Holding back the urge to yell

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/06/2023 (1177 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There are days when I want to mimic Howard Beale, the character Peter Finch played in Network (1976), and scream “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more!”

I have restrained myself, so far, because I don’t want to be mistaken for a populist politician, whose audiences are cynically manipulated to echo that scream.

Inarticulate rage plays really well on the small screen across America, and much better than the voice of quiet reason. Unfortunately, we are on the brink of the same tsunami of idiocy in Canada that increasingly sweeps over the U.S. in election season.

If you think Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene couldn’t happen here, you have not been talking to the same people as “Mad Max” Bernier, whose People’s Party of Canada has been taking notes ever since the Tea Party Republicans came onstage down south.

Nor have you overheard election planning with Conservative Party strategists, as they transform Pierre Polievre (“Skippy”) into anything but a happy little bush kangaroo. Vitriol will roll into communities across the country, like a perpetual Freedumb Convoy. This time, it will be even harder to get the police to shut down the horn blowers, because at least some of them, too, are “mad as hell,” if not for the same reasons.

After all, who is actually happy, these days? Apart from bankers, food magnates or fossil fuel executives — and munitions manufacturers — the world is not a happy place for most people. So, if I start screaming in rage out my “window” on TikTok or Twitter, I will have lots of support, right away. Misery not only loves company, but screaming encourages others to scream, too.

It’s like those crowded wedding socials, where you have to talk louder and louder in order to be heard, until everyone is both yelling and deaf. I have often wished for a very large gong I could hammer, something that would reset the crowd to a normal level of conversation, at least for a while.

Yet in politics, that kind of reset is a dangerous tactic. If people are encouraged to stop and think, they might ask questions — questions you can’t answer, or which (if you respond with the truth) will cause you (or your party) big trouble. It is much smarter to scream and to encourage others to scream, because then that voice of quiet reason is encouraged to leave the social early and just go home.

Once people are induced to scream, however, to indulge their “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” feelings, it is a short step to violence. A screaming, enraged mob is — by definition — impossible to control. (If you think it could never happen here, you must have missed all the footage of the sacking of Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021.)

The relatively byelections were unfortunately not an indicator of what to expect in the next federal election. In Manitoba, we only learned that more people in Portage-Lisgar prefer “Skippy” to “Mad Max,” while the Liberal win in Winnipeg South-Centre was more about being “Son of Jim” than “Son of Pierre.”

So, as the wheels turn toward 2025, or whenever the next episode of “As the Stomach Turns” is aired, expect venom and bile to swamp the airwaves. Much of that “mad as hell” anger will be aimed at Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, who in the past has been able to deflect it (along with criticism of his hair).

This time, however, the Liberal message to voters needs to be more than “I’m not as bad as the other guy. Trust me.”

First of all, we don’t.

There have been serial examples of abused privilege, of cabinet ministers and advisers thrown under the bus of public opinion, and of ethical lessons not learned. The Trudeau dynastic image has long since lost its shine.

Simply put, if Justin Trudeau has the best interests of his party and the country at heart, instead of trying to serve a record-setting fourth term as prime minister, he will resign as leader before the next election, instead of after it.

That would be a giant gong to reset federal politics, because the main Conservative target would be gone. It would be hilarious to watch “Skippy” instead deal with (say) Chrystia Freeland, who has eaten him for lunch many times before. We might even get to debate real issues, instead.

Yes, I am mad as hell, but I want someone to do something about our problems, not just yell about them.

Peter Denton is an activist, writer and academic, based in rural Manitoba.