I guess Don didn't get the memo from Evan Solomon the other day. But, I mean, he's retired, so I gather he's not in contact with his old buddies at CTV. Which makes total sense, and is thus why they stopped publishing him, right? Anyway, in case he (or anyone else) missed it:
But, but, but, you may say, that question was answered with Trudeau emphatically insisting he will absolutely run again. Oh, puh-LEEZE. What leader would surrender power by even hinting at retirement just three months into a new mandate?
Common sense says Trudeau sticking around not only tempts fate by going against traditional three-strikes-and-you’re-out electoral math but risks the start of impatient grumbling from leader wannabes in his cabinet.
Who's grumbling? Trends are only trends until they're broken. Besides, wouldn't a "strike" in this case be... a loss, rather than a win? In that case, Jagmeet Singh should be the one looking for a post-political career as a minor Tik Tok influencer after the next election. Not Trudeau.
Don nevertheless persists to further handicap Trudeau's as-yet-hypothetical career after politics — which, again, he is certain will commence as of Trudeau's next birthday:
It’s a mid-life crisis like no other as Justin Trudeau turns 50 with nowhere to go but down. ... [I]t’s not easy to see a lucrative post-politics career for a youthful and healthy party leader who’s gone stale in the country’s top political job.
He may ooze charisma and excel at spontaneous interactions with the masses, but Trudeau tends to deliver plastic scripts through dead-eyed Teleprompter readings whenever he hits the podium for an official speech.
Couple that with few signs of great intellectual depth and it seems unlikely Trudeau would be swamped by corporate board chair offers or sustain a prolonged world tour of $150,000-per-speech fees to blue-chip audiences.
Christ, these guys really haven't give up the tired act of demeaning him as a moron. You'd think those three election wins would have thoroughly debunked that crap by now, but, no, nevertheless, they persisted. (He even managed to fit in an "Obama's Teleprompter" dig. I. Literally. Can't. Even.)
Since it's been going around the Interwebs lately, this is your occasional reminder that Justin Trudeau scored in the ninety-eighth percentile on his LSAT when he contemplated entering law school. Translated into IQ metrics, that's high enough to qualify for membership in Mensa.
Just because Don Martin probably had a midlife crisis with nowhere to go but down doesn't mean Justin Trudeau is in any way as miserable as he is. Or anyone else in the obviously embittered pundit class of dopey, failing, lying losers from the crooked fake news with low ratings. Besides, has Trudeau ever given any indication that he even wants to give pep talks to corporate stuffed shirts? Those blue-chip audiences have destroyed society. They're the very people who he wants to rescue it from!
I mean, unless he decided to do something really devious, like take a prank job at a VIP Samaritan's hotline and encourage Larry Summers and Carl Icahn to do the old Stockbroker Special from the 99th floor of a NYC skyscraper, I don't think Trudeau even has the slightest bit of interest in corporate board memberships or blue-chip audiences. And the only ones who seriously think he's "gone stale in the job" are dopey lying losers like Don Martin and his bored pundit ilk. Speaking as an American: Put this guy in front of the DNC in 2024 or thereafter, and the roar of the crowd would be so massive as to register on the Richter scale. But it's not "consulting" with cokeheads on Bay Street, so he's got nothing to offer? He wouldn't be able to get a "real job" after politics just like he didn't have a "real job" before it — because schoolteacher isn't a "real job" since it's mostly women who do it, right?
Absolutely. Fuck. All. This. Fucking. Noise.
Hey Don, how's Tom Mulcair's post-political career going? Better ask him next time he appears on CTV with your fellow pundits to remind everyone he's the angry neckbeard who lost to Justin Trudeau.
The fact that Trudeau doesn't fit the mould of previous prime ministers is what bothers the likes of Don Martin and his ilk so much. Funny how you never see them castigating Harper, for sustaining a prolonged world tour of "consulting" with dictators and despots like Mohammed Bonesaw or Viktor Orbán or any of the other thugocrats in the I.D.U. I'm sure it's plenty lucrative, though. That's all that matters to them. As Don always ends his "thinkpieces," that's the bottom line. (Perhaps it'd be lucrative on the part of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin to issue a cease-and-desist order for using his tag line.)
Anyway, Don doesn't offer much justification for why he thinks Trudeau's imminent departure is "for his own good," other than the pandemic stretching on longer than expected — which is, uh, his fault somehow, and something that voters will absolutely shitcan him for. Despite every single actual poll demonstrating that voters give the Liberals (and Trudeau) top marks for handling the actual pandemic. Surprisingly, he does offer Trudeau a lot of credit for the things he has accomplished in such a short amount of time. Yet is convinced that he has nothing more to do (but doesn't offer anything convincing as to why that's the case, other than vague notions of staying too long at the fair). COVID stayed too long at the fair, so Trudeau is... the same thing as COVID. Yeah, that makes sense., said no one ever.
The only other thing he says is that Trudeau himself appears bored and frustrated and talks in riddles and political pablum. I'd like actual evidence that he is bored and/or frustrated (maybe talking to morons like this all day is getting on his nerves?) and as for the latter, um, he's in politics. Isn't that what all elected officials do? If pretzel logic was reason enough to pink slip someone, then Skippy the pigeon would be out on his tailfeathers. Except Trudeau isn't offering any pretzel logic. He's just saying what he's always said; the problem is pundits like Don Martin who have an agenda, who read into his words what they want to hear, and who aren't willing to listen.
I mean, I'm not sure how the man could have made it any clearer than this.
The law professor is well liked by Liberal MPs, commands the meeting room when big decisions are made and is known to be quietly building links to the Liberal membership, whose votes will eventually crown the winner.
[I]f he makes tangible made-in-Canada progress toward withstanding climate change, delivers meaningful Indigenous reconciliation and puts the economy on a healthy track, Justin Trudeau could bow out late next year as a transformational prime minister who delivered far more than anyone expected when his sunny ways dawned in 2015.But if he sticks around too long, weary voters will dropkick his poll numbers toward a probable election defeat and he could end his reign with a forced march out the door by his own Liberal MPs.
That... just doesn't make sense. If the things that he intends to accomplish aren't accomplished by January 2023, he's all but certain to lose? The fuck is this guy smoking? At least he gives Trudeau credit for whatever it is being legal. That's some strange bud, though. Might want to get his supply from someone other than Doug Ford.
Go soak your head, Don Martin. Go soak your head and cry.
Justin Trudeau's just getting started, and he isn't going anywhere. Why do I know this to be true?
Because it's 2022.