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| "You have betrayed me for the last time!" |
Whether you're a substitute drama teacher with a famous dad or a sham of a president whose dad left him with a politically convenient skin colour and little else, there is always time to stick it to the common man for whom you pledge a certain allegiance- at least until after an election. It doesn't pay politically to let your apathy or antipathy show while running for office so, by all means, let (insert group here) know that you love them even if you only found out they exist just a few hours ago. If you are already a dictator with no fear of un-impeding elections then it doesn't matter if you appeal to your population or not. With the popular press on your side, any savvy politician can make an ill-informed electorate adore them. You can also do that if you threaten to send their families to concentration camps.
Politics makes strange bed-fellows... or something.
Justin Trudeau's bid for leadership of the Liberal "Party" was off to a phenomenal start. If you were a thirteen year old girl with no clue of how Canadian politics worked or even heard the name Pierre Elliot Trudeau, voting for the cool teacher would sound like a fantastic thing to do. Never mind that he refused to debate his fellow contenders or that he accepted speaking fees from school boards to non-profit groups ($15,000 from one school board alone). Why does an aspiring leader need speaking fees while serving as a Member of Parliament? Does a school board really have that kind of money to hear Trudeau talk about... well, nothing, really? How ever will the children learn if there is no money for the pittance teachers receive?
No one, however, can top the vulgarity of those who currently reside in the White House. Who would have believed that being an unaccomplished community organiser would result in occupying the highest office of the land?
There was already an air of unmistakeable disdain for the American electorate in the beginning of the Obama presidency and not much has changed since. The return of the bust Winston Churchill, the cheap gifts for former Prime Minister Brown's children, the holidays, the golfing, the dinners, the celebrity bashes, the punishing of taxpayers by withholding services (the kind of emotional extortion worthy of a petulant child) are but a few examples of opulence and a complete disconnect from the common man (can just anyone get Adele to sing for them?). Herbert Hoover refused a salary when he was president. Calvin Coolidge's frugality would be unheard of in this administration where nothing can be trimmed but programs for children. Where is the "fair share" much clamoured for during the election?
Where mediocrity was once the benchmark for success in the post-Modern West, outright failure, enhanced with blinding lights of stardom, pass for success now. Without even the wisp of potential, both Trudeau and Obama were declared leaders for our time. Where Chavez and Kim Jong-Un had and have the power of arrest and torture, both Trudeau and Obama have but one hammer at their disposal- the popular press whose adoration really does know no bounds. What would have been inexcusable in anyone else is extolled as victory in others.
A couple celebrity tidbits to mull over: I can see rudeness from my house- celebrity "funny" woman cusses at the paparazzi she once relied on for cheap Sarah Palin jokes and who or what should I heed- the Bible or some ugly hip-hop mogul with a golden toilet?
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