Bill Maher’s commentary on Canada is simply one of the most brilliant and accurate YouTube I have ever watched. Maher’s presentation has all of the ingredients of an effective message.
Short, punchy, clever and funny, And most of all, it is a savage critique of the kind of “liberalism” or progressivism that Maher despises. The fact that it is delivered by a long time liberal makes it more credible to reasonable liberals who would otherwise dismiss it.
Watch the Bill Maher video on YouTube
Progressives should find Maher’s final point powerfully persuasive. If you don’t like politicians of the “far right”, then you better not give them the ammunition they need to win. You better not support hyper immigration and the ethnic indigestion that results from “too many too fast” from non-assimilable cultures.
So instead of demonizing Trump or ‘far right’ populists abroad, you would best address the legitimate issues that forced a good many common sense people to turn to them in desperation. People that progressives treat with condescension and scorn. Rural people. Blue collar people. Ordinary people. People in “fly over” states or Red Counties. Farmers, ranchers, oilmen, workers in the resource sector. “Joe the Plumber” and the millions like him.
When Hilary Clinton described them as a’ basket of deplorables’, and late night talk show hosts resorted to stereotypical, demeaning depictions of these Americans, I took it personally. Even as a Canadian.
I thought of my father, an honest hardworking man who had to quit school at the age of 14 to work for the mining company. His father had nine mouths to feed, and Dad had to make a contribution. Despite being functionally illiterate, he rose to the top of the biggest construction company in British Columbia. He disguised his illiteracy by showing up on “Lombardi time” (i.e., 15 minutes early) and studying blueprints at the job site while other men were just waking up from their beds. He “faked it” by committing so much to memory.
When I was on school vacations, I would often accompany him to work. I marveled at his ability to confer with architects, engineers and company directors far above his station. He was the head superintendent and overseer of many of the iconic construction projects in Greater Vancouver.
I also came to meet the carpenters and labourers who worked under him. They loved and respected him, and still did when I worked alongside them a decade later during summer breaks when I attended college. They treated me like family, and I almost regarded them as such. Most of them were Italian and Portuguese, with a few from Central Europe. They had difficulty with the English language too, and so it made sense that they established such a close rapport with a man like Dad, who was equally incompetent with the language but conveyed his feelings with body language and course humour. Dad was rough around the edges, but incomparably fair in his treatment of his workforce. The moral litmus test he applied to all men was their willingness to work hard. That is why he admired Italian immigrants the most, as they did him.
One of his common refrains was “Give me an Italian crew with a German supervisor and I can accomplish miracles.”
A “deplorable”? What a disgusting epithet. Do liberal politicians know of whom they speak? They are accustomed to reading hagiographies that tout their political accomplishments and rise to prominence, but how is this for climbing the ladder:
The son of an Irish Canadian family of nine, Dad was born in a West Kootenay town made famous for organizing the first Miners Union in North America. Dad’s work ethic and perseverance was second to none, and that was saying a lot where he came from. Imagine working down a mine shaft for 8 hours, then jogging to the gym in a company town, skipping rope and sparring with his brothers to eventually become the Welterweight Champion of Western Canada in the early thirties. That was him. And his seven brothers were equally tough and diligent. Those are the people I admire. Not the degenerates who occupy political office today or frequent faculty clubs, newsrooms and cocktail parties.
So when Trump remarked that he loved “uneducated people”, I knew what he meant. And I also knew what Hilary Clinton and her ilk meant, and still mean by their insult. Joe Biden once said that he would like to punch out Trump. Well I would like to punch out the wine drinking, NPR-listening, college “educated” ruling elite of the Democratic Party— and their Canadian comrades north of the 49th. The so called “Laurentian elite”. Justin’s Trudeau’s club. These are the pious phonies who cite “racism” as the most serious problem in the country. I think not. It is classism, a current of prejudice that among Leftists runs right back to Karl Marx and his reference to “rural idiocy”.
I know this mindset well, but my parents and grandparents knew it better. Four of them fled Europe because no matter how hard they worked, they couldn’t advance. They were condemned by their working class accents. How ironic is it then that despite their labour and sacrifices, they and those like them are retroactively disparaged for their “privilege”.
It is my hope that an electorally significant chunk of ordinary people who have had enough of this perpetual deprecation will register their anger at the ballot box. They are tired of being whipping boys and punching bags. They are tired of being treated as members of an incorrigible class of know-nothings, bigots and oppressors by sanctimonious hypocrites who remind them that people should be treated as individuals! They were enjoined to be colour-blind but now they are chastised for not acknowledging colour! They are ready to send a message.
Here’s a tip for progressives. If you denigrate a whole class of people, don’t get mad if they don’t vote for you. You reap what you sow. Class prejudice begets class prejudice. Perhaps I am a case in point. It is not that I hate your guts and your politics. I simply despise your social class. Nothing personal, you understand.
Tim Murray
