Why is Pierre Poilievre So Mean?

PP is not Trump, he's JD Vance

Photo by Nong on Unsplash

I am not a conservative by nature, but I did see an important policy announcement yesterday from Tory leader Pierre Poilievre: if elected, his government would allow seniors to make $35,000 a year without paying any income tax.

That’s the kind of announcement that would normally have me heading toward the ballot box to mark my X against the name of whomever is running against my MP for life David McGuinty. Finally, I thought, an answer to my prayers.

But I’ll admit that something stopped me in my tracks. It’s a feeling, an almost irritation like a mosquito buzzing in my ears.

Somethings are bigger than your paycheque, it whispered. Before I vote for PP, I need to know something.

Why is Pierre Poilievre so mean?

It seems to be something in his character, that has not gone unnoticed by the media.

“Pierre Poilievre has had most of the advantages that life in Canada offers, but he’s still the angriest person on Canada’s political stage,” writes Mark Bourrie in his excellent instant bestseller, Ripper, which dropped last week.

Bourrie notes that many people have been generally screwed around by government, and have been victims of negligence, and they have the right to be angry. But you don’t see them flinging dung every day.

“The sneering, the incivility, the insults, the over-the-top accusations, the utter meanness sets Poilievre apart from the people in the national sphere.”

Right.

Take yesterday.

He could have owned the news cycle with his seniors’ announcement as well as some interesting policy announcements to help the housing industry. Instead, he reverted to his factory settings, and went on a rampage, charging Liberal leader Mark Carney of selling out Canada because he used a Bermuda tax shelter for his money while he was a private citizen.

The media ran with that instead. I simply had to turn off the television at one point.

Why not take the high road, PP? You have some interesting ideas, and I’d love to hear them. Instead, you can’t seem to help yourself being nasty.

Maybe there are some clues in his past, something, someone who imprinted on his fragile nature that turned him into a malignant narcissist during puberty. He’s told us he is the son of a single teenager who was adopted by two school teachers. And we know that his daddio decided to announce to the family that he was gay. Certainly, there’s a lot to unpack here in terms of his emotional health.

Was he bullied in school? Did a banker scare his mother when he was in the womb?

I woke up last night, and I realized he reminds me of someone. Not Donald Trump — after all he was not born wealthy, nor was he given everything at birth.

No, I realized.

PP is not Donald Trump. He is Canada’s JD Vance, a man full of grievance who obviously feels he’s owed something from his country, and that he deserves better.

As a youth, he found a home where his grievance could fester — the Reform Party — and has spent a lifetime in politics, never holding a real job, living a cocoon of vitriol and entitlement. Elected to the House of Commons at the tender age of 25, he spent his formative years in an incubator talking to like-minded lunatics.

Clearly, as Bourrie notes, PP is an arrested 17-year-old who didn’t even have to leave the precinct of Parliament to find a girl friend. It explains a lot.

Think of his recent pronouncement, over and over again, that every Canadian deserves to live in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood protected by “soldiers”. Should there be a moat with alligators, or would he prefer a gated community? And soldiers?

What country does he think he’s living in anyway?

It’s almost as if he’s lived his whole life in mom’s basement, playing video games, and hasn’t bothered to walk down the street here in Canada, where he’s more likely to get bitten by a tick than accosted by a drool dripping fentanyl addict.

It must have really riled him to battle with Justin Trudeau everyday. The school bully setting up against the Prom King. I can’t imagine.

Now he’s projecting his putrid view of the world on the rest of us instead of setting out an inspired vision. No wonder he lost 20 points to Mark Carney almost immediately — Mark Carney, who people thought was a teller at the Bank of Montreal.

I hope somebody talks to him. A new hair cut and contacts don’t cut it.

Maybe therapy could help. Doug Ford set up a hotline…