The chutzpah of a man who leads a party that has never had a woman leader escapes his awareness. Pictured: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President-elect Donald Trump. Photo Credit: Justin Trudeau/X.
Last week, this author was tuning in and out of the news emanating from our nation’s capital that the finance minister, on the brink of delivering an economic statement to update the nation’s finances, has resigned. There have been awkward moments when a leading official in the prime minister’s cabinet has departed. This author can’t recall the unprecedented nature of doing so on a planned financial disclosure day. It speaks to the government’s dysfunction, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s internal conflicts with his ministers and the thread by which this national government hangs. This all transpired after Trudeau’s recent comments about what happened in America’s recent election. To remind or inform anyone who missed Trudeau’s musings at the Equal Voice Dinner in Ottawa on Dec. 10, here is a direct quote from his statement: “We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult sometimes, march towards progress and yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president,” Trudeau lamented.
The irony of Trudeau instructing Americans about their choices for high office floats high above the flotsam found in Ottawa. The chutzpah of a man who leads a party that has never had a woman leader escapes his awareness. In addition, Trudeau has cashiered several female ministers because he cannot get along with them. Or does he simply not like uppity women who express their opinions strongly, see through his political hypocrisy, or threaten his leadership? Jody Wilson-Raybould wrote a book about the inner turmoil within the Trudeau government and Dr. Jane Philpott has her own story of having her opinions squished if they did not conform to the Trudeau maxim. Trudeau as the arbiter of American elections escapes common sense. Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland’s resignation adds to the irony, piling up the guffaws as Trudeau becomes a laughingstock in the nation he leads and in the eyes of the incoming American administration he decided deserved his public derision.
Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, the feared leader of a rising fascist government according to late-night comedians, Democratic officials, and legacy media journalists has enjoyed not only a honeymoon of sorts but has proven you can fight city hall, in a manner of speech. Trump, the target of numerous prosecutions based on him being a threat to democracy, overcame the odds to escape jail time, win his party’s nomination, and then reclaim the presidency. Even Time magazine, no friend to the 45th president, named him Man of the Year for winning back the office he lost in 2020, making him America’s 47th president on Jan. 20, 2025. The humour of the circumstance competes with the massive irony of the situation. A twice impeached president has been returned to office after four years of lengthy investigation and court proceedings largely at the behest of his 2020 opponent’s Department of Justice. He outlasted his successor, defeated President Joe Biden’s replacement, and has watched all the charges be dropped. And several people from the Democratic Party called for the New York sentencing to be dismissed as well. A fiction writer could not come up with this kind of political theatre. Who could not be amused when Trump called on Biden after the election and the two sat like old pals reminiscing about the good old days when they campaigned against each other, called one another ugly names, and accused the other of wanting to destroy America? The mutual contempt for Vice President Kamala Harris united even the fiercest opponents as they chatted about things in the people’s house.
Looking for more irony and humour? The Trudeau dinner at Mar-a-Lago provides plentiful examples. Trump calling Trudeau governor and referring to Canada as the 51st state had to stick in the craw of Pierre Trudeau’s son. The elder Trudeau spent his career ensuring Canada had a separate identity from America. He battled with Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan during his decade and a half government and loved poking the neighbour’s eye with his statist ideas, distributionist musings, and socialist leanings. The unimaginable revulsion he would have felt towards Trump exceeds measure, though ironically, Pierre’s penchant for autocratic leadership and centralized power surpasses Trump’s authoritarian impulses by some degree.
Having Justin mocked publicly brought Trump a satisfaction most Canadians will feel when they see the younger Trudeau’s back as he leaves office and political life after more than a decade of smug moral superiority on every issue from climate change to daycare. Trump’s ridicule of Trudeau was well-earned and utterly deserved. Trudeau’s swan song was probably written in the days following the Trump meet-up. Trump, as always, smelled a rotten egg before anyone else. He simply called it out as the source of the stench. No one has had better enemies than Trump and no one but Trump has had the nerve to speak truth to the naked emperors in his nation, those adjacent to his land, or those across the waters.
Finally, the matter of George Stephanopoulos, the elf who poses as a news journalist hosting ABC’s premiere Sunday morning news show. Stephanopoulos’s resume rests on his role in the Clinton White House where he suppressed bimbo eruptions and lied for a president who could not keep his junk inside his zipper. During the recent campaign, he got into a fracas with Representative Nancy Mace, a Republican member of Congress from South Carolina’s first Congressional District. In the interview with Mace on March 10, the anchor pressed Mace about her support of Mr. Trump, a man Stephanopoulos claimed had been found guilty of rape in a civil case. First, how ironic is it that Stephanopoulos questions a member of Congress about supporting a candidate when he worked for Bill Clinton? The evidence against the former chief executive’s rape of Juanita Broaddrick far exceeds the evidence against Trump. He is also a man who had to pay out a hefty sum to Paula Jones for sexual harassment and was then impeached for doing the same to a White House intern. Second, Mace was a rape victim at age 16. Could the pint-sized journalist not have recognized the insensitivity and acerbity of bringing up this topic with her? Finally, last week, ABC News agreed to pay Trump $15 million (the money will go to Trump’s Presidential Library Fund) and $1 million in legal fees after Trump brought suit against Stephanopoulos for his reckless and false comments. Indirectly, Stephanopoulos will have contributed more to Trump’s library than he did to Clinton’s. You cannot make this stuff up. It reads better than a novel, instigates more laughs than a comic, and charms like a fine wine. There will never be a shortage of irony or humour in politics, but we may be in an unprecedented period of paradoxical satire.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
