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You can also see all this as the utter collapse of political decorum, Canada's descent into a gentrified, progressive Putinism. Shirtless Trudeau is the face of a liberalized personality cult, packaged for a pliant media and sold to a generation of shallow, narcissistic Millennials who love selfies more than the noble customs of Western civilisation.When you stare into the abs, the abs stare also into you.Trudeau's mostly bare bod has knotted together a few different threads of Canada's many neuroses. First, and let's be real here, Justin Trudeau is an objectively beautiful man. Dude is pretty fit by the standards of the general population—especially for fathers over 40 and doubly so for politicians. The man has confidence in his body and just wants to be outside doing sports and shit in the heat with his shirt off, and I think that's pretty fair. It gets hot here in the summer and thanks to his government's lax approach to climate change it's only going to get hotter!!! Zing!!!Beyond this, his physical charisma is part of what makes Trudeau so successful as a political/cultural phenomenon (dare I say: a brand). Trudeau's appeal, largely, is that he is a cipher for really vague ideas about "progressiveness," which are more visceral and emotional reactions than any straightforwardly sober evaluation of his administration's policies. If you like "progressive," you like Trudeau and ditto if you don't.
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(As an aside: What does "progressive" even mean in Canada in 2016? Tom Mulcair is here and he won't stop crying, and I don't know what to tell him to cheer him up.)Because partisanship is basically confrontational, a large part of this emotive force is that Justin Trudeau makes conservative heads explode, which is pleasurable on an almost visceral level. This is identical to how most of Stephen Harper's "charm" (don't laugh) lay with his ability to make large swathes of the Canadian left lose their fucking minds. Canadian politics in the 21st century is defined largely by competing sets of Leader Derangement Syndrome. It's not hard to imagine someone like Brian Lilley earnestly tweeting "Shirtless Trudeau is still lurking. Be vigilant" to anyone posting about camping in a national park.All of this feeds into the frenzy of our thinkpiece-powered media economy, because the internet abhors a vacuum. But Trudeau is also genuinely really good at playing the media—especially internationally. As a general rule, American or European outlets don't care about anything that actually happens in Canada so much as they appreciate the myth that Canada is a liberal utopia and the fact that it is now sold to them by a preternaturally charming man is icing on the content cake.This filters back to us in this country because the overriding drive of the entire Canadian cultural apparatus is to have our ego stroked by the global community, which is why our first collective impulse in the face of racist police violence in the US is to share videos of dancing Mounties. It's the only relief we have ever found from the otherwise crushing inferiority complex of being Canada, and it's why every true patriot is wishing for President Donald Trump. The apocalyptic collapse of the American Empire/Earth will make us look extremely fucking good.So the Trudeau honeymoon still hasn't ended, and maybe it can never truly end. This is who we are now. We are the cool country with the cool dad who works out and isn't racist and who would probably help with the housework if he didn't hire a maid. That is rad. Canada is rad. Long live the king.Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.Peterborough Family On Vacation Met Justin Trudeau & His Family At Lusk Cave Yesterday -> — PTBO_CANADA (@Ptbo_Canada)July 27, 2016
