Pierre Poilievre is using Donald Trump's playbook to claw his way to power. He specializes in telling whoppers. Michael Harris writes:
As adroitly pointed out by Gary Mason in The Globe and Mail, Poilievre’s claims that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is responsible for the housing crisis is patently false. Speculative and predatory international investors, one of the main causes of high housing prices, do not make an appearance in the videos. As usual, these videos are emotion-heavy and fact-averse.
Nor is Trudeau keeping drug addicts on the street and in a mess by giving them the very substances that have ruined their lives. That’s how the opposition leader depicts safe injection sites, despite the informed opinions to the contrary of addiction specialists and police, who know that such sites save—not take— lives.
That is done not, as Poilievre claims, by giving these addicts dirty drugs, like the lethal ones they buy in dark allies. They get the clean variety, and they get them in a rehabilitative setting. Again, Poilievre rates a 10 on the Pinocchio scale for this dangerous populism. But it plays well with people who like to think of Trudeau as a pusher.
Apparently, all it takes for Poilievre to spin out the whoppers like a sleepless Donald Trump ranting on Truth Social is his rage coach, a set of facts to mangle, and a target whose demise would be to his direct political advantage.
For Poilievre, the target is Trudeau. But it's democracy that Poilievre really has in his sights:
Whether a Canadian has no roof over their head or not enough grocery money, it’s Trudeau’s fault. Poilievre’s political future depends on Canadians buying his junk political analysis. If they do, the Conservative Party of Canada will have done the same damage to Canadian democracy as Trump has done to American democracy.
The irony of Poilievre relentlessly training his “firehouse of falsehoods” on Trudeau is that it is totally unnecessary. There is a far better way to get Canadians to vote for you, Poilievre. Talk about Trudeau’s policy decisions, why you oppose them, and how you would have done a better job. You, too, can converse without sneering.
Lord knows there is a lot to talk about, including pipelines that should or shouldn’t have been bought; the success or failure of Canada’s aspirational carbon emission targets; whether Ottawa is or isn’t paying its fair share for health care; and so on. That way, people would see how your mind works, apart from the low art of sloganeering. They would see what you actually stand for, and why you would make a better prime minister than your favourite whipping boy.
But the Conservative Party and its leader seem transfixed by what happened in the United States back in 2016. Trump proved that it is possible to lie and slander your way into the White House. He handed his Canadian political cousins the bully’s blueprint to power.
Canadians should be smart enough to see the ruse. Time will tell.
Image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr
12 comments:
. They would see what you actually stand for
I get the impression that that would mean a wholesale migration to other parties though I may be giving Poilievre too much credit by assuming he actually has a coherent platform.
So far his platform seems to be 1)Justin did it, 2) Justin did it, 3) JUSTIN DID IT.
His bat-SSS crazy ideas like auditing the Bank of Canada--which is audited every year already, converting everything to bitcoin just as the bitcoin universe goes into meltdown, and rescinding the carbon tax as a good part of Canada goes up in smoke probably would not appeal to a lot of voters.
Like Trump, jrk, Pierre isn't very smart.
Harris goes on to say ...
"The consequences of Trump’s misrule have been equally disastrous for the U.S. Under his non-stop torrent of lies and rabid partisanship, racism has reappeared in American politics. Congress has become dysfunctional."
and gives tRump way to much credit when he was/is just cheering on the morass that is already into its' third or forth decade.
Lil'PP and tRump are symptoms, not causes. And they provide great distractions while the Biden/Trudeau types greenwash fossil-fuel mass-suicide and drag us into distant wars that could become nuclear-mass-suicides.
Biden and Trudeau are no saviors, PoV. On the other hand, Trump and Poilievre can be the catalysts of our own damnation.
You are correct Owen that Canadians should see the ruse, but I'm afraid many choose not to. As Harper had his obnoxious pit bulls, Poilievre has his. Two of the nastiest are none other than Melissa Lantsman and Michael Cooper. The constantly repeat Poilievre's nonsense. RG
The Conservatives have become generally nasty, RG. Diplomacy is not their strong suit.
and gives tRump way to much credit when he was/is just cheering on the morass that is already into its' third or forth decade.
Exactly. Trump's crazy populist rantings certainly stirred up some of the alt-right nutcases but most of the mess is a heritage of decades of Republican intransitiveness, an unfortunate tendency for Americans to believe crazy conspiracy theories, plus a remarkably corrupt Congress and Senate covering both main parties.
One could even say that he "might" have done something positive[1] but he had no idea of how a government, particularly that morass on the Potomac worked. Defence officials publicly have said they simply disobeyed his orders to reduce US troop strength in Syria.
1. Admittedly probably by accident but his desire to get out of Syria and Afghanistan made sense.
And, when Biden got out of Afghanistan, Republicans howled, jrk.
Perhaps you are working on a post about this ... meanwhile here is an off topic comment (svp):
The results of last night's by-elections belie the silly polls saying that CONs are well ahead of the Libs.
(And to sweeten that result, is the thought that the scorched-earth right wing blather Lil'PP used to defeat Bernier in Portage-Lisgar, will come back to haunt him from now until the writ is finally dropped.)
The polls are a constant part of the dis-information campaign foisted on us by the (mostly foreign owned) media. The execrable Nat. Post chain went one further on the eve of 4 by-elections with an invented story that Jr. was the subject of a NEW RCMP investigation.
The phony polls and media lies and (especially) Lil'PP's ugly antics did not work. Oh to be a fly on the wall at the next CON caucus meeting.
So two signs that Lil'PP's leadership may follow the well worn path of Scheer and O'Toole. (Perhaps even before an election?)
1)
Last night, Mulroney "hailed Trudeau for his “leadership” of Canada through repeated crises, saying that’s what history will remember, not “trivia and the trash and the rumours that make the rounds” in Ottawa. " (Who comes immediately to mind atm when they hear 'Ottawa trash-talker'?)
"Mulroney called the COVID-19 pandemic “the greatest challenge that any prime minister” has had to deal with in 156 years." And he lauded the tRump/NAFTA negotiation as much tougher than his own with Reagan/Bush.
2)
"Conservative members of Parliament joined other parties to vote in favour of a bill that enshrines the federal government's long-term commitment to a Canada-wide early learning and child-care system.
The Liberals introduced the bill late last year as part of an effort to ensure that future federal governments would continue providing child-care funding to provinces.
The bill, which passed unanimously, also creates a national advisory council on early learning and child care."
unanimously eh? Where was Lil'PP? Or perhaps its "Whither Lil'PP"!)
I read Mulroney's comments, PoV. I think he's on to something.
11:51...You wrote it and I agree with your observation. Anyong
Poilievre is not a positive force, Anyong.
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