Please Advise! Now Musk Prefers Hitler to Trudeau?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Tucker Carlson has recently railed against “Canadian-style tyranny” on his Fox News program. Fox host Laura Ingraham has also interviewed truck convoy supporters. Then Elon Musk sent out a tweet comparing Hitler (favourably) to Justin Trudeau.

Do Canadians live under the thumb of tyranny, Doctor?

Signed,

Peon

Dear Peon,

I think we all recognize tyranny when we see it. The Toronto Maple Leafs come to Vancouver on a Saturday night and suddenly the game time shifts from 7 p.m. to 4 p.m. so those precious Torontonians won't have to stay up late to watch their beloved Buds on Hockey Night in Canada. That, my friends, is tyranny.

And that's not all. When the weekend rolls around, my fellow oppressed, do you occasionally have a hankering for some aerosol cheese? In a free country you could amble on down to the grocery store and moments later you'd be shooting that foamy, decadent modern marvel straight from the can, like a middle-aged bong hit. But not us. Not Canadians. No, we have to order it from Amazon. That is not freedom you are tasting, comrades. That is a delayed and overpriced package of tyranny. Know who else didn't permit imports of spray cheese? Hitler, that's who.

It gets worse. The Daily Beast reports that My Pillow mastermind Mike Lindell was thwarted in his attempt to ship his signature product to freedom-loving Canadian convoy participants. Lindell's backup plan recalls the Berlin Airlift of 1948. He wants to bomb Canada with pillows on parachutes. We should probably be glad Lindell doesn't sell aquariums or cough syrup. But hey, we'll take whatever we can get. Maybe he'll drop off some aerosol cheese and Marlboros too.

Canadians often feel ignored and overlooked by our southern neighbours. The Tragically Hip never caught on down there. Tim Biebs didn't catch their attention. But the trucker convoys and blockades have done the trick. Americans are finally noticing us, kicking off another edition of “Careful what you wish for.” Fox News hosts have seized on the appalling spectacle of Canadian tyranny, railing against government oppression of freedom-loving anti-vax blockaders. There was outrage from the attorney general of Texas, who apparently slept in the day his sixth-grade class learned all about foreign countries having their own laws and stuff. A right-wing hoax even re-emerged claiming Justin Trudeau's father is actually Fidel Castro. Little do the hoaxers realize, in many parts of Alberta that would actually be a wash politically. Anybody other than Pierre would likely be considered an upgrade.

Canada is in the grip of tyranny, says Fox. Worse than Hitler, says super-doofus Elon Musk, tweeting his idea of a joke.

And then of course there is Canada's pending invasion of Ukraine, which... but no, that's some other tyrant. Besides, even if Canada were about to invade some loser country Tucker Carlson would be perfectly OK with it. Carlson has somehow managed the trick of being anti-Canadian tyranny and pro-Putin aggression, a move that requires more twists than a triple-cork 1440 on the halfpipe. It seems Carlson would fully support our takeover of Alaska as long as we didn't wear masks.

Meanwhile the Canadian convoys have inspired copycats, not just in the U.S. but in Europe too. It's the unhealthiest Canadian export since poutine. Or so it would seem. Further examination suggests that, like a deadly rain of plague-ridden pillows, this phenomenon may be more of an import than an export.

The sudden interest of Fox News in Canadian politics suggests a common cause, an awareness that the prevailing anti-democratic ethos of the American right has at last secured a solid foothold north of the border. Could that be what has Tucker and Laura and various Republican senators so worked up — an opportunity to expand the Jan. 6 franchise, to plant authoritarian ideology across Canada like so many KFC locations in Vietnam?

Well, maybe. But don't forget that historic indifference. They may get briefly annoyed when our women's hockey team defeats them at the Olympics but generally speaking Americans are never likely to start caring about Canada very much. Any mileage Fox's prime-time gasbags get from Canadian blockaders is merely intended to attack Joe Biden and the Democrats — and American democracy itself — from a new angle. Their goal is to chip away at the legitimacy of representative government, however, whenever and wherever they can. For Tucker Carlson and his ideological flying monkeys, any effects on Canadian democracy would merely be collateral damage.

As for us, we must remain vigilant. Tyranny does exist in Canada, and Canadians must recognize and fight it. For a few moments at least, after which Canadians should stop fighting, back off and run away. Picking a scrap with a Canada goose is never a good idea.