A dyspeptic Canadian
David Martin really doesn’t like Canadian conservatives. He says the following in today’s Chicago Tribune: What began in the 1980s as an occasional Reagan-inspired polemic has grown into a panoply of Canadian-bred George Will wannabes. Media once filled with liberal and left-of-center columnists are now rife with young Canada bashers who would like nothing better ...
David Martin really doesn't like Canadian conservatives. He says the following in today's Chicago Tribune:
David Martin really doesn’t like Canadian conservatives. He says the following in today’s Chicago Tribune:
What began in the 1980s as an occasional Reagan-inspired polemic has grown into a panoply of Canadian-bred George Will wannabes. Media once filled with liberal and left-of-center columnists are now rife with young Canada bashers who would like nothing better than to turn us into the 51st state. These FOWs (friends of W) take every opportunity to belittle Canada and praise the American way. Socialized medicine–bad. Free enterprise–good. Multilateralism–bad. Unilateralism–good. Often children of privilege, Canada’s print corps of self-styled compassionate conservatives bridles at the notion of cooperative federalism or government intervention. They belittle the very societal structures that gave them their privileged status and yearn for the more individualistic American society that will presumably yield them even greater riches. David Frum, Mark Steyn, David Warren, Danielle Crittenden, Andrew Coyne and Rondi Adamson. These are just some of the Republicans-in-waiting who haven’t met an American institution they didn’t like….. Take our young conservative commentators off our hands. They all want to be Americans anyway. So please, just let them. And if you’d like, we’d be happy to accept any of your old liberal commentators in return. Assuming you have any left, that is.
This rant is pretty amusing, given the lack of influence conservatives have in Canada. The Conservative Party has never recovered from it’s decimation following the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement. The Liberal Party has been ascendant in Canadian politics for the last decade. Apparently, that’s not enough for Martin. Only when every Canadian writing anything about Canada is suitably liberal will this man rest. Go read the whole op-ed — it manages to combine some unusual traits — bitterness and silliness.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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