I will never be able to accurately convey the level of awe I feel at the ease with which conservatives victimize their own supporters — and, like an emotionally abusive parent, they are very, very good at it.
The fallout from then Health Minister and Deputy Premier Sarah Hoffman saying in the Legislature, “we’re focused on hard hats and they’re hanging out with sewer rats” was the most fantastic human thought-herding experiment I’d ever witnessed.
Hoffman was talking about the ABNDP’s focus on jobs while the then-Official Opposition Wildrose was chasing Rebel Media personalities for interview opportunities.
It didn’t matter what she was talking about because soon, with the help of my former MLA turned Western Standard publisher Derek Fildebrandt, the story wasn’t that Hoffman had called the opposition “sewer rats”, it was that they called anyone who supports the Wildrose, and then conservatives generally, “sewer rats”.
It was remarkably, and curiously, effective. At the final PC leadership convention in 2017, there were people handing out buttons that said “I’m a sewer rat”.
It wasn’t just that people embraced it, but it rose to a level of urban legend — like the fable of Pierre Trudeau causing the 80’s recession. The fact of the matter no longer exists because the fiction hits right in the feels of the story they want to tell you.
In 2018, at the UCP’s inaugural convention, former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall was giving a speech and when he told the story, of how mean and hateful the ABNDP was to have called Albertans “sewer rats”, even though I know the story’s origins, he told it so well that even I almost believed it. They are amazing storytellers.
It’s always with that in mind, something I watched happen and evolve, that I hope non-conservatives will will exercise caution and choose their words and targets carefully so that their words will not reach the status of something which can no longer be denied with fact.
I hope, but few will tell you that hope is a plan.
Last week, UCP’s Peace River MLA Dan Williams published a solemn video demanding Nenshi “apologize to all Christians” for what we can only surmise was Nenshi making a joke.
We don’t know for sure, though, because we only get the part of the video Williams wants us to see.
I probably need to acknowledge that there are some unwritten rules for determining what is “funny”. Like, a person who has a disability may make fun of their disability, and it lands much differently than if someone without a disability makes fun of someone else’s disability.
Knowing this, it’s quite possible that Williams was more offended because he is a Christian and decided that, as a Muslim who is the leader of Alberta’s Official Opposition, Nenshi cannot be allowed to say something funny about another religion. Or political party. I have no insider knowledge of this fragile behaviour, or which part is most offensive to The Honourable Minister, specifically.
Williams may not have the same leverage against, say, one of the top 25 Christian comedians I found on google but have never personally heard of.
Personally, I like ABNDP leader Naheed Nenshi’s snark; I think he’s a funny guy. Unfortunately, not everyone gets the joke, especially if it’s at their expense.
Worse yet, no one knows what the joke was because whomever was taping the scrum for the UCP must have only recorded the punchline because that’s all Williams chose to share.
Now, I weigh my words carefully, even in the conservative heartland of inalienable freedoms, always aware that exercising my free speechiness may result in cancel culture if I offend a majority of people in this great province whose credo is “strong and free”.
I take great care to consider even when I share information that it is not going to land me in court, or targeted by a conservative politician who has been offended.
I just want you to know that I have taken these steps again, and as my own judge and jury, have decided that it is worth the risk.
Get ready to grab your pearls, and lock up your women-folk. Maybe read the next part on your fainting couch.
The following, I must be clear, are not my words.
Nenshi said, “I was going to say ‘the UCP hates Baby Jesus’.”
That was not the worst part, I am sorry to say.
After Nenshi said the words, the surrounding crowd of people from the media — who we know aren’t really people at all but an evil cabal of conservative-hating elites — laughed.
Nenshi… made a joke… and they laughed.
I do believe the greater sin is in refusing to allow us to know what the joke was. It’s cruel, actually.
All kidding aside, however, the UCP is really good at taking insults thrown at them and turning it into something much bigger and further reaching. How can they be victims of the Official Opposition if they can’t tie their supporters to the bumper and drag them around, crying and wounded, for the whole town to see what Nenshi did to them?
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Seems like forever ago that all the deplorables south of the border were dressing up as garbage. It’s just what sewer rats do.