wealth in the most exclusive neighbourhoods of the 3 biggest cities.”
Many of whom, as a couple, will get to keep some of their OAS despite earning over 360k in 2025 if they arranged their affairs properly with the help of someone like me. Actually much more indirectly through trusts, estates and corporations but I digress. And the Bloc wants to make that problem worse! Hopefully we can back to the serious business of OAS reform that was started before we were so rudely interrupted 9 years ago. And it will be high on Pierre’s to do list right after defunding the CBC.
What is “neoliberal” about the Liberal party? It is the party of the Laurentian Elite, whose oligopolistic ways are far removed from neoliberalism.
Admittedly, no ideological label will be 100% consistent. IMO the Trudeau Liberals operate largely in the Blairite neoliberal sphere that sees individual humans as nothing more than interchangeable economic units (so the more the merrier, right? Hence very high immigration, “post-national state”, etc). In theory neoliberalism is supposed to be capitalist and hands-off in markets, but in practice modern neoliberals like the Trudeau Libs employ state intervention on behalf of certain protected classes (in Canada, wealthy homeowning elderly in particular). Out-of-control financialization of the housing market was permitted under the Liberals without the slightest hinderance or oversight since it benefited Canada’s protected classes. But when it looked like the protected classes might lose home equity during Covid, instead of allowing the market to cleanse itself of excess leverage, the government swooped in with mortgage deferrals and unsustainably high migration to fill vacant rentals and push up rents.
Additionally, despite the platitude about the middle class and those looking to join it, the Liberals did precisely *nothing* to rebalance the tax burden between those who work (paying high income tax) and those who live off asset appreciation (paying much lower capital gains tax, or nothing at all in the case of principal residences). I think Poilievre understands that the tax burden needs to swing away from labour income. It has to. The working class – by that I mean EVERYONE who works a job and receives employment income, in all capacities – is his base and are long overdue for a break. Not handouts, but meaningful tax reduction on labour income including the top levels.
He’ll end up like Garth Turner (remember him?). Guy sat in the cabinet of Kim Campbell but never actually attended a QP as a minister due to Her Blipness.
Hope NES enjoys the podcastosphere as much as Garth did the blogosphere.
Who are the 24?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ontario-liberal-mps-want-trudeau-to-resign-1.7417337
Unless they physically pick him up and throw him out the door he is not leaving. He is a delusional narcissistic race baiter who loves living high off the public purse while the minions suffer.
Trudeau resigns and that means Telford is gonzo, too.
No longer will she be protected.
Eventually, she’ll be investigated.
What will they fine?
How incriminating will it be?
Nathaniel Erskine Smith is going to be doing an awful lot of explaining to an awful lot of people over the Christmas Holidays.
He is less of an alien and more of a freak. Wide swaths of Canada, and those not ruled by hormones, saw this from the start.
He never fooled us
Yup all I ever saw were his drama capabilities.
Never was I impressed at PET’s funeral soliloquy – it was clear by the exaggerated emoting that he studied the William Shatner method of acting.
I believe he held that mystical power over Liberals, many of whom believed Canada had merely asked them to sit in the penalty box.
That was enough to give him (let me count…) ONE majority government. He has one popular vote victory.
Funny the number who criticize Trump for his hair! They are equally incapable of honesty, frequently benefactors of their electoral systems, and get support from people that they share no common identity.
Amazing how the same people who go on about how Americans can vote for the village idiot do the very same thing when given the chance.
That’s offensive to William Shatner.
Agreed. 1,000% offensive to William Shatner.
I am truly sorry to Mr Shatner and all his fans
A lot of Red Tories were fooled in 2015 as I constantly remind them. The mind boggles.
Justin Trudeau is not superhuman or remarkable in any way. He coasts based on the immense brand power of the the “Trudeau” and “Liberal” names. That is more a deficiency of the Canadian character than JT’s acting ability.