Hundreds of protesters clash with police outside debate featuring former Trump aide.
In a comped $200 seat, listening to two white middle-aged men, big-braining.
Thinking: This would have been a whole lot more fun as a tabloid talk show moderated by Jerry Springer.
Would someone please throw a chair? Pull some hair? Accuse Steve Bannon or David Frum of being the two-timing deadbeat father of their baby-mama’s spawn?
But no. This is part of the Munk Debates of a Friday evening in Toronto, at staid Roy Thomson Hall, highbrow central. I hear a symphony …
In one corner: Mr. Neo Con, when that breed was in the political ascendancy. Writer of George W. Bush speeches and coiner, sorta, of “The Axis of Evil”, nee “The Axis of Hatred”, until an edit, which is kind of like taking credit for “Snap! Pop!” before someone else inserted the “Crackle!” in between.
In the other corner, looking like an unmade bed, is the man who concocted President Donald Trump from a petri dish of odium, bile and narcissism. Campaign alchemist-inchief, lord of the dark side, accelerant of dystopian politics at home and abroad, freelance fomenter now.
Have sludge, will travel. Dumped by the White House when the monster had no further need of the master. Vacated — “stepped down” — as executive chairman of altright Breitbart News, babblehub for fervent nativism and white supremacist views.
Frum is conservative establishment, for them what likes that kind of thing and a Trump hammerer. Bannon is rabid Anti-Establishment, the outlier who became an insider before Trump punted him.
Frum is a senior editor at The Atlantic. Bannon is — what? — an ideological mercenary, on a far-right mission to radicalize Europe, among other timefillers. Also available, he’s said, to boost the left if strategic expertise is sought. A fox among the fowl. Which might not be such a dumb idea because Big Left has lost its focus, rushing off in all hair-pulling directions.
As an intellectual, Frum would probably brighten anybody’s dinner party, although last night’s rant-a-thon was clearly not triggered by him, almost drive-by smeared as an Iraq invasion warmonger. Bannon is all the time getting invited and disinvited from various tall forehead events, depending on how much blowblack the hosts can withstand.
Just as the rent-a-demo legions lost their nut when it was announced that Bannon and Frum would be featured in this year’s Munk Debate. The pro and con of: Be it resolved, the future of western politics is populist, not liberal. A legitimate issue as populism surges from Italy to Brazil, even the backwater of Ontario.
A platform for hatemongers! Normalizing the fringe abnormal! Ban Bannon! Wonder how the Jews in attendance, heckled by a mob right in their faces as they queued outside, felt about being called F- - - - - - NAZIS.
Because this audience was decidedly on the con side of the equation.
Not merely the protesters who’d infiltrated the auditorium, unfurling go-away banners within 30 seconds of Bannon launching his opening statement. But the 72 per cent who pushed the con button on their interactive thingamajigs before the debate even began.
“The only question before us is if it’s going to be populist nationalism or populist socialism,” Bannon posited of a global anti-globalism surge that has brought reactionary parties to power from Italy to Brazil and blaming the elites for the financial crisis that nearly brought the world to its knees in 2008.
“Who’s responsible for that? The populists, Donald Trump? No, the elites … the corporate class that runs Washington, D.C.
“Donald Trump’s presidency is not the cause of that, it’s the product of that. It was Donald Trump who turned that around.’’
Trump, claimed Bannon, has reversed a country in decline — and that brought hoots of derision.
To counter, Frum pointed to the Remembrance Day poppy on his lapel.
“These symbols remind us that this is not the first time that democracy has faced thugs and crooks and bullies and would-be dictators and those who seek to pull themselves up by tearing others down. They were wrong then, they are wrong now.’’
Populism, argued Frum, “offers you nothing. It does not respect you. It is anger that draws people to populism, anger and fear.”
It’s almost funny, though, mounting a yak-yak challenge between a buttoned-down right winger and a circling Pluto right winger, each allegedly fighting for the soul of the, well, right wing. (Which, as anybody can tell you, has no soul.)
Might as well shove Roseanne Barr up there crossing barbs with Kanye West. Neither is a bell-ringer for liberalism, as Frum felt the need to defend himself as not a Liberal, yet asserting the conservative “liberal heritage”.
“Populism is a scam, it’s a lie, it’s a fake. It has nothing. Donald Trump is running the most unethical administration in American history.”
The GOP, as an aside, has essentially been hijacked by its rump fringe, coalescing around a shambolic megalomaniac. Hence scarcely a peep from ranking Republicans about Muslim bans and separating asylum-seeking parents from their children and calling out the army to stonewall a migrant caravan when it reaches the US-Mexico border. But Bannon zinged back. “This is the oldest trick in the book, smear the populist movement, smear the deplorables. Hillary Clinton tried that. We saw how that turned out.
“The populist movement is not racist. They’re the backbone of our country, the most decent people on Earth.’’
Frum, who really is an accomplished debunker, rounded on Bannon.
“It is absolutely true that liberal democracy is in trouble right now because of failures that have happened in the past, because of the financial crisis, because of unsuccessful wars. The failures of a good system are not reason to turn to an evil one.”
Bannon — surprisingly, he’s not without charm — is a carpetbagger, of course, doubtless thrilled by his notoriety, sucking oxygen from rabid dissenters outside. At least that reinforces his vanity of relevance. As guest speaker at a midterms rally in Topeka a couple of days ago, he attracted a crowd of “about 25”. The repent-ye Bible-thumper at Yonge and Dundas draws a larger audience.
But maybe it’s different when charging 200 clams per ducat. Then it’s a sold out affair and let’s meet for cocktails beforehand.
I am agnostic on to-Bannonor-not-to-Bannon. I take no position on his appearance in Toronto.
A made-up mind is a bitch of a thing to change anyway. I doubt that any minds shifted last night. Not outside, not inside. Bannon may be the devil incarnate but there were precious few angels in the vicinity either.
This column has been brought to you by FAKENEWS.
As guest speaker at a mid-terms rally in Topeka a couple of days ago, Bannon attracted a crowd of “about 25”