On feeling joy at your opponents' personal tragedy
I oppose Trudeau as a politician. I feel for him as a human being.
A Prime Minister who I have long criticized, and whose government I want to see defeated in the next election, is separating from his wife.
And if you think I take any satisfaction in this, you are absolutely wrong.
I went through my own separation and divorce a few years ago, and I would rather have my legs crushed by a steamroller than to go through that again. I eventually made it to a good place, and we’ve been able to work together quite well for our children’s sake, but getting there was absolutely brutal.
I wouldn’t wish the journey on anyone else. Not even my political opponents.
The “F**k Trudeau” bumper sticker crowd, sadly, is responding pretty much as you’d expect. Tasha Kheiriddin has some thoughtful observations:
For Canadians who hate Justin Trudeau, there’s apparently nothing sweeter than schadenfreude. The announcement that he is separating from his wife of 18 years, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, unleashed a torrent of online vitriol, most of which revolved around COVID-19 mandates.
[…]
…when it comes to slamming the PM, wishing his family ill because yours has suffered is not something to encourage. True leadership would be to actively discourage this sort of thing, and redirect the fire to the failings that matter.
The Trudeaus’ split has once again revealed Canada’s, and it’s not a pretty picture.
Now, for the obvious question: if it were Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife going through the same thing, would they be inundated with the same kind of vitriol from the other direction?
We already have our answer. If you still have access to Twitter or whatever it’s call this week: check out Poilievre’s feed, look for any tweets (Xes?) with photographs of his wife and/or kids, and check out the responses.
There’s a reason Jake Tapper coined the phrase “TruAnon” when he found himself inundated with angry responses after offering some criticism of the Prime Minister. And before that, the same people spread conspiracy theories, misinformation and blatant lies about the military service of Poilievre’s predecessor (and now Substack writer) Erin O’Toole, and the citizenship and professional life of Andrew Scheer before that.
Am I engaging in “bothsidesism” here? Yes, I am, because there are horrible people all across the Canadian political spectrum who get off on casual cruelty behind the safety of a computer or smartphone screen. (As a rule, the absolute worst people are the ones with Christmas crosses or some variation of “it costs nothing to be kind” in their bios.)
We can argue about who is worse - at the moment, the most threatening and intimidating behavior is coming from the right - but no side is coming to the table with clean hands. If your progressive beliefs lead you to call for a Black immigrant Conservative Member of Parliament to be expelled from the country because of her politics, as one popular TruAnon type did to Leslyn Lewis a few months back, you are very much part of the problem.
Politics is a rough business. It always has been. If you don’t have a thick skin to weather not just political and ideological attacks but even deeply personal ones, you should find another line of work.
Chances are, Justin Trudeau is not even going to see your snarky response to what must be an emotionally trying experience for him. You aren’t really hurting him by mocking his pain.
You’re corrupting your own soul, though. Online cruelty is a kind of intoxicant. When you write something angry, you really do get an adrenaline rush from telling it like it is and taking a stand for your beliefs.
And, like any intoxicant, you gradually need a heavier dose to satisfy your craving. That can take you into some dark places.
There’s a lot to be learned from the (possibly apocryphal) story of Abraham Lincoln writing an absolutely vicious, insulting letter to one of his Generals out of frustration with costly Union missteps during the Civil War. And then not actually sending it (or it being intercepted by his wife, depending on which version of the story you read) and soon cooling down.
I’ve been there many times myself. If I go back through my Substack and blog archives I’m sure I’ll find many things I wrote in anger and now find cringeworthy. Far from throwing stones, I freely admit to having been part of the problem.
The world doesn’t need to know your angry thought this very minute. If it’s important, it will still be important in a few hours, or tomorrow, or next week. If you find yourself forgetting about it, it was never important enough to post in the first place.
And remember that your opponents are human. Even if you truly despise them and legitimately wish them harm, they have family members - often young children, as in the Trudeaus’ case - who should not be collateral damage.