There are a lot of ways to show you're tough. Flex your muscles. Threaten— when you've got something to threaten with. Remind your enemy of what you've done to them before. Whatever.Talking down to them like a parent, though?On full reality TV display we learned afresh last week that Trump plays by a different ethical code than our modern 'rules-based,' latte-drinking, yoga-pose order. Just like Al Capone during prohibition running a soup kitchen and buying donuts for people on the streets because he couldn't handle seeing all the hunger, Trump's ethic puzzles a lot of us moralistic types. We gasp. We tut-tut. Like Ottawa's former MPP Catherine McKenney during the Trucker Convoy, with deep shock in our voice we gasp, “Lawlessness!” Well, somebody should have sat down with Zelenskyy and had a good viewing of the Godfather (although I have a sneaking suspicion that he knows Godfather ethics better than he lets on.) You don't come into the Godfather's home brandishing your coalitions, as if to say 'me and all my elite fellows think you're wrong.' You don't lecture.You show deference. Even if you don't like it, you play the role; you dress the part (put a carnation in your lapel.) You talk about loyalty, about family, about what you can do for the other in the future. Thankfulness.And even if you're the Godfather's arch enemy, for heaven's sake you don't call him 'Vito'.Or, 'Donald'.In cozy Canadian fashion, most of our commentators have suggested that yesterday Trudeau was speaking relationally — isn't that the Canadian default? — showing his personal connection to Trump. The work that they've done together and all that. Not so. His choice of words was much more cynical and ill-advised. Trudeau was speaking down to him. Not exactly what you should do with an apparent thug and narcissist.“Who in the world advised him to do this?” I wondered. “How can this possibly move things forward?”There's one other guy who has done this in public: Barack Obama. He has called him 'Donald' and 'The Donald'. And you can bet that behind those closed doors, they all call him Donald. Trump is the new self-made kid on the block who didn't go to Harvard, hates the WEF, probably couldn't define sophistry if you asked him to, and who's not allowed into their country club. To them he doesn't belong there.'Now Donald...its a dumb thing to do,' quips our PM.Talk about self-sabotage.It almost looked like Freeland, apparently dubbed 'The Killer' by Trump, had written the speech. You remember those challenging NAFTA negotiations back in 2018? Freeland, whose talk-down 'parentese' we had already come to know and cringe at, was our lead at the bargaining table. Trump's take on her: “We're very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada. We don't like their representative very much.”We know that Trump allows petty and public sniping to nag him. In 2019 Trump publicly called Trudeau two-faced, after the latter had been caught on camera guffawing with Macron, Rutte, and Boris Johnson about Trump. Whatever happened with Freeland over NAFTA, Trump has not forgotten.In 2011, Obama roasted Trump badly at the correspondents' dinner. He belittled Trump's experience. He suggested Trump fostered conspiracy theories like the moon landing and Obama's questionable birthplace. Obama also called him 'The Donald.'Roger Stone, Trump's political adviser has said, “I think that is the night he [Trump] resolves to run for president.” He quotes Trump: “Maybe I'll just run. Maybe I'll show them all.”Trump fought back and won the Presidency. Twice. He does not let belittling slide. He does not forget.Ok, so Trump thinks Canada is weak. Trudeau and his 'first post-nation' non-identity palaver has only made us more weak, and he continues to do so. For heaven's sake, stop digging us deeper. If we have any, to quote John Kerry, 'big stick to carry' let's find it and rattle it. But let's not be that smarmy moralistic privileged kid in the playground who nobody but our spoiled buddies likes anymore. We don't have any high ground from which to pat the bully on the head with a 'there-there'.Trump is not going to take a lecture from a yoga-posing Vogue model, who plays by rules that favour the privileged and disrespectful. The kind of ethics where Trudeau would never publicly say anything approaching Trump's locker-room talk, but would treat Jane Philpott, Jody Wilson Raybold, and other female MP's far more disrespectfully, and with many more tools than $130,000 in hush money. So somebody please take the mic from this guy. Give it to, say, 'We're gonna fight like hell' and 'Cheap beer for everyone' Doug Ford. Give it to Shawinigan Handshake Chretien or the motorbike-riding Deborah Grey. (Ahhh back in the day!)Or give the podium to the more Lego-ish Stephen Harper, who would do far better at meeting Trump mano-a-mano: with strength, intelligence and his stoic Canadian style.But please, let's not have this: 'Now Donald...'
