Roundup: Manning says to ride that tiger

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It is now approximately day seventy-three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and United Nations efforts to evacuate civilians from under the steel plant in Mariupol continue apace. Tales from the survivors who have been rescued and have made it to safety are pretty harrowing about life in the tunnels under the plant. Ukrainian forces are preparing a counteroffensive to push Russian forces away from Kharkiv and Izyum in the Donbas region. Amnesty International has been collecting evidence of Russian war crimes around the Kyiv region, including in Bucha. Meanwhile, it sounds like the Canadian “Norman Brigade” of fighters in Ukraine is being poorly led and under-equipped, and gosh, who could have seen this happening?

Closer to home, the conference formerly known as the Manning Conference is happening this weekend, and we’ve already seen the nastiness of the unofficial leadership debate that took place, and now we have Preston Manning himself insisting that their party can capture the “energy” and “enthusiasm” of the extremists, grifters, conspiracy theorists and grievance tourists who made up the occupation in Ottawa, and that they can be “properly managed.”

No. Just no.

Manning has long held that you can ride the tiger of a populist mob and gain from it. Never mind that absolutely everyone who has tried has wound up being mauled by it, but golly, Manning still insists that you can do it. Gods know that Jason Kenney is certainly trying in Alberta, and has been trying to do what Manning has famously suggested about “tapping a relief well” and trying to direct that anger toward something that they can try and be productive with, but that’s not really working either, and all of those face-eating leopards that Kenney invited into the house, because he thought he could turn them on his perceived enemies, have realized that his face is right there and they want to eat it. You don’t try and work the mob up because you think you can use it to your advantage, and Manning keeps making this mistake over again, and encouraging his followers to do the same. What it’s doing is encouraging more extremism instead, and you can be damn sure that there will be repercussions for that.

Good reads:

  • Anita Anand says that military chaplains can continue their role after the anti-discrimination report recommended limiting those who preach anti-LGBTQ dogma.
  • Harjit Sajjan got a briefing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon when he was defence minister, and the Conservative defence critic thinks we need to be more concerned.
  • The federal government has not nailed down the definition of the “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” that they are phasing out. Which sounds about right.
  • CSIS reports that extremists saw the last election as an opportunity to plan violence.
  • The Public Health Agency is trying to determine how many Canadians are suffering from Long COVID.
  • Canada paid another instalment as part of the F-35 development consortium, and yes, we get a news story every time this happens for some reason.
  • Gun control groups want the government to close loopholes in the assault-style firearms ban which manufacturers are exploiting.
  • Former General Jonathan Vance has returned his Order of Military Merit.
  • Failed Conservative leadership candidates Joel Etienne and Joseph Bourgault won’t appeal their disqualifications after consulting with the party.
  • Jason Kenney is preaching party unity to federal Conservatives, and I just can’t.
  • Kerri Froc provides some Canadian legal perspective on the Roe v. Wade issue coming up from the US.
  • Matt Gurney sees value in the Ontario NDP proposal for annual reports on pandemic preparedness, and hopes all parties will pick it up.
  • Andrew Coyne worries about the attacks that Poilievre is making against the Bank of Canada and its independence.
  • Susan Delacourt remarks on the Conservative debate this week, and how it shows that former progressive conservatives are now on the fringes of the party.
  • Althia Raj talks to Jagmeet Singh about the supply and confidence agreement so far.

Odds and ends:

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1522722271864963074

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Manning says to ride that tiger”

  1. Preston Manning is symbolic of the malaise of the CPC. He is now reduced to an anachronistic old white evangelical man who espouses the thinking of the early to mid twentieth century where women in the main had few rights or if they had accomplished gains in person freedoms or a semblance of gender equality he looked down upon them with patronizing gaze. The fact that the CPC still listened to his rheumy postulations gives proof to the danger of even contemplating a vote for the fractured, failed party, bereft of cogent policy for a modern pluralistic and diverse Canada. Enough, Preston one would say, don’t give up your misguided nineteenth century rhetoric just yet. Wait until some misguided individual takes up the torch of Con leadership and with your help takes the party down the road of irrelevance and defeat. Opponents of the backward unwoke right wing movement need a little more time to prevail and with your all-seeing, all-knowing sageness you can still do much to blaze the trail to another rejection in the Federal election three years from now. People should take the time to educate themselves on Manning’s time in the political discourse over the past many decades. As times and the world have changed, this old rhinoceros has remained in a stasis, yet considers himself meaningful. What people will do to try to stay relevant!

  2. I kind of find it ironic that CPAC is the Canadian equivalent of the American C-SPAN channel, and also the name of the American equivalent of Preston Manning’s annual Oldstock festival. Instead of three days of peace, love, and music it’s three days of war, hate, and loud screeching. Put it together and you have CPAC broadcast on CPAC. It seems to fit, since Ben Shapiro is often a keynote speaker at the US version, and now his twin clone, Pierre Paul-Revere the Patriotic Pinhead Pigeon, used the platform to scorch his opponents in the northern equivalent of a GOP primary. Does the CRAP movement, aka the Rebel scum alliance, have any new ideas or personalities that aren’t just maple-flavoured versions of their Republican counterparts? No, but hopefully unlike their more successful kissing cousins in D.C., they will ride the wave of Hillary hatred — I mean Trudeau hatred — to the permanent abyss of electoral oblivion. Let the fireworks begin.

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