Today's News: "President Musk" memes, Poilievre sell-out, Trump bald, Mangione fade

America fucked around and they're already finding out what they really elected:

Can we just start using WTYS for “We told you so” to save character space over the next 4 years?

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 19, 2024

They thought they were voting for cheaper bacon and they got new conflicts with the EU, Mexico, Canada and Panama.

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 8:07 PM

Paul Krugman / Krugman Wonks Out

The Chaos Monkeys Have Already Taken Over the Zoo

The peddlers of misinformation are high on their own supply

...antics like the potential shutdown will do much more damage to the Musk/Trump administration than they realize. (There’s also this other guy — JV Dance or something? — but he clearly doesn’t matter.)

First, since the election financial markets have clearly been betting that Trump will do very little of what he promised during the campaign — that we won’t really have a trade war, just some minor trade skirmishes, that we’ll have symbolic deportations rather than a mass roundup of immigrants, and so on. Markets have, in effect, discounted the disastrous consequences that would follow if Trump honored his own promises.

But a government shutdown in response to completely false claims about what’s in an innocuous short-term funding measure suggests that the peddlers of misinformation are high on their own supply. Trump may really believe that foreigners will pay tariffs, that U.S. trade deficits subsidize the rest of the world, that there’s a reserve army of American workers available to fill the gaps deportation would create. I don’t want to put too much weight on the latest market fluctuations, but it is starting to look as if investors are questioning their own complacency

Second, many, probably most people who voted for Trump believed that he really is the character he played on The Apprentice — a highly competent manager. ...Trump’s edge depended entirely on support from voters who don’t pay much attention to politics

How will these voters react if, as seems all too likely, the second Trump administration is instead marked by rolling chaos?

Anyway, it’s pretty remarkable. Inauguration Day is still a month away, yet the chaos monkeys have already taken over.

Today's News: #IStandWithTrudeau is trending

#IStandWithTrudeau2025 is trending tonight:

Good job. Now carry on fighting the good fight at least until we see where we’re at with the Trump/Musk situation by Inauguration Day and have the foreign interference report in hand at the end of January. No resignation! #IStandWithTrudeau2025

— Charles Prepolec (@sherlockeditor) December 20, 2024

Here's some good news -- the Trudeau GST cuts appear to be working to give the economy a boost:

I work in a restaurant ~ everyone is talking about the tax break.

It is a definite boost for restaurants and the first policy move that I’ve seen truly break through to average people in a long time.

— Jenny-P 🇨🇦 🌻 (@Jenn_Pastrak) December 20, 2024

Today's News: Weakness all around

The government shutdown talk in the United States shows Trump for what he really is -- 

a weak clown

 Oliver Willis / Daily Kos 

Billionaires lead GOP revolt against critical spending bill 

...Led by billionaires who have been appointed by Donald Trump to wield massive influence over his incoming administration, Republican members of Congress are rejecting a last-ditch spending bill just days before a possible government shutdown. 

 House Speaker Mike Johnson has had to reach across the aisle for Democratic assistance to pass the continuing resolution legislation ahead of Friday, the last day before funding dries up. But hard-line Republicans in his own party have voiced their opposition to the bill, which contains economic aid for those hit by recent hurricanes and some relief for farmers. 

 It looks like they’re taking their cues from the likes of failed presidential candidate and billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump appointed to lead the advisory (and completely unofficial) Department of Government Efficiency alongside multibillionaire Elon Musk. The obscenely wealthy duo wants the bill killed. 

Canada is giving Trump lots of coverage this week as he has tweeted about Freeland resigning and Canada becoming a US state.

It appears Trump is suffering from CDS, Canadian Deragement Syndrome.

I know you want us, but we're just not that into you.

— J Hunter🍁 (@MrJoKeR604) December 18, 2024

In Canada, Trudeau seems to be going from bad to worse. Grenier gives an excellent summary of the slide in Liberal fortunes since July 2023:

Éric Grenier / The Writ 

Weekly Writ 12/18: After a tough 18 months, will this week end Trudeau? 

How the cycle of bad polling and unforced errors has brought the Liberals where they are today. 

...[Trudeau]seems to have three options available to him, none of them good: he can try to hold on, call an election or resign. The least-bad option for him and his party would seem to be a resignation. A competitive leadership race that names a new prime minister early next year would give the Liberals a fighting (if still long-shot) chance in the next election. By comparison, sacrificing himself on the electoral altar in a snap vote would do little good for the Liberal Party and trying to hold on as prime minister for as long as possible would likely do even more harm. 

Whether or not an election now is the right call for the country as a whole is another matter entirely. Depending on how one views what the Conservatives would do once in office, one could debate that Trudeau giving a successor a chance in the next election later is better than handing over the reins of power to Pierre Poilievre now, but it is increasingly untenable for Trudeau to believe that staying on in his weakened state is the better option for Canada, especially in the context of the looming tariff threat south of the border. 

 Of course, this week’s bombshell didn’t occur in isolation. It’s the culmination of a cycle of series of decisions and events spanning Trudeau’s time in office since 2015 that has been accelerated by the Liberals’ more recent slide in the polls. Attempts to halt that slide resulted in unforced errors, further driving the cycle of bad polls, unforced errors and caucus (and, now, cabinet) unrest.

While the catalyst for the slide might not have explicitly been the cabinet shuffle of July 26, 2023, it certainly seems to have been an inflection point for the government. It was presented as a reset for the Liberals but seemed to many voters to have simply been more of the same. 

Umm....about that deficit? Actually, it's not as bad as we thought.

I was shocked - SHOCKED - when I saw how much the deficit has increased according to the Fall Economic Statement yesterday.  Lots of people were freaking out.

Turns out, it sounds much worse than it actually is. 

Rough math, Canada’s deficit is at like 2.1% of gdp….. A little context: The U.S is at like 6%, The EU guardrail is 3%. The sky is in fact; not falling #Cdnpoli

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— booth4scartown.bsky.social (@booth4scartown.bsky.social) December 16, 2024 at 1:36 PM

Correct, don't let anyone tell you $61B is a terrible deficit. Canada has a larger population and much higher GDP than when Harper was PM. There are reasons for Trudeau to step down. The budget isn't one of them. #cdnpoli #bcpoli #onpoli

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— elcanaco.bsky.social (@elcanaco.bsky.social) December 16, 2024 at 7:59 PM

Dale Smith explains: 

 ...last year’s deficit was larger than expected because the government booked a bunch of legal settlements—primarily for the Indigenous communities—onto last year’s books (which is probably also why the Public Accounts have been delayed). These were one-time costs, so that means the deficit can continue to decline in the future, and economist Armine Yalnizyan noted that this was essentially a gift to the next government because it’s off their books, and they can make it look like they were more prudent managers when that’s not necessarily the case. Nevertheless, the government didn’t try to tease or hint that this was coming, which really makes you wonder about whoever is trying to decide on their communications strategy.

Today's News: Trudeau decides not to decide

After a day of breathless anticipation, Trudeau is still Prime Minister tonight. But tune in tomorrow....

Here's Scrimshaw's liveblog of what happened through this afternoon and caucus meeting: Liberals In Crisis LiveBlog: Freeland Resigns On The Ongoing Crisis 

TLDR: at 5 pm it looked like Trudeau wouldn't survive the meeting, but by 6:45 pm he is still PM. Scrimshaw writes "Trudeau isn’t resigning tonight, but it also looks like caucus hasn’t actually backed the PM." 

On Twitter and Bluesky, there is lots of mixed opinions.  

Here's one way to look at it:

The only chaos is in the frenzie spewing from MSM. Two Ministers left - one left to be with family (but is staying with the Liberal party) & the other was pulled off the file for incompetence. This is called attrition, not chaos. Get. A. Life. PMJT’s not going anywhere. Cope.🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/lC41UiGse7

— BKBelton (@bk_belton) December 17, 2024

Funny stuff and fascinating threads and animal crackers

Enjoy some of the funny stuff and the words of wisdom that I have been collecting lately:

I passed it too, did you? pic.twitter.com/98U7kI62Ob

— Jerseygirl #FBR 🟧 (@gggirl924) December 4, 2024

pic.twitter.com/pQfcrLu3Ua

— Eric Alper 🎧 (@ThatEricAlper) December 3, 2024

Today's News: "So how does one prepare for a dictatorship?"

So how does one prepare for a dictatorship?

— Rocket’s Bitch (@Cheezydork74) December 11, 2024

Is everyone just whistling past the American graveyard right now?

I'm seeing a lot of coverage of Trump's incompetent, unqualified toady nominees for this or that or the other -- "The Trump cabinet: A merger of Fox & friends and The Sopranos". And I'm seeing coverage about how Trump expects everyone to "bend the knee" and I'm seeing comment on Trump's crazy ideas for ridiculous tarrifs and mass deportations and closing the border and sending troops into American cities and pardoning all the J6 people and rewriting the 2020 election and jailing anybody who resists or ever did resist Trump.

But shouldn't our media be putting this all together?  

Yes, each awful nomination gets some push-back from American media, and the blizzard of "executive orders" released on Jan 21 will be poured over individually and likely challenged in court. But its the whole picture that is really terrifying. 

This isn't going to be politics as usual. 

When you put it all together, Trump's administration is going to be a dictatorship. 

I have called it it "Trump 2: The Revenge Tour" and that is exactly what it will be.  

And dictators never leave voluntarily. 

And they don't allow opposition parties to win elections either. 

Today's Roundup: The CEO assassination

This gentleman is spot-fucking-on. The assassination of United Healthcare's CEO by a highly intelligent Ivy League graduate dealing with chronic pain is a watershed moment in our history and an example of the Republican deregulation machine attacking itself. 🎯🎯🎯👇 pic.twitter.com/BhOx5bzHCC

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) December 11, 2024

The assassination of a US health insurance executive and the subsequent arrest of the shooter shouldn't really be such an existential story. 

But in the United States, we see such anger and fear and despair over health insurance company cruelty, and such a propensity to use violence to solve problems.

There is a warning here for Canada too, if our Conservative provincial governments keep trying to privatize more and more medicare services, NOBODY in Canada wants a US-style health care system. NOBODY

Getting back to the story, it is also an astounding cautionary tale: the rich people who always thought of themselves as the good guys -- well-off, upper class, safe neighbourhoods, private schools, classy restaurants, nice cars, good doctors, cleaning ladies to do the scut work, etc -- have now discovered that millions of ordinary people maybe actually hate them. Or at least are not particularly outraged when somebody shoots one of them down in the street. 

And this upper class group includes many of the mainstream media journalists, who themselves are rich enough to be insulated from fear of health care denial, and who are now shocked, SHOCKED, by the cheering.

Just saying’ if a US health insurance company can deny coverage, you don’t, in fact, have insurance. You have a lottery ticket.

— Stephen Best (@BestStephenD) December 5, 2024

Today's News: The Trudeau government is "playing a bad hand as well as they can"

I was looking at X tonight, and saw that Maple MAGA is just delighted with the "Governor Trudeau" insult.

Jerks!

Here's what I think happened: 

Trump saw all the praise in Canada for Trudeau's dinner initiative, and saw how Trudeau charmed the other Mar-A-LardAss dinner guests, and only then did he realize that inviting Trudeau to dinner had given Canada an advantage that Trump didn't actually intend us to have. 

So he found a way to slap us down again, with his Flag post and his Governor Trudeau post. 

Now, Maple MAGA doesn't understand it, but many Canadians know the insult was intended to ridicule all of us, not just Trudeau. 

I haven't seen a reaction from Trudeau yet to Trump's insulting trolling. 

But now I don't expect to see one -- I think Scrimshaw is correct in saying Trudeau should focus on results rather than performative outrage: 

Scrimshaw Unscripted

In Defence Of Trudeau's Trump Strategy

Stop Asking For Them To Overreact

...There’s really no way to talk about this honestly without just being blunt - those people who want us to scream that ”#Actually We Are Independent And Won’t Be Trampled With” at every provocation of the Trump Transition have some of the most truly pathetic small dick energy we’ve ever seen. It’s a hot dog hollering.....

What the government is doing is what people who actually have the asset or attributes that are under discussion do - they don’t focus on winning the public debate, they focus on achieving outcomes....

Let’s say Trudeau comes out today flanked by whoever you like - all the Premiers, all the party leaders, a group of esteemed Canadians, or even all of the above. He stares down the camera, puts on his best serious voice, and says that Canada has won a war of southern aggression once before and that if need be they will fight one again. He says that Canadians may respect America, but the fundamental glory of Canada is in its learnings both from American success but also American failure. He says that we will not subjugate Canadians to any nonsense from a wannabe authoritarian. What happens the minute he’s done giving that speech?

I’m sure a bunch of idiots would feel better about themselves,... But it would get a reaction from Washington, including from the famously volatile President-elect who is known for having enemies. It would do no good except in making some of us feel better.

I don’t know this, but it does seem likely to me that Trump’s continuing with this line of provocation in large part because it’s not getting a response from us. Annexing Canada isn’t happening, and a serious or credible attempt at it isn’t either. There is no universe in which an admin with the active crises it faces in Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, and Syria, plus the cold but important conflict-in-all-but-name with China, would ever muster the theoretical capacity to plan such a strike, let alone the actual capacity to attack. You have Elon and Vivek agreeing with Bernie Sanders that military spending cuts are on the table in their fake Not-A-Department, but they’re gonna invade and annex Canada. Sure.

...What the Trudeau government is doing is playing a very bad hand about as well as they can. They have certain assets, but we are a smaller, economically reliant country that relies on American goodwill as a replacement for genuinely innovative economic policy. We can fight about what extent the fault lies with Pierre Trudeau or Brian Mulroney or Doug Ford or Mike Harris or Chretien or whoever the fuck another time. Right now we have to play the cards we have well. And what so many seem to want is counterproductive claptrap. If someone can articulate an actual path from Trudeau forcefully condemning these comments to a good outcome for Canadians I’ll listen to the case. But it doesn’t exist....

CWAA today: Trump tries to troll Trudeau

Today's edition of "Christ, What An Asshole" (CWAA):

Donald Trump is once again “joking” about annexing Canada into the United States, this time calling Justin Trudeau the “Governor” of the “Great State of Canada.” Totally normal and not crazy at all

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— Republicans Against Trumpism (@rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social) December 9, 2024 at 11:53 PM

Maple MAGA seems to be just delighted that their boy Trump is so ballsey and tough:

"For those of us who recognize a good troll, the response has been, and will be, lighthearted. One does not have to be a fan of Trump to recognize a good troll. These things are mutually exclusive.

By reducing Trudeau’s status to Governor of the Great State of Canada, he did all… pic.twitter.com/jFOtg2MIqn

— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) December 10, 2024

Well, this is what I think about that:

Anyone who wants to refer to my country as the "51st State" can just f**k right off, please and thank you.

Sorry not sorry. 🇨🇦

— 🍁Canadian Fletchy☘️ 🌻🇺🇦 (@Darth_Pingu) December 10, 2024

Sorry but everytime Trump "trolls" Justin Trudeau

It just increases Trudeau sagging popularity. We have already seen a bump in Trudeau support from Nanos - so I say

Trump keep it up!!! c @Red_Toryism

— gtlem.bsky.social 林 家 聰 (@gtlem) December 10, 2024

Waiting for Trudeau to go "dark brandon" on Trump...

🇨🇦💯 pic.twitter.com/7e94dpOiyh

— 🇨🇦SUPPORTUKRAINE! 🇺🇦🌻SUPPORT ISRAELI PPL!🇮🇱 (@sampanties) August 1, 2024

Things I didn't know: English reading; troops in Syria; Canadian oligarchy; and we have our very own wankpuffin!

In the category of "things I didn't know":

First, isn't this interesting:

Next, I found out today that the United States still has hundreds, maybe thousands, of soldiers at bases sprinkled around the Middle East including military now active in Syria:

Significant strikes by the U.S. in Syria: https://t.co/b2SoSHOstp

— Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) December 8, 2024

Today's News: What is wrong with our media, part umpteenth

You know how it feels when someone puts into words something you felt but couldn't describe? 

Well, here's an article from George Washington University professor Dave Karpf that describes exactly why the media have such problems covering political leadership. 

(And yes, Karpf is that guy who broke the internet back in 2019 when he made the joke 

about "bedbug" Bret Stephens ) 

Anyway, here is his latest insight:

Dave Karpf / The Future, Now and Then

Uncouth.

On Hunter Biden, and the unspoken value system that our media and political elites seek to defend

...Our political and media elites have made it clear through their actions that they value the appearance of order and propriety over anything else.

Donald Trump was elected President. Ergo he is legitimate, and must be afforded the same polite treatment offered to any other President-elect. Wipe the slate clean, so as to not sully the office he is set to occupy. We must all hope against hope that he behaves himself better his time around. And, if he does not, then it is our duty to cluck our tongues and register respectful, muted disapproval.

.... Now that he is, once again, the President-elect, our media and political elites are reverting to their core social behaviors. Joe Biden is taking polite photo-ops with the President-elect, and promising to attend his inauguration. Democratic governors are promising to seek common ground and find bipartisan consensus with the administration.

It isn’t that they did not mean it when they called Donald Trump a fascist and a threat to Democracy. They meant it. But they lost anyway. And now the social order is imperiled, and they are reverting to form, doing all they know how to do to shore up trust and faith in the system, in the hopes that it will all turn out alright.

All these behaviors, like the tut-tutting over the Hunter Biden pardon, are contrivances.

Donald Trump attempted to overthrow the government when he lost the 2020 election. He was never held accountable for it, because holding him accountable would have been uncouth. And now he has legitimately won re-election. So it would be uncouth to dwell on those past actions.

This farce will continue, indefinitely, until the system utterly collapses.

Hunter Biden’s pardon is front page news — not because anyone cares about Hunter Biden at all, but because it is the type of Presidential misbehavior that our elite media knows how to object to.

Kash Patel’s intent to turn the FBI against his “enemies list” is a lesser news story, right up until the moment he throws those enemies in prison. Because we wouldn’t want to undermine public trust in the FBI, would we? That, too, would be uncouth.

There is, ultimately, a simple reason why most of our journalistic and political elites will fail to offer meaningful opposition to the incoming Trump regime.

Doing so would be improper. And their unspoken-but-genuine value system, all along, has been to defend propriety and the social order.

So they’ll bicker over Hunter Biden, and then they’ll bicker over the next thing, and it will all be contrivances and pleasantries, while the regime installs itself.

I wish it were not so. I wish for a great many things.

But if we are going to maintain democracy, it will require a type of counter-pressure that does not place social stability and propriety above all other values.

We shouldn’t look to our media or political elites to offer that resistance. They have self-selected to never provide it.

Yes indeed. 

Big news from Syria tonight

The Syrian rebels are winning.

The Washington Post provides this timeline article:

The shocking speed of Syria’s rebel advance against Assad: A visual timeline

Videos, photos and maps show how Syrian fighters mounted a stunning offensive against the Assad regime, overtaking Aleppo and Hama, and closing in on Homs and Damascus.

Celebratory gunfire. Statues torn down. Families reunited after prisoners were unexpectedly set free.

In just a few days, a broad coalition of Syrian rebel forces have dislodged President Bashar al-Assad’s control over the cities of Aleppo and Hama after a four-year stalemate. The lightning offensive, led by the armed Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Shams, or HTS, has continued to build momentum, moving south along the M5 highway, Syria’s most important artery. By Saturday morning the group appeared poised to overtake Homs — an industrial center and the “capital of the Syrian revolution.”

On Dec. 6, a separate anti-Assad faction captured Syria’s southernmost city of Daraa. It’s not yet clear how this faction, the Southern Operations Room, is connected to HTS, although it’s clear the faction has been motivated by HTS’s success....

From the north and the south, rebel commanders are vowing to continue on to Damascus, posing the biggest threat to the Assad regime in its nearly 54 years of autocratic family rule. Rebel groups are closing in on Damascus, as they overtake suburb after suburb.

Residents reported shops closing and a shortage of cash in the capital on Saturday. Video verified by The Post showed men toppling a sculpture of Assad in Jaramana, less than 10 miles from the presidential palace.

HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said that rebel forces were on the verge of toppling “the criminal regime.”...

The New York Times adds: 

In the Syrian Regime’s Hour of Need, Its Patron Iran Makes an Exit 

The collapse of a partnership built over four decades would reshape the balance of power in the Middle East. 

For decades, Iran has expended much blood and money in support of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, helping him survive a civil war that threatened his dynastic rule. Iran operated military bases, weapons warehouses and missile factories in Syria, which it used as a pipeline for arming its militant allies across the region. Now, just as Mr. al-Assad needs help to repel a rapid advance by rebel forces, Iran is heading for the exits. On Friday, the country started evacuating its military commanders and personnel, as well as some diplomatic staff, according to Iranian and regional officials. It is a remarkable turnabout: Iran not only appears to be abandoning Mr. al-Assad, its closest Arab ally, but also relinquishing everything it had built and fought to preserve for 40 years in Syria, its main foothold in the Arab world.

Other posts and comments:

Syria is free. The rebels won. The people liberated themselves from tyranny. Freedom won. Russia, Iran, Hezbollah & Assad lost. Historic. The road ahead for Syria won’t be easy. But it will be better than the past. The world should celebrate Syria’s liberation & help it succeed.

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) December 8, 2024

Today's News: Trump is shooting himself in the foot

Once again, Trump is shooting himself in the foot. 

I think that he and his minions thought it would be terribly ballsey to make a whole bunch of controversial nominations right away for Cabinet positions and directorships, so he could swagger around Mar-A-Lardo and boast about Trump Two: The Revenge Tour, as well as eliminating any questions about his Biggest! Win! Ever! Mandate. 

Of course, it isn't working out very well. 

Because #ETTD Everything Trump Touches Dies.

The early nominations only gifted reporters and bloggers with opportunities for combing through the job histories and social media profiles of every nominee, to find all their embarrassing relationships, past legal follies, and other grotesquely disqualifying antics. Now Trump has lost AG nominee Matt Gaetz and DEA nominee Sheriff Chad Chronister, he is on the way to losing Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth as Sec of Defense and possibly also Tulsi Gabbard as NSI, not to mention Kash Patel at the FBI. And there are still at least two months to go before any of Trump's people will be confirmed in these jobs and able to run roughshod over what used to be a government. Everyone is already ignoring that crazy DOGE lunacy.

Every Trump nomination

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— StrictlyChristo 🦋🇺🇦🌻 (@strictlychristo.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 5:15 PM

Today's News: Poilievre is just "hysterically harsh" now

Following Poilievre's apparent rejection of Trudeau's request for a united front against Trump, I'm reading some commentary about Poilievre and it ain't pretty:

Andrew Coyne / The Globe and Mail

Poilievre fumbles the Trump crisis: a missed opportunity to show himself as a prime minister-in-waiting

... it is hard to fault the Prime Minister for trying. It is easy to say that the effort was doomed...

But to many people the Prime Minister will nevertheless have looked practical, reasonable, adult, in all, prime ministerial. It is not a given that Mr. Trump’s bullying will be to Mr. Trudeau’s disadvantage, politically. Mr. Trump’s unreasonableness is well known. If Mr. Trudeau is seen to have gone the extra mile, or 1,300, to deal with him; if he then is forced to take retaliatory measures, painful as they may be, the public may conclude that he has made the best of a bad hand....

If Mr. Trudeau’s appearance with Mr. Trump struck you as cringeworthy, try to imagine how Mr. Poilievre would look next to him. Would he look like – behave like – a prime minister? Would he conduct himself with the dignity and the self-confidence that the job requires, knowing when to speak up and when to stay silent, when to show his hand and when to keep his cards in reserve?

Or would he look boyish, callow, too eager to impress; talk too much, give away too much, signal insecurity throughout? It’s difficult to say, of course. All one can do – all the public can do – is draw inferences from what we already know of Mr. Poilievre’s character and judgment, extrapolating from his comportment to date to predict how he will behave in future.

And what we have seen of him to date has been, not a future prime minister, but a perpetual opposition critic, someone who is seemingly incapable of taking the high road, who never misses the opportunity for a partisan cheap shot, who is always, always in attack mode, no matter the issue, the setting or the situation.

...Mr. Poilievre has, from the day the tariff threat was issued, sounded almost hysterically harsh. At times he has seemed to take Mr. Trump’s side in the controversy, even appearing behind a podium with the slogan “Fix The Broken Border.”

His rhetoric, too, has sounded vaguely … Trumpian. “The Prime Minister,” he said, “has vacated the border and turned it open to anyone who wants to come in.” He is “weak,” “weakened,” “unbearably weak.” He has “lost control of everything.” And this flourish: “With our border in chaos, our economy collapsing and everything broken, we need real, responsible leadership from a strong, smart prime minister who has the brains and backbone to put Canada first.”

Canada First, you say. Yup. The phrase, which I have not heard him utter before the last week or so, has cropped up repeatedly. “We need a plan … to put Canada first on the economy and on security.” “I only care about Canada. I want to put our country first.” And so on.

I’m not sure what he thinks he is accomplishing with this. Perhaps he worries that the Prime Minister will get a lift out of the crisis, a rally-round-the-flag effect often seen in public polling. Perhaps he is afraid that sections of his base, many of them vocal on social media, are inclined to side with Mr. Trump, especially on border issues, and might stray into the People’s Party fold. Maybe he is betting the public believes Canada will be treated better with someone more in sync with Mr. Trump in charge.

Or maybe it’s just that that’s the only gear he’s got. Mr. Poilievre is already unusual in a political leader for being his own attack dog, a task generally assigned to talented thugs and burner MPs. Until now I had been inclined to assume this was strategy of some kind, a matter of zigging while others are zagging.

But it may be that Mr. Poilievre is genuinely unable to strike any other note – that his experience and personality permits no other. ..