Fade to Black

Cultural appropriation.

I have been suspending judgement on whether the blackface scandal was going to sink Trudeau. A lot of commentators have been, it seems. Probably for the same reason I was: if the SNC-Lavalin scandal could not sink him, could anything? It looked as though his support might be invulnerable to scandal. Some politicians are like that: Bill Clinton, Doug Ford, Donald Trump.

But tracking the reaction since, I think he is sunk.

Not because the multiplying incidents shows he is a racist. They don’t; and as I have noted, it is arbitrary to see anything racist about blackface. And not because they show he is a hypocrite; although they do, and this does hurt him. Because they show he is a fool.

Not a clown. Donald Trump or Rob Ford or Ralph Klein are clowns. People like clowns. A clown makes us laugh.

A fool doesn't know he is funny. He is not in on the joke.

People do not like fools, especially self-important fools. Other examples: Dan Quayle; Kim Campbell; Joe Clark.

Fools are tiresome.

Trudeau is now being mocked by foreign commentators. I just typed "blackface" into Google images. The first five results were Justin Trudeau. Canadians care a lot how they are perceived abroad. My NDP friend who cannot vote for Singh was evaluating all the candidates on this one question: “Can you imagine them representing Canada abroad?”

Once you become a figure of fun, you're done.