Donald Trump’s arrival in politics unleashed unhealthy instincts in many people in America, people who stored rage deep in their stomachs at politics as it existed.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
Before Trump, modesty existed, but politicians abused it to the voter’s disgust, and thus the beast was born.
He has engendered in us disciples whom I call nano-Trumps, that is to say politicians who shrivel up the discourse by borrowing his recipe to make their political fortune.
In our immediate environment, three nanos stand out more than the others.
Maxime Bernier, known as the Nobel Prize, which even Beauce compatriots no longer want.
Pierre Poilievre, a preacher patentee of individual freedom who wants to replace the Bank of Canada by BET99, and who gives the impression of talking about things that he does not understand himself.
And Éric Duhaime, a bit like the Mathias Bones of Quebec politics, this undertaker from the Lucky Luke comic strip who takes advantage of the misfortune of others.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada
The case of Mr. Bernier has become pathetic. He rots standing politically surrounded by tackles of an English-speaking Falangist right. But let us remember that someone has already appointed him Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, although he has not been for a year, but still. I imagine him in a conversation with Bernard Kouchner or Condoleezza Rice at the time… Embarrassing! He also came close to becoming leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC).
Mr. Poilievre, remembering Mr. Bernier’s campaign, said to himself that he wouldn’t lose by a hair, him… Excuse her! Still in the funerary theme, he will probably preside over the death of the CCP as we know it today if he wins, and the same if he loses. Note that this party was the result of a merger with the late Reform Party of Canada, not quite a poet’s group at the time, let’s say… The guy is off the rails and his impersonation of Trump is buffoonish.
The case of Mr. Duhaime is more complex, but just more vicious in other respects. There’s no denying the man’s intelligence, if we compare him to the Nobel Prize, for example.
In Quebec, he rewrote the big book of public insanities with his toxic radio friends, of which he is still an almost integral part of the programming today.
But by a curious phenomenon of almost generalized omission, we do not seem to remember this nauseating past. He currently has the right to a political safe-conduct. Which is not abnormal considering his score of more or less 15% in the polls, and the novelty he brings in the current bland political universe.
The great quality of the gentleman is to have a nose for the right occasions and to smell the smell of blood from afar.
And he knows a lot about politics, having been an activist and/or worked for the PQ, the Bloc Québécois, the ADQ, the PCC and now the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ). Vast expertise and a superb capacity for ideological adaptation, you will agree.
He eventually becomes libertarian when he feels the rising force of this political current among the neighbors to the south. But we have the impression that he became so less out of conviction than to distinguish himself publicly, and because it could pay off. In any case, this mental posture and this difference probably allowed him to receive good emoluments for several years in the radio industry.
He is, so to speak, a politician of the pandemic. Hence the smell of blood. His flair made him quickly understand that this calamity would create discontent and protest. The question became to know who would recover this political clientele available to the sure face. He knew how to take the lead with great skill by becoming the leader of a moribund party.
The early devotee of the PCQ, who is caricatured as a conspirator, generally travels from convoy to freedom convoy in a Ford F-150 displaying flags whose meaning, incidentally, I did not understand. He is either sincerely disgusted with politics as it is currently practiced; either he has a strong propensity for party ; either he wants to one day become a member of a caravanning club; or he wants to be part of a family, get out of his mind-numbing solitude or his basement. It’s up to you.
Mr. Duhaime is also very skilful. He has the answer to everything. He reminds me once of some of my most brilliant Marxist-Leninist student colleagues at university, who knew how to answer any questions about the doctrine of the prophet Karl. But as they knew very well that no communist regime would see the light of day in our country, they could answer anything at the limit, it was without consequence. Like Mr. Duhaime who knows that he will not form the next government, and who can therefore be in favor of whatever the good people want, and against everything the good people hate. He won’t have to answer for anything after the elections.
The guy is efficient, very efficient even, and there is a definite available market for a outsider of the kind. Nevertheless, we are a ton not to believe in his freshness and his political bullshit.
And as the undertaker Bones explains in an episode: the most difficult part of his job is to retain customers. We’ll see about Mr. Duhaime.
But let us remember Éric Zemmour in France, who, with the same posture of the politician who did not emanate from the seraglio, had to break the house a few months ago in the presidential election, with the disappointing result that we know now.
Between us
Excerpt from the latest book by Yascha Mounk, The Great Experiment – Democracies Put to the Test by Diversity
The Great Experiment – Democracies Put to the Test by Diversity
Yascha Mounk
Observatory Editions
“There are many important differences between far-right leaders such as Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban and Jair Bolsonaro, Narendra Modi and Récep Tayyip Erdogan. They come from different religious traditions, have pledged allegiance to different ideological tribes, and direct their anger against different enemies. But all are offspring of the same powerful strain of ethnic majoritarianism: they view their country’s most visible minority as a threat to its well-being and swear to defend the majority. »