Trudeau and Singh as the Neoliberal Teflon-Twins
Trudeau and Singh as the Neoliberal Teflon-Twins
In comes Jagmeet Singh, they make a deal to become each others security blanket to see them though to the 2025 election.
There is no shortage of frustration over the political performance’s of Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh. Rex Murphy and Jordan Peterson voice their’s regularly and I share their antipathy to this less than dynamic duo. I have moved on though as I know too well we are stuck with them until 2025 and nothing is going to change. They are both protected species with a generous coating of no-stick Teflon— especially Trudeau, since over the last eight years he has walked away from an endless amount of skulduggery and tiresome behaviors.
Trudeau is protected by his wayward caucus as they are more groupies than colleagues. Under our system the caucus is supposed hold their leader accountable and there have been occasions where they should have censured his leadership. But this is the golden era of politics where perks and pensions prevail over all other issues, and branding is paramount.
This is a PM who likes his majorities as he is autocratic by nature and for him accountability sucks. When he didn’t get a majority in 2019 (which he saw as his entitlement) he called another election in 2021, and the results— a replica of 2019. The people had to speak twice before Trudeau heard our message, another .5 billion dollars later.
In comes Jagmeet Singh, they make a deal to become each others security blanket to see them through to the 2025 election. This gave Trudeau his de facto majority and Singh time to raise money as his party spent a lot in the last election with dismal results.
Canada’s broken democracy is a protection racket for indolent neoliberal politicians. Almost 50% of voters in all regions of Canada did not vote in the last election. The Liberals won only 32% of the popular vote while the CPC won 34%. But under our criminal FPTP (First Past The Post) voting system votes don’t necessarily translate into seats.
At election time voters cry out,"There’s nobody to vote for!” In other words none of the parties have anything to offer except sloganeering and promises they have no intention of keeping.
Being the centrist party, and Canadians terrified of anything resembling another Harperesque government, the neoliberal Liberals become the default party. Trudeau’s Liberals are well aware of the barrel they have voters over and take full advantage of it. They fear Proportionate Representation (PR) as it would see a lot seats emptied of groupie Liberals and return us to something resembling actual democracy.
As it is Canada does not have representative, responsible, or accountable government in Ottawa. Our Parliament has become an adult day care where redundancy and indolence prevail.
Our national media also provides protection for our federal government in all its excesses and deficiencies as it refuses to address the fundamental issues rending our country a failed democracy.
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The Neoliberal ideology arrived on the scene over forty years ago and has been devastating Western democracies ever since, Canada is no exception.
Pierre Trudeau was our last liberal prime minister. Brian Mulroney, a protege of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ( “There is no such thing as societies”) was our first neoliberal prime minister. All prime ministers since have been neoliberal, especially Harper and Trudeau.
In the 1993 federal election Canadians were so repulsed by Mulroney’s neoliberal agenda(though not identified as such) they destroyed his party at the polls, which led to Harper’s US Republicanism in Canada, destroying what was a uniquely Canadian form of conservatism.
Neoliberalism has the stated goal of eliminating political democracy reducing it to no more than window dressing for its reckless corporatist agendas.
Canada has become a neoliberal enclave and suffers accordingly. Nationhood and democracy have been sacrificed- “and the clowns into the vacant empire pass”.
“That is neoliberal democracy in a nutshell: trivial debate over minor issues by parties that basically pursue the same pro-business policies regardless of formal differences and campaign debate. Democracy is permissible as long as the control of business is off-limits to popular deliberation or change; i.e. so long as it isn’t democracy. The neoliberal system therefore has an important and necessary byproduct — a depoliticized citizenry marked by apathy and cynicism.”— Robert W. McChesney, American historian, from Profits over People
This explains very nicely why we Canadians have become — “a depoliticized citizenry marked by apathy and cynicism”.
“Neoliberalism works best when there is formal electoral democracy, but when the population is diverted from the information, access, and public forums necessary for meaningful participation in decision making.”—RW
Collapsed democracies turned neoliberal are totally vulnerable to war mongers with Western politicians as their bag men.