To change minds about Trudeau, Conservatives have to get over his glitz
The last time the federal Conservatives won an election, neither they nor most other Canadians had probably heard the word "selfie," let alone uttered it.
To help their chances of returning to power, they would do themselves a favour by expunging it from their vocabulary.
Attend a Conservative event – including this past spring's leadership convention – and you can scarcely go five minutes without hearing some snide reference to Justin Trudeau's celebrity status. If not "selfie" – which technically would mean the Prime Minister taking photos of himself, but tends to be used by the Tories as a catch-all for any time he poses in front of a camera – it will involve his looks, his clothes, his appearances in entertainment media. The implication, often meant to sound light-hearted but coming off as resentful, is that Canadians should see through his vanity to recognize him as too unserious to run the country.
It's easy to understand such sentiments and, lately, Mr. Trudeau seems to have been all but inviting them. His Rolling Stone cover appearance and the fawning prose of a reporter for the American magazine given better access than Canadian journalists who would ask tougher questions, epitomized much of what infuriates those who believe they have always seen through platitudinous virtue-signalling to recognize him as someone seeking out attention for its own sake. (Exhibit A: A Facebook response by prominent Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, complaining that politics is being reduced to "prince charmings who can do no wrong, all while flying through a rainbow on a unicorn," and that, to Mr. Trudeau, "image is everything.")
But whether or not Mr. Trudeau sets it deliberately, he keeps luring his rivals into a trap. Not that all criticism of the Rolling Stone appearance in particular is misguided: The quote from the PM suggesting an Indigenous senator made a good boxing foil is awful. It's just that whenever the Conservatives give the same tired reactions to the flash with which Mr. Trudeau markets himself, they wind up refighting a battle against him they have already lost, instead of paving the way for one they could win.
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