Justin Trudeau’s Castro catastrophe

Justin Trudeau is something of the archetypal preachy, feel-good liberal who has something positive to say about everyone from far-right Ukrainian maniacs, to those suffering transcendental crises of identity, yet are paradoxically proud of who they are. He has nothing bad to say about anyone (except Donald Trump) and is ready at a moment’s notice to remind everyone that he is positively positive about the power of positive thinking.

His endless river of kindness has now flowed to Cuba as he paid tribute to the life of Fidel Castro upon his recent death. It seems, however, that the tide of good will that the global liberal community had offered to Trudeau, has suddenly dried up.

He has faced something that liberals the world over fear the most….the dreaded Twitter backlash!

The Canadian Prime Minister’s statement said the following:

“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President.

Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.

While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognised his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.

I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.

On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.”

The remarks contrast sharply with those of Donald Trump whose initial response was a single line Tweet which read, “Fidel Castro Is Dead!”

It should be noted that Trump received his own share of criticism both for his initial tweet and for his subsequent statement condemning Castro’s life in no uncertain terms.

It seems that after months of a kind of rhetorical cold war, the US President-elect and the Canadian PM have something in common, neither can talk about Fidel Castro without receiving a deluge of criticism.

But there is a significant difference. Trump is not a man widely known for being a people pleaser. He is many things, but he’s certainly not your post-modern, slightly limp wristed liberal uncle. Trump’s critics were therefore, the usual suspects. Trudeau’s critics, by contrast, included many individuals who are generally his supporters and allies.

It seems that Fidel Castro’s brand of communism doesn’t appeal to the self-proclaimed liberal intelligence whose idea of a left-wing utopia is based on destruction of culture and the jettisoning of patriotism, rather than on redistributing wealth, insuring state funding for essential public services and allying with the Soviet Union in the struggle against American capitalism. Oops!

Here one sees the clear schism between traditional Marxist-Leninism which is a movement focused on material liberation versus cultural Marxism which is deeply vain and consumeristic, so long as the products being consumed cannot be employed to foster a greater sense of patriotism, nationhood, class consciousness and solidarity with the proletariat.

In trying to please all of the people all of the time, Justin Trudeau has learnt a valuable lesson about the nature of contemporary liberals. They are willing to forgive themselves, but they quickly turn on one of their own when such an individual  veers ever so slightly in favour of either traditional socialism or display an ounce of conservatism.

Poor Justin. I hope he can calm down and relax over a glass of non-dairy, fair-trade organic, double-cold pressed soil juice whilst listening to a greatest hits collection of Tony Blair speeches in the basement of Toronto’s finest post-gender, trans-human, tri-sexual health bar.