FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES
A Trudeau strategist’s connections to a Trump strategist: it’s strategy.
Gerald Butts, principal secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, threw out an open question on Facebook earlier this summer: “Why do people who are self-evidently not your friends want to be your friends?”
He was not referring to Steve Bannon, the adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, who’s been getting a lot of attention this week because of his old associations with the alt-right — and, as it happens, his new friendship with Butts. Apparently, Bannon sees Butts as a left-wing version of himself and a dispenser of handy tips on populist governance.
“Last year, as the Prime Minister’s popularity was in decline, Trudeau pushed through a tax hike on the rich, and it helped him rebound,” the New Yorker recounted (somewhat inaccurately) in a profile of Bannon that appeared this week. As writer Ryan Lizza tells it, Butts explained to Bannon why this same tactic might work in the United States in this way: “There’s nothing better for a populist than a rich guy raising taxes on rich guys.”
Trudeau’s PMO has made no secret of its pragmatic efforts to forge contacts in Trump’s White House from the very beginning. Chief of staff Katie Telford is the one who keeps the lines open with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump for the most part; Butts has wound up with Bannon. Put all the names in Google and you can easily find pictures — maybe not as holiday-card merry as photos of the Trudeau team with the Obama White House, but in the public record nonetheless.
So when I first saw the story, I would have bet that the controversy would be over the advice. What is Canada doing giving popularity tips to Trump? Also, it sounded a tad crass. It was, come to think of it, quite similar in tone to Trudeau’s telling Rolling Stone about finding Indigenous boxing opponents to fit some political “narrative” on his climb to power.
What is it with American publications and their ability this summer to make this PMO sound cynical and boastful at the same time?
The advice, though, didn’t seem to stir up much outrage, which probably tells us something about the current political climate — one in which “taxing the rich” is neither left nor right, nor controversial, just a clever political communications tactic.
Butts already knew the answer to the question he posed on Facebook a month ago. In politics, as on Facebook itself, the concept of “friend” is a pretty loose one. If you’re at all in the public eye, you know the difference between real friends and political friends and chances are, you’ve learned some of that the hard way.
Defeats were invented in politics, I sometimes think, to remind people of the difference between real friends and political ones. It’s why journalists like me, who’ve seen a few governments come and go, prefer to deal with partisans who have suffered defeat. A politico who has gone through an electoral loss tends to be more clear-eyed; not just about friendships, but about things like strategy, too.
We’re in the midst of a strange time in politics about this business of friendships, really. It is good to use friendships with the White House (recall that Brian Mulroney was recruited to be a bridge builder with Trump) but bad for politicians to hang out with people who contribute money to their campaigns. The best way to get in the new, independent Senate, too, is to have no friendships at all with the current government. The same may soon be true for any kind of political appointment. Butts may need friends like Bannon, because hanging out with Liberal friends could get him in trouble.
Meanwhile, it is easier than ever to make friends in the digital world — all it takes is a click to accept an invitation or to meet new Twitter followers. But you have to be careful: if you only have like-minded friends, you live in an echo chamber. (See last week’s column.)
If you have friends with whom you differ, you may be judged harshly by the association. One of my Facebook connections was threatening to “unfriend” anyone who continued to be friends with a person due to speak at a Canadian anti-immigration rally this coming weekend. I was surprised to see that both of these people were in my list of “friends.”
But that’s Facebook for you — a place where people who “self-evidently” aren’t your friends end up as friends somehow. It’s politics, too, where bonds are forged for all kinds of reasons, practical or otherwise, and maybe across partisan lines, or even over a few laughs about taxing the rich. sdelacourt@bell.net