Saturday, December 31, 2016

The Canadians have right-wing media freaks too

Brazeau and friends talking about Trudeau -
a still from the movie "God Save Justin Trudeau"
Thanks to my interest in the Canadian boxing event in 2012 between Justin Trudeau and Patrick Brazeau I unfortunately learned who Ezra Levant is.

Levant is your standard obnoxious right-winger who combines Ann Coulter's shameless disdain for the truth with Rush Limbaugh's bluster (and Limbaugh's disdain for the truth.) But he's Canadian.


And then there is what I consider Levant's homoerotic obsession with Justin Trudeau - I found Youtube footage from 2011 where Levant calls Trudeau "Shiny Pony" - I thought he coined the term for the boxing match in 2012. 

Although we are supposed to believe that Levant is simply being deliberately outrageous and ironical with his constant over-the-top commentary about Trudeau's hair and appearance, I think there is something real underneath it all. And Levant certainly wouldn't be the first masculinity-obsessed conservative in a closet. 

I sensed Levant's ironical-but-real frisson while watching the boxing-related videos, but the 2011 video is what really convinced me. After Levant brushes the mane of a "My Little Pony" toy while talking to it as if it is Trudeau, he plays a clip of Trudeau yelling an obscenity in Parliament. After the clip ends:
    LEVANT 
Did you hear that heckle? Shiny Pony, I don't care if you called the Environment Minister a piece of shit. When you say those bad words all I hear are the sounds of angels whispering in my ear. 
(He kisses the toy and tells it "I love you.")
 And you did apologize in your best substitute high school drama teacher way, didn't yah? 
(plays the clip of Trudeau apologizing)
 Oh Shiny Pony, I love you, I love your hair, even your Zorro-like Three Musketeers facial hair.
The lady methinks doth faux-ironically protest too much. Trudeau looks amazing with the long hair and goatee. Trudeau is one of the very few men who can look good in any facial hair configuration. 

And then Levant really gives himself away:
You're so serious now, you're so grown up, I love it, you're so authoritative now, I trust you to lead our country through these troubled times. I can imagine you going head to head with the Vladimir Putins and the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads of the world.
Thing is, Levant and other conservatives love that kind of behavior: swearing and being authoritative. That's exactly what they love about Donald Trump. 

Levant, teaming up with another Canadian asshole I recently discovered, hardcore misogynist Gavin McInnes, explicitly declared just a few days ago that Donald Trump's win is "a return to masculinity." 


Although to be fair, Levant did publish a video of Gavin McInnes making out with Milo Yiannopoulos (the gay neo-nazi darling of Simon and Schuster.) Don't worry, right-wing homophobes they didn't really mean it - it was faux-ironical-fake and they only did it to upset fundamentalist Muslims. Yiannopoulos for his part allowed that Trudeau has a face "begging to be cum on."

It's kind of sweet the way right-wingers make a big ole daisy-chain like that.

Levant isn't sincerely bothered by Trudeau's lack of government experience either: Donald Trump had even less government experience on being elected president than Trudeau had on being elected prime minister. 

Since Levant is faux-ironical-faking disapproval of Trudeau's behavior and lack of government experience, what else is he faux-ironical-faking about his feelings for Justin Trudeau? 


Now of course I sympathize with Levant's desire for Trudeau - millions of straight women and gay men and bisexuals do. But his obsession with Trudeau on a personal level while pretending to hate his guts is truly creepy.

Here is the latest from Levant's Twitter feed. This comic book came out in August and so it's doubtful this photo is recent. So Levant posted it just... because... 




More important than Levant's amour fou pour Justin Trudeau is his absolute shittiness as a journalist. And he does consider himself a journalist, and not in the faux-ironical-faking sense either. He went whining to Justin Trudeau last month when the United Nations organization didn't believe that he and his sleazy The Rebel were real journalists.

Since Levant has so much animus towards Trudeau (again, possibly the result of repressed homoerotic lust) it was no surprise that during the boxing match Levant claimed Trudeau's tattoo was fake. But Levant claimed to adore Brazeau, constantly praising his he-man toughness in contrast to Trudeau's alleged effeminacy. So you'd think that Levant would at least have enough respect for Brazeau to get his facts straight about him. But he absolutely refused to remember that Brazeau was Algonquin and kept calling him a Métis (pronounced may-tea) even though Brazeau corrected him, himself, during an interview, and then during the boxing match the other announcer mentioned early on that Brazeau was Algonquin and Levant still called him Métis. Like any right-winger, Levant is not especially concerned about the facts. And probably in his mind all First Nations are alike anyway.

I'm not sure if Levant was saying that Trudeau's tattoo was a fake tattoo or a real tattoo but not real aboriginal art. Or both. In any case, it is a real tattoo and also real aboriginal in that the tattoo was based on the art of a First Nations man:
Robert Davidson, a Northwest Coast artist of Haida descent, is a master carver of totem poles and masks and works in a variety of other media as a printmaker, painter and jeweler. 
I found this photo of Trudeau which is very unusual - it shows the world tattoo Trudeau got in his 20s before he had the Haida design added around it when he was 40. I certainly enjoy this photo. I'm guessing Ezra Levant really really enjoys it too.

UPDATE ON LEVANT - via a Twitter parody account "Narrated Ezra Levant" I discovered that Levant resigned from being a lawyer before they had a chance to disbar him. Reminds me a little of Roy Cohn in ANGELS IN AMERICA.

While a resignation during a disciplinary proceeding can be deemed a disbarment, Mr. Levant said he has applied under a section of the Alberta Legal Professional Act which permits lawyers to resign without disbarment when there are no outstanding conduct issues that warrant disbarment.