I’m not going to tell you that I know much of anything about Pierre Poilievre. I know that he’s considered to be the likely conservative alternative to Canadian Prime Minister Justin “Fidelito” Trudeau, the wannabe dictator of that country to our north who has made so many of his countrymen miserable.
READ MORE from Scott McKay: Will Louisiana’s Red Blowout Translate Nationally?
I can’t tell you what the chances are of Poilievre taking office. I would suspect they aren’t awful, because, after all, who can stand to be governed by Trudeau for as long as the Canadians have already? But there’s a certain masochistic streak among those who vote for leftist politicians, and because of that sad fact all too often poor performance is not a predictor of electoral prospects.
What I can tell you about Pierre Poilievre is that a couple of days ago he went viral on social media for one of the most brilliantly effortless takedowns of a propagandist disguised as a “mainstream” journalist that I’ve ever seen.
Here’s what it looked like:
Pierre Poilievre gives a masterclass on how to handle a left-wing journalist. And he eats an apple while he's doing it. pic.twitter.com/SX81lvQOAN
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 17, 2023
On Wednesday I did an interview, as I frequently do, with Dan Proft on his Morning Answer show in Chicago, and the segment began with an audio clip of the Poilievre interview. But the main topic of the segment was the GOP blowout in the Louisiana elections on Saturday; it turns out the two are somewhat related.
Jeff Landry, Louisiana’s governor-elect, hasn’t been eating any apples on camera of late. But the campaign he ran, which I described in Tuesday’s column as utterly flawless, contained much of the same spirit.
For example, Landry agreed to one televised debate; that was it. The rest of the corporate media-driven dog-and-pony shows put on by Louisiana’s TV stations, including one co-sponsored by the Urban League, he sat out.
Landry was in total control of his message. He covered the airwaves with ads. He wrote frequent op-eds that originated on a Substack blog but made their way into other media outlets. He gave media interviews very judiciously. His media team made a point of being uncooperative to the point of impossible with reporters who’d proven their hostility.
All that was missing were the apples.
Obviously, it worked.
Not that this approach is new. It’s very much Donald Trump’s approach, though Trump has a bit of a weakness for airtime, which leads to perhaps a little more exposure than he needs — and he has a bigger problem with message discipline, which shows up in some of the more rambling posts he makes on Truth Social. Nonetheless, Trump is a good avatar for the idea that you seize and exploit the initiative when it comes to media interviews, and you are by no means bound by the false narratives and weak premises on which their questions are so often based.
To his credit, Ron DeSantis is pretty good on this score as well. An example:
DeSantis reacts to Nikki Haley wanting to import Gazan refugees to the U.S.
“She’s trying to be politically correct. She’s trying to please the media and people on the Left. I don’t care about that. I’m going to speak the truth and let the chips fall where they may.” pic.twitter.com/SVvFitjFQA
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) October 16, 2023
He’s a little wooden on the stump and that detracts from his ability to compete with Trump, for certain, but when it comes to the topic at hand, and in particular the refusal to accept the faulty premises of questions, it’s how it has to be done.
Though with Poilievre resetting the standard, perhaps there must be apples. Maybe that’s what DeSantis is missing.
