After last week’s white supremacist insurrection, I put out this tweet because I believe that Canadian Conservative Leader, Erin O’Toole attracts the kind of extremists we saw invade the Capitol. Largely, white supremacists with extreme far-right views.

As a Canadian, we are Erin O’Toole away from what happened in America today.

— Dean Blundell (@ItsDeanBlundell) January 6, 2021

change my mind… https://t.co/OtZyaR4Byc pic.twitter.com/At6QNiPiJx

— Dean Blundell (@ItsDeanBlundell) January 7, 2021

https://crier.co/news/dean-we-are-erin-otoole-away-from-what-happened-to-america-and-heres-why/

O’Toole is pissed about increasing sentiment that he’s Trump-like after last week and he’s currently hitting out against the idea he’s anything like Trump.

Except there’s a problem – he’s EXACTLY like Trump, and unfortunately for him, there are LOADS of receipts.

Trumpism lives in O’Toole when he does interviews with Rebel News as a cheeky nod to voter-eligible extremists. It lives in his campaign rhetoric encouraging Canadians to ‘Fight’ to ‘Take Back Canada’ from a duly elected government instead of offering any common-sense solutions to Canadian problems.

But where Trumpism REALLY really appears to have meshed with Erin O’Toole, is in his complete and total inability to hold himself and his members accountable to anything at all, especially when it comes to conservative far-right extremism.

The Liberals are tired, inept tools, but they’re right. In this piece by Mike Smyth, O’Toole is publicly addressing the Trump-like notions on Twitter and it’s fucking hilarious. Read it and we’ll circle back.

Global News: The (Liberal) fundraising pitch accuses O’Toole of several other Trumpian political sins, including:

• promising to “Take back Canada” in a Trump-style campaign for the Conservative leadership
• agreeing to an “exclusive interview” with the extreme-right Rebel News
• accusing Justin Trudeau of “rigging the next election” in an echo of Trump’s false political rhetoric

O’Toole insists all these claims are just slimy political cheap shots with about as much value as a degree from Trump University.

“The Conservative Party is totally different from the Republican Party in the U.S.,” O’Toole told me.

“Mr. Trudeau is trying to scare and deceive people.”

He said that picture of Conservative deputy leader Candice Bergen in a MAGA hat was taken “years ago” and is misleading because she does not support Trump.

“It’s not her hat,” O’Toole said. “Someone gave it to her to pose for a photo. Who do you think sat on this photo for several years to drop it into the Twittersphere this week?”

He suggested the Liberals ignited the MAGA stink bomb against the Conservatives to coincide with Trump’s final days in office.

He said the “exclusive interview” with Rebel News was actually an e-mail exchange between the controversial news site and a party staffer.

And the Trump-style “rigging-the-election” stuff happened years ago when Andrew Scheer was Conservative leader, he added.

“I want a strong and diverse Conservative Party,” O’Toole told me, condemning Trump-style division and hate.

“That’s why I’ve been reaching out to new Canadians, Indigenous Canadians, LGBTQ Canadians.”

1. “UH.  I’ve been making a special point of conversing with Indigenous people and LGBTQ people cuz I’m trying to convince you I’m something I’m not’.  

I’d love those receipts, too.

2. “It’s not her hat,” O’Toole said. “Someone gave it to her to pose for a photo. Who do you think sat on this photo for several years to drop it into the Twittersphere this week?”

This is Candice Bergen, O’Toole’s Deputy Leader.  He not only suggests the hat on her smiling head isn’t hers BUT, he also suggests the liberals ‘sat’ on this picture and it’s too old to be relevant anyway.  Big claims with no proof and no accountability while changing the narrative? Trump.

3. “The “exclusive interview” with Rebel News was actually an e-mail exchange between the controversial news site and a party staffer”

The interview with Rebel news was extensive and didn’t suggest anywhere a staffer was pretending to be him unless I missed something.  I’m happy to correct this if I did miss something.  I saw the feature on Rebel’s website when they released the interview and read it.  It had a picture of O’Toole and Ezra Levent on the front page (it’s now gone) and was the first interview (one of them, at least) O’Toole gave since the far-right extremists stormed the Capitol Building.

It was a fluffy little ‘would that ever happen here’ bit and reiterated the vibe in his Tweet addressing the growing concern with Alt-Right extremism here in Canada.  Using a far-right blog to communicate to your base isn’t exactly the action of a man who shy’s away from white supremacy.  And, way to get a staffer to address conservative white extremism the day after a conservative white extremist insurrection.  Catering to far-right media for political points? Trump.

4. “And the Trump-style “rigging-the-election” stuff happened years ago when Andrew Scheer was Conservative leader, he added”

This was my favorite.  The old ‘throw your colleagues under the bus’ routine.  That’s what fascists do when all else fails instead of admitting they are wrong, they tube a friend. Super Trump.

He dresses it up better than Trump but he’s a Trumper alright.

Erin O’Toole uses friendly media like Trump.

He glances at accountability like Trump.

He blames everyone else like Trump.

He also said he’s no different than Trump right here, so there’s that.

Here is Erin O’Toole saying this his policies are no different than Donald Trump’s America First policies. #cdnpoli #cdnmedia pic.twitter.com/T9J7S5nYXg

— Neil Before Zod™ (@WaytowichNeil) January 11, 2021

Erin O’Toole won’t completely close himself off to voter-eligible far-right extremists who identify as conservatives.  He can’t abandon that portion of his base because he’s lagging in every poll and there’s an election brewing (which is fucked).  He, like Trump, is choosing to passively pander to extremism while publicly embracing extremists through his actions in favour of political fortune and that’s so Trump, it fucking hurts.

See this?

It’s a shaved tiger ass.  You can shave the tiger’s fur for a new look but the same spots remain because those spots are in their DNA.

Stay woke, my voting Canadians.  We deserve better.

Dean