{"id":39597,"date":"2017-08-01T03:00:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T07:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=39597"},"modified":"2017-07-31T10:21:15","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T14:21:15","slug":"justin-trudeau-and-the-uncritical-puffery-that-is-passing-for-political-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/08\/01\/justin-trudeau-and-the-uncritical-puffery-that-is-passing-for-political-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Trudeau and “the uncritical puffery that is passing for political journalism”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Washington Post<\/em>, Jen Gerson<\/a> says that the hero worship from the US media is making it harder to hold the Prime Minister to account for his actions:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As a Canadian, I\u2019m not surprised that the American news media and the Internet are saturated by swooning profiles. The Rolling Stone<\/em> cover story \u201cWhy Can\u2019t He Be Our President\u201d was only the most recent example. Shortly after Trudeau was elected, Vogue<\/em> fawned: \u201cThe New Young Face of Canadian Politics\u201d \u2014 despite the fact that he was neither new nor particularly young. Business Insider<\/em> noted that he looked like a \u201cDisney prince.\u201d Vanity Fair<\/em> seems to have a Trudeau vertical. US Weekly<\/em>: \u201cCanada\u2019s New Prime Minister is Super Hot.\u201d He even inspired the quintessential BuzzFeed<\/em> piece: \u201cLiterally Just 27 Really Hot Photos of Justin Trudeau.\u201d CNN\u2019s headline sums up the trend: \u201cJustin Trudeau, \u2018the anti-Trump,\u2019 shows U.S. Canada\u2019s progressive, diverse face,\u201d which was a particularly impressive take, considering Trudeau is a white man and the son of a previous Canadian prime minister \u2014 making him pretty close to the embodiment of a nascent hereditary political establishment in Canada.<\/p>\n

Please stop.<\/p>\n

Although Trudeau has proved to be a powerful public relations coup for my country, the political erotica now streaming from the southern border is embarrassing, shallow and largely misses the mark. Trudeau is not the blue-eyed lefty Jesus, and the global affection for him \u2014 and for the progressive politics that he and this country seem to represent \u2014 presents a puerile and distorted vision of Canada and its political culture. Worse, the uncritical puffery that is passing for political journalism only makes it harder to hold the man to account.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The most stinging truth about Trudeau is that he hasn\u2019t done much at all. He came into power an avatar of youthful Canadian optimism and has squandered one of the most extraordinary honeymoon periods any politician has had in recent memory. The best that can be said of his accomplishments is that he has tripled his promised deficits, promised deferred tax increases on the wealthy and almost legalized marijuana \u2014 although it will be up to the provinces to sort out that mess.<\/p>\n

Trudeau promised Camelot and delivered, well, Ottawa.<\/p>\n

Ottawa is okay. It\u2019s better than some places and worse than others. Next to the swamp of Washington, the Rideau Canal is idyllic. But let\u2019s not valorize the man who happens to preside over it during a time of national embarrassment for the United States. Canadians have rewarded Trudeau with mediocre poll numbers, typically hovering at between a 50 percent and 60 percent approval rating.<\/p>\n

Yes, he\u2019s the poster boy for Brand Canada, and a good one. Perhaps someone who is charming and affable is precisely what Canada needs as key alliances and treaties such as NATO and NAFTA come under threat. But his real talent lies not in government but in showmanship. At least on that front, that Trump and Trudeau have something in common.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Washington Post, Jen Gerson says that the hero worship from the US media is making it harder to hold the Prime Minister to account for his actions: As a Canadian, I\u2019m not surprised that the American news media and the Internet are saturated by swooning profiles. The Rolling Stone cover story \u201cWhy Can\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,28,53,13],"tags":[86,887,477],"class_list":["post-39597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-media","category-politics","category-usa","tag-criticism","tag-justintrudeau","tag-magazines"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-aiF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39597"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39600,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39597\/revisions\/39600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}