Four out of five stars, too! From NetGalley:

A fast-paced and engaging inside look at a historical time that doesn’t get lots of attention but will resonate today.

Pop quiz time. 

1. At an election rally, Ku Klux Klan member J. F. Bryant is joined onstage by a confident young lawyer, who rails against those who speak other languages. Who was the young lawyer?

2. A politician travels abroad to meet a murderous, anti-Semitic fascist boss. The politician rhapsodizes about the fascist leader, calling him “eminently wise,” a “mystic,” and “deliverer of his people from tyranny.” Who were they?

3. A leading, prominent member of the clergy – one called “the spiritual father of a modern nation,” who was subsequently beloved by politicians of all stripes – writes that Jews are “traitors in our midst,” that his people are the true “chosen,” and that blacks, indigenous people and other minorities are “inferior elements” and “cancerous growths.” Who was the clergyman? Who were his powerful admirers?

4. A writer of many acclaimed books gives a sold-out speech at the most exclusive hotel in the land. Security at his event is provided by neo-Nazi skinheads – and he tells his audience, which includes local school trustees – that he is a “hardcore disbeliever” in the gas chambers at Auschwitz that killed 1.1 million Jews, Roma, Poles, dissidents and gays. Who was the writer? Where did he give his speech?

5. A revered founder of a political party calls for forced sterilization and segregation of people with “sub-normal” intelligence and morality. In his thesis, this man even says poverty is caused by “any[one] from high-grade moron to mentally defective” – that is, those of low moral character who are a burden on the public purse. Who was he?

6. In a 28-page booklet, the future leader of a Western nation – and a future political party leader – demand that immigration not be permitted to “radically alter the ethnic makeup” of that nation, opposed gay rights, and (later) described a decision to permit Sikhs to wear turbans while serving their country a “needless concession to a Canadian minority.” Who wrote the booklet?

7. Which political party leader declared that “homosexuality is destructive to the individual, and in the long run, society”? What was the party affiliation of an elected legislator who said non-whites should be fired if their presence offends a customer? The partisanship of a candidate who said: “You know, we are letting in too many people from the Third World, the low blacks, the low Hispanics. They’re going to take over…”? 

8. A leader’s former top advisor says he doesn’t want his kids going to school with Jews. He approves of campaigns to deny the vote to blacks. Who does The New Yorker say is now one of his closest friends?

9. Which party leader’s top advisor started a media firm that publishes articles about why they “hate Jews,” and whose correspondents seemingly agree with anti-Semites about “the Jewish question,” and who approvingly quote neo-Nazi leaders?

I could go on, but I’m limited to a set word count. Here are the answers. 

The young lawyer in number one? John Diefenbaker, railing against the French. The leaders in number two? Prime Minister Mackenzie King, talking about Adolf Hitler. (Oh, and King’s Liberal government kept Jews fleeing the Holocaust out of Canada.) In example number three: that was Catholic priest Lionel Groulx, after whom subway stations and streets are named in Quebec – and Liberal leader Claude Ryan and PQ Premier Rene Levesque, who worshipped him.

The acclaimed writer in number four? That was British “historian” David Irving, speaking at the Chateau Laurier in 1989. This writer was there, as a reporter for the Ottawa Citizen. I asked the Chateau Laurier’s management whether they cared about renting their famed facilities to neo-Nazis. They told me they didn’t.

In number five, the identity of the leader who favoured Nazi-style eugenics and sterilization of what he saw as his inferiors? Well, that was Tommy Douglas, founder of today’s New Democratic Party.

The authors of that little racist booklet referred to in example six? Well, that was Stephen Harper, future Prime Minister, and Preston Manning, future Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. They were the ones who wrote the racist Blue Book, which became the basis for Reform Party policy.

And number seven? That’s an easy one. Those racists were all Reform Party candidates or MPs, some of whom went on to be MPs for the Canadian Alliance or the modern Conservative Party. And the advisor in number eight? That’s Donald Trump’s formerly most senior, longest-serving advisor, Steve Bannon – who The New Yorker says is a close friend, and “talks regularly” with Gerald Butts, Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary.

That last one? That’s a more recent example. The media organization is called Rebel, and it was partly founded by Hamish Marshall in 2015 – and Rebel Media are the ones who have giddily published racist and anti-Semitic material for quite a while, now. And Marshall, of course, was the guy who led the leadership campaign of none other than Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer.

Final question in our little pop quiz: as we observe the tragedy unfolding in the United States of America, before and after Charlottesville – as we conclude, as we must, that Donald Trump is a white supremacist – do we really think that we Canadians are superior to our American neighbours? Do we really think we Canadians, of all political stripes, are somehow less racist?

Answer:

We’re not better. We’re not less racist.

Excellent article by my friend Stewart Bell, here.

For the past dozen years, the racist far-right has been fractured, without a prominent national leader or organization. But it has survived, and now it’s angry at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, emboldened by President Donald Trump and amplified by social media.

“Nowadays, they’ve jettisoned the Klansman’s robes and the Hitlerite uniforms for shirts and ties, and they’ve moderated their language,” said Warren Kinsella, who exposed the racist movement in his book Web of Hate and recently authored Recipe for Hate. “They learned that from David Duke. And starting in the mid-90s they embraced the Internet with a vengeance.”

Here:

Clow would not speak for this story.

But someone who trained him in working war rooms was happy to share some thoughts about him and the job. It was Warren Kinsella who brought the modern campaign war room to Canada in 1993, modelled on Bill Clinton’s 1992 run, and who also authored, “Kicking Ass In Canadian Politics.”

Kinsella demands three attributes from war-room staff: Keeping your mouth shut about the war room. Working fast. Doing thorough research.

These campaign operations shape news coverage by providing key components of a story, quickly, to journalists operating in a tougher environment of 24-hour news and declining research budgets: quotes, facts, and people willing to be interviewed.

“(Clinton aide James) Carville told me, ‘The media atom has split.’… You can’t just take (reporters) out to lunch and spin them and the story appears two days later,”‘ Kinsella said.

“(A war room is) basically a newsroom.”

It also provides a central hub so different offices are in contact, and don’t contradict each other. The Canada-U.S. unit includes the PMO’s Butts and Telford, Freeland, ambassador to Washington David MacNaughton, and writer Michael Den Tandt.

Kinsella was impressed with Clow’s speed, cool, and ability to pump out video content while he worked on the 2007 and 2011 Ontario Liberal campaigns.

The Trump mission is infinitely harder, Kinsella said.

Kinsella joked that in elections all his job entailed was pulling pins from grenades and lobbing them. This team must prevent explosions, while working with thousands of officials, multiple government departments, two countries, industry groups, one global economic superpower, and an unpredictable president.

The unit got to conduct early test runs.

When Trump complained about Canadian dairy and lumber, and threatened a NAFTA pullout, it handled the response. The Canadian side kept the temperature down; it responded to heated rhetoric with statistics and telephone calls, and things quickly cooled down.

“They can’t declare war on Trump,” Kinsella said. “In this situation you can’t throw hand grenades — we’re David, they’re Goliath.”

NAFTA negotiations last week offered a glimpse of the unit’s work.

The U.S. government began by complaining about Canada’s historic trade surpluses. Canadian officials were later in the lobby, handing out fact sheets showing a trade deficit.

“We used to call those ‘heat sheets,” Kinsella explained. He’d have his team slip them under hotel-room doors while reporters were sleeping, so they might shape the next day’s news.

“You build an incremental case,” Kinsella said.

“That’s how you win a campaign.”

The United States racist? What would give you that idea? Spotted at the antiques fair just down the street in Kennebunkport.

Present view. The Bush family are on that distant point. And we’d all give anything for one of them to be President of the United States again. 

Good times. 

It’s a bit weird, driving through the US, listening to me and Charles talk about the US.