i think this issue is a distraction, so i'm not going to get into it too much.

i actually agree that trudeau sounded like an idiot - but he has always sounded like an idiot. he has this kind of airheadedness to him that what you could call 'cultural liberals' (frequent liberal voters that don't know much about policy, but hold to a core of hat could be called libertarian values) see as a virtue - but almost everybody left of centre, from the liberal base to the anarchist fringe, has always found horribly cringey. this was as bad as any of the cringe we've heard from trudeau over the last ten years or so. but, i think we might, to an extent, be getting used to it.

they talked about low expectations during the last election. we may have internalized these expectations as startlingly low...to the point that this kind of thing doesn't phase us any more...to the point where he can sound like the tenth grade drama queen if he wants and people will just shrug it off.

but, i want to push back against this:

"I think Mr. Scheer should be careful of who he chooses as a champion for free speech. You don't want to choose the alt-right, you don't want to choose white supremacists and white nationalists and anti-immigration racists as your flag-bearer for free speech."

i'm going to take a chomskyian view on this - these are exactly the people you need to stand up for, because if they don't have free speech, then nobody else does, either.

and, on this point, you need to look at the action. there was no organizing, no marching, nothing of the sort - it was really legitimately a harmless question, and she was really legitimately roughed up for it.

it is the most unpopular speech that needs the most protection.

and, his father would have understood that.