This is a special post-byelection edition of Doorstep Postings, the periodic political commentary column written by Josh Lieblein for The CJN.
Increasingly, there’s a question we must ask erudite readers like you: is there anyone left, in the Jewish community—or even outside of it—who will voluntarily defend the Liberal Party of Canada without sounding like a complete lunatic?
(Your response to this leading question is genuinely invited at the email address at the bottom of this column.)
For the time being, we’re being advised to dig in for (at least) a long year of Justin Trudeau petulantly facing down his haters inside and outside his party—consequences be damned—while forcing his elected members to spout ever greater inanities in the name of defending the country from the monstrous intentions of Pierre Poilievre.
Considering that his spokespeople are now saying aloud that Poilievre is “a fraudster”, and implying not-so-loudly that he is some sort of Russian asset because he (much like the PM) lacks a security clearance, the scary stories we will be hearing about the Conservative leader over the next few months will no doubt be limited only by the imaginations of those sequestered in the Trudeaubunker, waiting for the inevitable. While the Liberals make a game of tiptoeing up to the libel line and scurrying back, things that would have previously been thought impossible—such as the falling of Paul Martin’s old seat to the Bloc Québecois—become just another warning sign to be dismissed.
Signalling the kind of just-watch-me bravado that got them to this low point, two days before the bottom fell out in Montreal, the word was dutifully put out at the Liberal caucus retreat in Nanaimo to an easily bullied Press Gallery that was either too embarrassed or too cowed into submission to object. Going forward, we were going to see ‘Trudeau Unleashed’.
What would the difference between Trudeau on the leash and off be? Was this another attempt to treat The West Wing as a field manual and “let Bartlett be Bartlett”? And why did we now have to consider the dark implications of any association between Trudeau and leashes?
None of these questions were answered, and possibly not even asked. Had they been, and had Trudeau been treated with the same incredulity as Poilievre whenever he cooks up one of his patented whoppers, it might have given pause to the prime minister’s even-more-deranged fans.
You know the ones; the increasingly visible folks for whom slandering Poilievre isn’t enough. The ones who are less and less shy about letting their true contempt for Poilievre show and aren’t afraid to make up stories about his wife, his parentage, his sexuality, and anything else that crosses their fevered minds.
No doubt the Trudeau defenders will reach for the easily available justifications: Poilievre is a clear and present danger to the country, part of that ever-rising and ever present tide of fascism, the arch-rage farmer who whipped up his legions with untruths about our poor beleaguered PM and blinkered pollsters, pundits, and journalists alike to produce a thoroughly false narrative that Trudeau is on the rocks.
Even here in our own Jewish community, there’s concerns about some apparently out-of-nowhere push to support the Conservatives while ignoring whatever antisemitic associations Poilievre has trafficked in. And—most importantly—isn’t it so precious that the Conservatives are crying about Liberals being mean to them? Isn’t it sad that these weird incels can’t handle being made fun of by good, nice, kind, normal Liberals?
This last point is the crucial one, and it might feel a little familiar to you in the 12th month of certain left-oriented folks celebrating the actions of Hamas and other associated militias who have decided that resistance to oppression can take whatever form it pleases. This Liberal trafficking in weirdness and the associated Conservative pearl-clutching are simply the long-awaited results of messing around and finding out.
And if this was as far as our Liberal friends went, there would be very little to argue about. But no. They couldn’t help themselves. Once they got a taste of that sweet, sweet, righteous anger and the sight of Conservative displeasure, they have to justify it by talking about how unlike whatever the CPC was doing, this wasn’t just fighting back. No, this was morally justified. It just felt too good to stomp their opponents. And so they did it again, and again. Until finally they had lost everyone except their most ardent defenders, who are just fine with that. After all, these most bloodthirsty Liberals get what they want most of all—they get validated by the people allegedly in charge of this operation.
Much the same can be said for Jagmeet Singh, the junior partner in the now-defunct Confidence and Supply Agreement. That’s why he barely held onto one of his own safe seats in Winnipeg—while his candidate in Montreal, who had delusions of stopping a genocide while sitting in the parliament of another confirmed genocidal nation, fell short. And because Singh’s mismanagement of his own party is a lame copy of how Trudeau is steering the once mighty natural governing party towards ruin, the details don’t bear repeating here—like most things about Singh.
But let us be clear: it is not Russian disinformation, or ‘rage-farming’, or biased journalists, that ultimately led the Liberals and the NDP here. They, of their own free will, set themselves on a path towards the margins, and towards a fight with Poilievre that they are completely unprepared for.
Are you the kind of federal Liberal defender we’re looking for? Josh Lieblein can be reached at [email protected] for your response to Doorstep Postings. We might use your response in a future column, with or without your name attached—based on what you’re comfortable doing. (But it absolutely must be sent from a verifiable email address.)
