Jillian Horton is a physician and author of We are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing.
The child psychiatrist Donald Winnicott famously said, “There is no such thing as an infant.” He wasn’t a nihilist, or delusional – he was illustrating the degree to which our identities are interdependent. A baby needs someone to change, feed and nurture it. Without the existence of a mother, or some person to whom the baby belongs, there is – philosophically but also literally – no baby.
Winnicott’s observations came back to me as I was thinking about the dizzying changes that have occurred in the Canadian political landscape over the course of just a few weeks. The Liberals, seemingly on their deathbed on Jan. 6, have regained a pulse. Pierre Poilievre, however, appears to be losing his. And I wonder if his problem is related to Winnicott’s theories of development.
Maybe there is no Pierre without Justin.
Our country has had a rough few months, but in some ways Mr. Poilievre has had it even worse. Ever since Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he would step down as leader – followed coincidentally by the sudden rise of American threats aimed at our economy and our sovereignty – Mr. Poilievre, who has spent most of his political career at a boiling point, appears to have frozen. And while Mr. Trudeau is no Dorothy, it’s not hard to imagine Mr. Poilievre as the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz, insofar as you can almost hear him screaming, in rage and disbelief: “I’m melting!”
Mr. Poilievre has, in recent years, displayed a deeply personal obsession with Mr. Trudeau, one that became increasingly childish and sinister. It always reminded me of Sideshow Bob’s fixation with Bart Simpson. Even in a cartoon – and in virtually any world besides politics today – such all-consuming hatred would be deemed pathologic, and a person might find themselves sitting across from someone like Donald Winnicott, being asked if they see their enemy’s face in the inkblots.
Now, deprived of the object of his obsession, Mr. Poilievre seems to be misfiring. (You can almost hear him pitching focus groups: “Carnivore Carney? What about Carnival Carney? Can we find out if he’s ever been to Carnegie Hall?”) Patriotic Canadians are uniting in defence of their country at the threat posed by Donald Trump, but Mr. Poilievre still seems desperate to convince us that we should be focusing on calls coming from inside the house.
For many people, Mr. Poilievre simply embodies the zeitgeist of a broader global “me first” movement. One key element of that zeitgeist is “destrudo.” Destrudo is a term from Freudian psychology. It is, simply, the death instinct – the impulse to conquer, vanquish, and destroy. Destrudo is volcanic, acerbic, hostile; it can be directed at another country, or squarely at a person. Everyone has destrudo. Like all impulses, it needs counterweight to be controlled. Nothing good is ever built by destrudo. But it is very efficient at burning things we love to the ground.
The other day, I asked my husband if he’d ever heard of it.
“Destroy … Trudeau?” he said.
My jaw dropped. Speaking it out loud, I heard a double-entendre so perfect it wouldn’t be believable as a plot line in a B movie. Destrudeau.
Yes, Justin Trudeau is finished, done, symbolically destroyed. But in another cinematic twist, he leaves on the heels of the two best high-stakes addresses of his life. In his final act, Mr. Trudeau reminded us powerfully of who we are as Canadians – and who we aspire to be.
And that’s the crux of it – Pierre Poilievre’s paradox and his pesky problem, one he is scrambling to solve but that may be fundamentally out of his reach. This moment has left an opening for a new leader to sneak by him, one who can speak not just to our bitter grievances but to our aspirations and dreams, who can organize not our worst demons but our better angels. There’s a reason the wartime directive is “keep calm and carry on” and not “freak out and smash things.” We won’t get through the years ahead without a Prime Minister who models emotional discipline and gives us the faith that we can carry on – while we also care for and help each other. We need someone who can unite and inspire. I don’t think that person is Mr. Poilievre. I think he can only incite.
There is no baby without a mother, no Sideshow Bob without a Bart, and no Pierre without a Justin. It was all Destrudeau, and Mr. Trudeau has left the building.
I guess that’s why Pierre Poilievre seems – well – broken.