“Do you want to live in a country where those at the very top live lives of luxury, but must do so in gated communities behind ever higher fences, using private health care and airplanes because the public sphere is so degraded and the wrath of the vast majority of their less privileged compatriots burns so hot?”— Christia Freeland explains capital gains tax

These are trying times for Clevers like Freeland, the army of technocrats, intellectuals, media grandees and social engineers who re-fashioned the Western World in their own image since the cultural revolutions of the 1960s. For decades their fashionable notions on society have gradually replaced the discipline of inquiry with the stagecraft of political theatre. Talking down has replaced talking straight.

What makes a Clever? That would be an approach that favours clever over smart, novelty over fact, emotion over sober inquiry, writing cheques over righting wrongs. A Clever is a 24/7 devotee to the Saul Alinsky machinations of governing, not the governed. Looking around one can see their gormless faces everywhere from the PMO in Canada to the labyrinth of the EU to the Sunday morning news panels.

Their knowledge of political kabuki and the back channels of power is unsurpassed. While the public devotes a sliver of its attention to politics, the Clevers spend 24/7 thinking how to game the system. Their Malthusian enthusiasms mean they can’t appreciate the dynamism of the human imagination. It’s why #TrudeauIsDone fits in so well. He is replicated where ever a nice suit and an iron commitment to being clever is mandated.

Rationally one would have thought these insubstantial people might have been stopped at the door of whatever academic hothouse cultured them. But no, their hopeless vacuity has spilled over into the political world. The years since 1968 have seen exponential growth in fashionistas from Trudeau 1 to Trudeau 2 who want tunas with good taste, not tunas that taste good.

In that they’ve been assisted by their brethren in the media and culture industries who likewise sprung from educational institutions that now quiver in fear of co-eds wearing keffiyehs. Through films, books and the churn of traditional media they glorified the marxist victimization cult. Because a distressed population is a vulnerable population, it keeps opposition at bay.  With the advent of hate speech and censorship laws, Clevers are now using the courts to protect themselves from criticism.

But their claim on ascendency has diminished significantly since 2020. YOC. Year of Our Covid. The year that the Clevers pushed all their roulette chips onto red. Trusting in charm and dumb luck, they used police and a snitch culture to subdue entire populations in their homes. Made them wear worthless masks. Closed children’s schools. Turned friends and family against each other employing the most crude intimidation in the name of Science®

Those objecting had their financial and democratic rights stripped (See: Trucker’s Convoy). You don’t like it? Here, try being locked incommunicado in a hotel for a few days.

But their luck ran out. The virus emergency petered out; most sentient humans saw what many had suspected. The Covid crisis was either manufactured or a bollocks from people of no substance but lots of power. As the mask literally dropped on Covid, desperate Clevers turned to other familiar narratives to distract a disbelieving population. According the CBC, CNN, MSNBC and the Washington Post their opponents were the “death of democracy”. Racists. Transphobes. The “Far Right”.

And— thank you, Israel— fascist colonizers.

But this time, polls show it hasn’t worked across the West. Inflation has opened their eyes. No one is impressed by Clever anymore. In Canada, Trudeau’s government would be crushed by the Conservatives in an election were it not for the NDP carbuncle on their back. In the U.S., all the lawfare thrown at the bumptious Donald J. Trump has only increased his polling. In France, Emmanuel Macron, the dauphin of refined inadequacy, has called a snap election to head off populist Marine LePen. In Belgium and Holland, conservatives are taking over governments from weepy entitlements leftists.

Clevers like Germany’s Olaf Scholz  and the Scandinavian leaders seem on the brink of being rejected in their country. In bankrupt Argentina libertarian Javier Miliel has taken a blowtorch to the progressive apparatus of state. Only the immutable EU and the now-worthless UN seem resistant to having their authority clipped. But even that might change if Trump is re-elected, despite efforts of the Blob in the government apparatus.

If looking for a tipping point, the Clevers’ embrace of murderous Hamas may have been the final straw. Coming on the heels of the Covid hustle, excusing the unspeakable snuff videos produced by Hamas and the demonstrating radicals in Canadian universities has been a loser for the Mao-worshipping set.

Even virulent antisemitism does not seem enough to rescue Hamas and Joe Biden from opponents. (Biden’s desperation to be an architect of “peace” in Gaza is palpable.) Biden is now threatening domestic opponents with F-15s. Freeland talks of barbarians at the gates of Revenue Canada. Euro Clevers summon up the spectre of Hitler.

But worse is to come for them. When this populist wave washes over them they may finally become the Irrelevants. We can only hope.

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, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. 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.

If you sometimes feel you’re being talked down to by your betters in mass media, there’s probably a reason. You are. From the forced demographics in films and culture to mandatory vaccines and lockdowns, the population are seen as daycare kiddos joined by a rope who must led in the ways of righteousness. Or, to be precise, leftishness.

Sometimes the massaging is blatant (do Canadian banks really want us to think all their employees are now black?) Sometimes it’s more subtle. Take, for example, the pizza restaurant commercials running incessantly during the NHL playoffs. They take the time to tell you that no Canadian team— repeat after us— has won a Stanley Cup since 1993 (ten points if you guessed Montreal). There are images of screens being crushed, balloons deflating. An unidentified Chris Cuthbert says, “It’s all over folks, the fun has come to an end.”

The dates of recent Final failures roll by showing walls that were punched, plates thrown through TV screen, transistor radios being tossed on the cement. So far accurate. But then Cuthbert pipes up. “Maybe it’s time we try something different?” (In case your hearing is deficient they scroll out “Maybe it’s time we try something different?”)

You’ll never guess their solution. Instead of booing our Canadian rival teams, maybe we should get behind whichever Canadian team makes it this far. “Let’s cheer with the fans we’ve always cheered against.” Pictures show people clinking glasses in camaraderie. (What happened to diversity?) Then the punch line.

“Team Up For The Cup”. This is the sort of pablum notion you get from people who drop in for the Final after spending the winter darning socks or attending NDP rallies. People we know actually believe it’s a government commercial. Even in the age of “Sinbad” Trudeau, this is inauthentic to the nth degree.

It all suggests “You fans are at fault.” A beer-soaked Kumbaya session is all that’s stood between Canada and a Cup since 1993. Of course the focus-group nimrods who think a Carbon Tax will change the weather could not be made to understand that the essence of fandom is 1) Our team wins 2) Your biggest rival loses.  No, with a little Liberal fairy dust we can all join hands behind Edmonton, now in the Final . That’s all it takes. As we say, inauthentic. Like dumping plastic bags for paper bags.

It put us in mind of an exchange we had with the quintessential Chrétien-era Liberal, Sheila Copps, she of the one million Canadian flags without lanyards debacle. In 2007, the Ottawa Senators made it to the Final. Needless to say the home of Canada’s bureaucracy was in heaven. In our 2008 book The Meaning of Puck , we recalled what happened when we suggested in the Calgary Herald that we weren’t going to “Team Up For The Cup”.

Former Liberal MP and Cabinet Minister Sheila Copps

Saying we wouldn’t go all Vimy Ridge for a team with a Trojan ad on their jersey, we asked why we should getting squishy about a team two time zones away. We added some gratuitous shots about Ottawa rolling up the sidewalks by 7 PM and Tulip Festivals. And praised the things we did share. Alberta’s oil money. Honk. Honk.

Before you could say Alfonso Gagliano, Ms. Copps, the pride of Hamilton, fired back in that quaint, understated style she’s known for. Using words like “despot” and a “dictator”, she accused us of using hockey to separate the nation.  Our “diatribe” was “hate-filled” as we mocked “tulips, tourists and the team… Dowbiggin’s message was a lot more dangerous than the separatists”, she railed.

Tulips bloom on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 1, 2009., on the first day of the Canadian Tulip Festival which runs from May 1st to the 18th. Ottawa was gifted 100,000 tulip bulbs in 1945 from Princess Juliana of the Netherlands in appreciation for the help Canada gave in liberating the Netherlands during WWII. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

“Gussied up as a sports rant he thinks it’s perfectly okay to trash another part of Canada in the name of hockey.. Sports lynchers with a political agenda commit the worst kind of bigotry. In Western backhand ( note”: we lived our first 45 years in Quebec and Ontario), Dowbigggin excretes the same bile that almost cost our country twice.” Sports lyncher. Wow.

You’re welcome Sheila. Suggesting that “more astute readers may have discerned a touch of sarcasm and mirth in our original piece” we replied that this pro-Canada stand was rich coming from the government whose Sponsorship Scandal tore apart the nation and left their party to trust-fund Justin “the Jester” Trudeau.

“I’m always amused by Quebec parvenus such as Ms. Copps who think a French immersion course and a particularly hot weekend at the Juste Pour Rire festival make them an expert in the culture of La Belle Province… the parlous state of Quebec within Canada speaks to decades of Liberal vigilance on the separatist file.

“In the end it’s hard to tell which is funnier: Ms. Copps’ vitriolic defence of her record as a champion of Confederation or as a sudden covert to the culture of hockey in this country. But then, Ms. Copps, like most Liberals, never were very good at getting a joke.  Maybe because its was about them in the first place.”

Sadly, they don’t make ‘em like Sheila anymore. Now they slap you with a hate crime and take away your financial records. So good luck to Edmonton. We mean you no harm. Your crayon-coloured unis look great. Just don’t come running to the rest of Canada if you sprain your ankle on the Florida Panthers.

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, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. 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.