Let’s ignore the roar this month and take a spin in the Wayback machine to a decade ago this week. Both the U.S. and Canada were on the precipice of momentous decisions WITH new leaders who resonate today. In both cases those leaders, for better or worse, changed politics irrevocably. They are going to be the most impactful people of their century so far. One made his party into the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. While the other brought populist nativism and reality TV to the voters.

So who’s crying now? In the case of Donald Trump this week marks a decade since his descent on the gold escalator in his NYC tower. As this shows, most of the popular press were amused by the decision of the mogul/ TV star to seek the GOP leadership and, eventually, the presidency. They laughed. Oh, how they laughed.

In the minds of the DC media party, the 2016 election was going to be Jeb Bush, brother of George W. and son of George H.W., for the GOP. He would run against Hillary Clinton, the DEMs slam-dunk candidate. So why was Trump wasting his money on a “vanity” candidacy? Anyone with a brain could see he was throwing away his money. The media, who’d been his pal, felt pity.

Except we now know that Trump had identified a significant segment of the GOP voting population who were mad as hell and were not going to buy Jeb’s “compassionate” approach or Marco Rubio’s DC-centric policies. They wanted to close the border, stop foreign wars and protect U.S. industry. To, ahem, Make America Great Again.

The rest is history. Into this void Trump launched a MAGA movement that terrified the establishment. Where once he’d been on their talk shows, making wise with big shots and dining out on “You’re fired”, he was now the target of a massive smear campaign alleging racism, sexism, homophobia and leaving the toilet seat up. None of it worked as it was supposed to. In fact, his obstinacy in the face of it all endeared him to his followers.

Trump won a historic victory over Clinton in 2016, absorbed four years of impeachment, criminal charges, Russia collusion hoaxes and more. Buttressed by MAGA, he outlasted them all, Then COVID hit, the DEMs “found” 17 million “new” voters , and it seemed Trump was a spent force.

Not so fast. Having spent all their energies on replacing Trump with a man with the mental capacities of a carrot, the DEMs and their followers were left with Kamala Harris. IOW nothing. Then came the thunderbolt of Elon Musk buying Twitter (now X) breaking the legacy media’s stranglehold on information. People learned how the media grandees had cooked the books. Unable to control the press Trump’s fanatical opponents resorted to hoping someone would shoot Trump. Even that failed. Twice.

Now we have Trump.2. His legacy is still under siege from his enemies and some of his former friends. He’s stage managing a potential nuclear war with Iran. He’s redefining the world economy. He’s cutting the financial ties that support radical political action. He’s still furiously tweeting. It could all go terribly wrong.

But the fact remains. Love him or hate him, he’s the most impactful American in the 21st century. His polling is better than in 2016. A random sample of his hubris, here’s this note threatening Khameini while adding, “thank you for your attention in this matter”. Incorrigible.

Put simply, he has changed how politics functions in the America. Just ask these Bush Republicans. His audacity and pitiless style— thought to be political poison— have re-written the book on what works. Politics will never ever be the same down south.

The same can be said for the style of Justin Trudeau, scion to the legacy of his father. He, too, was dismissed as a lightweight when he made this political aspirations clear. While Trump could at least cite his business and TV career, Trudeau’s resume was wafer thin. Ski instructor. One-term drama teacher. A fanciful D’Artagnan he posed and preened for the cameras. A combination of his mother’s intellect and his father’s vanity he could easily have crashed and burned.

But by 2015 his father’s Liberal party was in big trouble. On the heels of the sponsorship scandal, they tried re-create PET in Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. Bad idea. In the face of extinction, all it had was Trudeau’s vedette appeal and a population bored with Stephen Harper. Lucky for Liberals, Canada’s elites craved the novelty of Boy Trudeau on the cover of GQ.

Trudeau played the Sunny Ways card into a decade as Canada’s PM. His modest accomplishments— a dental plan, assisted suicide— were buried in three Woke terms of climate hysteria, corruption, fake Rez murder genocide, creating a real-estate bubble economy, allowing China to set up a money-laundering in the major cities and the explosion of drug trafficking to where the fentanyl El Chapo and his pals took up residence in Toronto. The RCMP were discouraged from investigating any and all his uglier conflicts.

His three successful elections owed a lot to mediocre CPC leaders and a perpetual fear— stoked by friendly media— that Trump would get them all killed. He was also buoyed by a Family Compact that sloughed off his many gaffes— standing O for a Nazi in Parliament?— while portraying Pierre Poilievre as a robotic Trump clone.

Like Trump, Trudeau defined a style of politics for Boomer Canada, long on Woke platitudes, short on concrete policy. When CDNs showed they didn’t care about defence, balancing budgets or rule of law in those three votes, Trudeau took the hint. He squashed the Truckers, forfeited their savings, locked them in prison for “mischief”. And got the NDP to go along.

When his own bill finally came due, he skedaddled to a cozy pension and an afterlife in the ranks of international NGOs. Leaving Mark Carney a toxic legacy. Leftist politicians will be trying to emulate his escape act for decades.

Right-wing politicians will do the same after Trump. Some might even be Trumps themselves. So dismiss these two at your peril. For their nations and the world they called the shot. Bullseye.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.