ArcaMax

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — I’ve been back on Canada’s west coast for roughly five minutes, and already I’m trapped in the same boomer-induced fever dream that haunts American airports and Whole Foods checkout lines. It’s just endless, unsolicited Trump rants.

How many times do innocent people minding their own business while standing within your general vicinity while out in public have to overhear you howling to your buddy about how you’re “totally not going to your timeshare on Florida/Arizona/Hawaii this year” because you’re taking a stand against Trump. They’re also talking like Trump is personally tanking their retirement accounts, as if he moonlights as their personal financial adviser. If your entire pension is riding on the emotional stability of U.S. political drama, maybe it’s time for a different portfolio manager?

“Elbows up” is the cringe-worthy rallying cry adopted here en masse by precisely the same folks who would try (and fail) to bully a woman off the stair machine at the gym because he couldn’t wait any longer than five minutes before getting onto the adjacent machine and visibly setting his workout entertainment selection to “The Bulwark” podcast.

“Google, what is the Bulwark Podcast?” Which listening demographic could this entitled ray of sunshine possibly belong to? “The flagship podcast of the Never Trump movement and the reality-based community.” What a shocker.

“Elbows up” popped up earlier this year after Trump joked about Canada being the 51st U.S. state— a trolling so effective that it managed to jolt Canada’s ruling class out of their Washington worship just long enough to briefly consider national interests.

Then came a campaign ad straight from the fever swamp of Canadiana. Liberal leader Mark Carney, flanked rinkside by Hollywood comedian Mike Myers, invoked the spirit of hockey’s patron saint of violence, Gordie Howe.

Carney solemnly declared, “There will always be a Canada,” to which Myers replied, “Elbows up.”

Naturally, Facebook has turned into an “Elbows up” T-shirt-printing factory. Everyone’s boomer uncle is posting photos from the “Elbows Up, Canada!” rally in Ottawa like it was Woodstock.

Organizers said that the event was meant to “celebrate our country, affirm our sovereignty.”

But where were those elbows when Canada’s national identity and unity was under direct threat from Liberal government Covid-era policies that actively encouraged shunning and marginalizing citizens who made a different choice in the interest of their personal health amid the government’s anti-Covid jab mandates? Seems they were mostly hiding at home with their masks on while the Freedom Convoy was fighting against a crackdown on basic civil rights that was later described by a Canadian federal court judge as an unconstitutional violation of security and expression.

Where were they when Carney himself, a walking LinkedIn profile for global governance, published an op-ed in the Globe and Mail on Feb. 7, 2022, asserting that “anyone sending money to the convoy should be in no doubt: You are funding sedition. Foreign funders of an insurrection interfered in our domestic affairs from the start. Canadian authorities should take every step within the law to identify and thoroughly punish them.”

Months later, it emerged that Canada’s own spy agency politely coughed and said, actually, they hadn’t seen a cent of foreign cash. “CSIS has also not seen any foreign money coming from other states to support this,” according to Director David Vigneault.

Alrighty, then. Good thing there were all those aggressive “elbows up” around at the time to keep the benefit of the doubt in the heat of the moment squarely on the side of freedom.

And now, Canada’s national election, set for April 28, has been reduced to little more than a referendum on U.S. President Donald Trump. It’s giving “I’m so over my ex” energy. The kind where you keep bringing him up at brunch, while insisting you’re thriving.

Just a few weeks ago, polls unanimously suggested that the Conservative Party, led by longtime parliamentarian Pierre Poilièvre, was a shoe-in to sweep the vote because everyone was so exasperated by the Liberals’ handling of the economy under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The deglobalization trend was all the rage, from Europe to the U.S. and Trump’s America First-style message was literally grafted directly onto the Conservatives’ own campaign. “Canada first for a change,” is the slogan emblazoned across the top of the party’s website, just above the “donate” button.

The Liberal Party — which appointed a literal icon of globalism and world governance as prime minister— is casting Trump as the main villain, rather than their own crippling globalist policies. And tragically, it’s working. Canadian voters are apparently ready to go back again to the same folks who spent the last decade making the country a discount outlet for Davos talking points — all because the Conservatives are accused of not hating Trump enough.

But hey, elbows up, if not common sense, eh?