Angry Pierre

 

Andrew Lawton has just published a bio of Pierre Poilievre. Discussing it, he and Brian Lilley puzzled over the common claim by Trudeau and the Liberals, and by some commentators, that Poilievre is angry and mean. Even that this makes him ultimately unelectable. They feel the opposite. They find him friendly and cheerful.

So do I. And not just his supposed private persona. His public persona.  It is striking to me that Poilievre never shows anger, never loses his cool when attacked, however outrageously. He always responds with a smile, and, as often as not, with a joke. The self-control is astounding. 

Trudeau, by contrast, always seems angry. He mocks up anger even when I suspect he does not feel it. He calls opponents Nazis, “unacceptable,” foreign agents, and on and on.

How to account for this odd inversion of what seem to be plain, visible facts?

I think Harry Tuman said it best. 

When he was giving a speech, some listener shouted at him, “Give ‘em hell, Harry.” 

And Truman responded, “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth, and to them it sounds like hell.”

Poilievre is an extremely good communicator. By simply clearly stating the matter, and asking precise questions, he makes the other side look bad. It feels like hell to them. A narcissist will never blame themselves for an error or misdeed: instead, they blame the person who points it out. You blame the police; you blame the judge; you blame the jury; you blame the church; you blame conventional morality; you blame society as a whole.

It’s a childish response, but common. Especially, these days, on the left.

For Poilievre, it is a Catch-22; he is obliged to pretend to be wrong.

Roughly the same narcissistic impulse perhaps accounts for much Trump Derangement Syndrome. 

Trump too is a great communicator. That sounds like hell to the other side.

Trump is not usually blamed, like Poilievre, for seeming angry. That is because he really does indulge in anger at times. Trump does, unlike Poilievre, trade in insults and make extreme charges against his opponents. He can be brutal to an opponent. Therefore, they do not accuse him of anger.

But he does speak truth; he is always saying out loud what everyone is thinking. This is what the left fears about him; and so they accuse him of lying.

Poilievre’s words are more calculated than Trump’s, more like those of a conventional politician. He hedges and dodges: will not take a stand on the proposed new capital gains tax, because there is no political gain in it, and so forth. He speaks the truth, but more selectively. But unlike Trump, he does not show anger; is always gentlemanly about it. And so they accuse him not of lying or prevaricating, but of always being angry.

This is how gaslighting works. 

Whatever the narcissist says will be the opposite of the truth. 

One reason they do this is because they fear truth, and want to get as far away from it as possible. Another reason is that they recognize good traits in others, and immediately envy them. They must appropriate them to themselves instead, and insist they are not found in the other. 

The takeaway is that we are currently governed by petulant children with weapons.