Wacko & Weird Battle for Normal
Post 52 | Pushing Back the Baseline
Wacko and weird are having their day in the sun, thanks to politics in Canada and the United States.
The US elevated the word weird to strange levels when Democrat Tim Walz’s accusation of Republicans started the ball rolling and escalated into each side attempting to out-weird the other.
Here in Canada, Pierre Poilievre has been lobbing the wacko and radical labels at Trudeau and his governing Liberals, who responded by hijacking weird to awkwardly fling at Poilievre.
Admittedly, this all feels small and a bit tawdry. And it is an unfortunate if not darkly entertaining element of politics – to witness the cut and thrust played out in the open. In Canada, the competing charges seem mostly about policies more than personalities, though character smearing is certainly intended as a byproduct.
Beneath the surface, however, lies something fundamentally important.
What is really at play is a battle to define baseline normal. And finding normal is currently like dancing on a moving carpet atop a pool of Jell-O.
Societal norms have been moving faster and more expansively than any time in generations, almost exclusively in one direction - we have certainly not been getting more conservative in Canada. The speed and degree of change have lurched the baseline leftward toward excessive liberalism, toward economic socialism and toward cultural and moral relativity.
This is nowhere more evident than in the last years of gender identity hijinks where previously fringe academic theories have had life breathed into them and entered mainstream. This has led to sex change drugs and surgery for teens in their most formative and confusing years, worsened by restricting parental rights on issues of identity and treatment. And this new gender ideology has torn at the armour of scientific reasoning by asserting gender biology is a relative and not absolute matter. Apparently if you think it to be so, then it is so.
Science and math have taken further hits with assaults on their foundations and structures as being racist, with taxpayer funds leveraged to reinforce this twisted ideology through revised curricula, guidelines and Orwellian training for teaching professionals.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have warped meritocracy and reason so effectively, it now raises few eyebrows when academic positions in our publicly funded universities are limited to only candidates who identify as women, non-binary and racialized. And where position appointments such as the prestigious Canada Research Chairs Program per Lawrence Krauss recently writing in the National Post, “are now dominated by demographic and identity considerations and not merit.”
Further on the issue of merit - speak to a male, non-minority student attempting to enter medical school. You will learn their slice of available spots is often ridiculously thin despite outstanding marks, MCAT scores and extracurriculars – due to regional, gender, and racialized group carve outs. That they accept this with a fated shrug and equanimity is as distressing to me as the facts of the matter.
The past ten years Canadians have been told that drag queens reading story time to kids in the library is progressive, attacked for highlighting the gross failure of safe supply drugs, labelled hateful for calling out the DEI-inspired racism and sexism sanctioned by our publicly funded institutions, declared racist for expressing concern over runaway immigration, cancelled for intelligently critiquing climate change and net zero extremism, and faced the might of Government for pushing back against the draconian Covid mandates and lockdowns. And much more.
Whether we call the purveyors of these actions left, progressive or woke matters little – but recognize they largely now run our federal government, bureaucracy, school boards and universities while making steady headway across all other publicly funded institutions, and banging down the doors of private companies using fear and public money as their tools. They have labelled non-adherents as dangerous, far-right, extreme, unacceptable, bigoted, intolerant, racist, sexist, deniers, hateful and more. Yet they have, in large part, exhibited these very characteristics themselves with the exception of far-left swapped in for far-right.
Intolerance has become the new tolerance. [Author unknown]
For too long we have had to pretend that merit is no longer of primary importance. That identity of our gender, ethnicity or skin colour should be our key defining attributes. That everything from our colonial history is tainted and shameful. That the world is burning and it’s our fault. That equity and equality are the same. That our borders are unimportant.
That we don’t see the emperor has no clothes and that the lunatics are running the asylum.
If the online world affords us one wonderful thing, it is the democratization of thought and ability to spread it widely without gatekeepers and guardians - to explore, challenge and expose touchy societal issues. As such, I cheer on those brave souls speaking out loudly from their self-created bully pulpits – like Douglas Murray, Jeffrey Tucker, Conrad Black, Jordan Peterson, Barbara Kay and the recently deceased Rex Murphy. They and dozens more writers, thinkers and philosophers along with pioneers like Elon Musk embolden me to dig deeper into topics and serve them up here in my meagre little corner of the digital world. I do not always agree with these other writers but respect how they think and their dedication to boldly, insightfully and intelligently discuss the biggest concerns of our day.
But ultimately politicians hold one of the largest hammers of influence – in Canada, none more than the position of Prime Minister. As written in Dangerous Combo | No Term Limits and Excess Powers of a PM that role’s executive powers plus extraordinary legislative and judicial influences are almost without equal in the democratic world. And the megaphone of that position has a powerful ability to drive thought leadership and moral suasion, as we have seen to our horror since 2015.
Which brings us back to the wacko and radical charges our future Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre has been launching at what Trudeau, Singh and their progressiveness-cum-opportunism have done to tatter our country. I am entirely unbothered by the apparent lack of decorum or this being US-style politics, as leveled by some of the more tender hearted amongst us. Looked at through any reasonable lens what has been done to Canada economically, culturally and socially over the past decade has indeed been radical and wacko. And until every possible Canadian acknowledges there are inherent dangers in the speed and extent of these changes, let us call it so.
Radicalism and extremism cannot always be battled with kind words and a hug.
Poilievre is giving voice to millions who have watched with dismay what has been happening in Canada but suffered confusion and powerlessness to do anything about it. And while he is primarily reserving his assaults for economic issues, indications are he’ll move further afield and attempt to reorient some social and cultural sanity when finally in office as majority Prime Minister.
There will be nothing weird about hiring on merit and dousing the fever of DEI
There will be nothing weird about recognizing the biology of men and women and protecting the innocence and health of children, along with parental rights
There will be nothing weird about repealing the online harms act, the online news act and the carbon tax
There will be nothing weird about drastically reducing the bureaucracy and regulatory impediments that jam up everything from housing, to mining, to infrastructure, to energy development
There will be nothing weird about focusing on biodiverse environmental health over the singularity of carbon reduction
There will be nothing weird about promoting our natural gas and oil industry and eliminating the mandate on EVs
There will be nothing weird about balancing our budget, paying down debt and slashing spending
There will be nothing weird about a strong immigration policy that controls who, how many and for how long newcomers get to be in our country
There will be nothing weird about respecting Provincial and Charter rights
And there will be nothing weird about proudly promoting Canadian nationalism and unity without caveats, apologies or asterisks
Until we shove the baseline of normalcy back nearer to where it was ten years ago a minority may call these things weird in their new normal world, but they’ll be calling the majority of Canadians weird. And that majority is awakening to the lunacy.
Stay tuned and stay pragmatic.
Nicely done. An entirely reasonable assessment of what's wrong and what needs to change. I wonder, however, how hard the CPC will push back on things you've outlined. My hope is that they'll be firm, but I can't help but think that too much of the party will be thinking of the next election. Perhaps if Trump comes in and does 70% of what he's talked about doing, it will give Pierre and the gang the courage they need to embrace a full program. Fingers crossed!
Well said, on all points. Fingers crossed that we can put some balance back into our country. (Greatly enjoy your column.)