Carney calls out Emperor Trump
National Post, 24 January 2026
The world had been waiting for someone, even briefly, tell the truth about the U.S. president
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech was greeted with fevered laudations overseas — and provoked a most welcome reaction at home.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre gave a lengthy reply, substantive in its disagreements, and even included a few grace notes. For those who have followed Poilievre in public life for decades, and know of his intelligence and capacity for policy depth, it was welcome that he mostly set aside the snark and soundbites of recent years and let his better qualities come to the fore. It was a good week in Canadian public discourse, and the prime minister deserves credit for that.
Why the fevered laudations around the world? Carney’s speech was like popping the cork on a Champagne bottle; it released the pressure, building now for a year since President Donald Trump returned to office.
It’s not that criticism of Trump was ever stifled. He is moderately unpopular at home, never carrying a majority of the vote and usually having underwater approval ratings. He is massively unpopular abroad.
Amongst Americans, none of his policies is popular aside from immigration and, even regarding deportations, the sight of masked agents roaming the streets is off-putting to many.
Thus critics of Trump have an easy time of it. They are playing to a majority, often a supermajority. So voluminous is the criticism, and so devastating, that the Trump circle of obsequiousness came up with a name to deflect and discredit it: Trump Derangement Syndrome. In recent years there has been no shortage of derangement in the United States, plentifully spread on all sides, but it is a massive dodge to attribute to the many serious Trump critics a loss of critical faculties.
Why couldn’t there be a stable equilibrium worked out? Trump has demonstrated preternatural skill in utterly dominating a sufficient sector of the American electorate to keep him in power. Why can’t the supermajority in the rest of the world ignore him, live-and-let-live?
Because the one thing Trump will not tolerate under any circumstances, for more than 40 years, is to be ignored. The cycle of outrage — Canada, Panama, Greenland (or Iceland?) — is cranked up constantly. The outright lies — foreigners paying tariffs, ending four, six, eight wars — and the wanton cruelty — blaming Rob Reiner for being murdered by his own son — pile up. There are critics aplenty. Trump gets the attention. Then comes the part that frustrates his critics to the point of exasperated exhaustion: Will any of the obsequious circle break with him this time?
As long as there is sufficient submission, Trump survives. He offers an outrage — and the Republicans in Congress swallow it. He is petty and cruel — and the Trump media covers for him. He is breathtakingly corrupt — and his apologists pretend not to notice. He uses the fierce prosecutorial power of the state to persecute his enemies and pardon his supporters — and the MAGA crowd forgets that they used to be against all that.
In international relations, he has used his executive power to reward enemies and punish friends — and they have largely gone along with it. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer forced King Charles III into hosting Trump for a second state visit. NATO’s commander calls Trump “daddy.” The Nobel Peace Prize winner from Venezuela hands over her laureate’s medal, desperate to be included in the future leadership of her own country, even as Trump cuts her out to make oil deals with the henchmen of Nicolas Maduro.
This sticks in the craw of Davos, of NATO, of the EU, of Canada. It delights Trump all the more. While those whom Trump can’t punish are free to blast him morning, noon and night — and they do — those whom he can punish keep quiet. They don’t have the courage to speak for fear of the consequences.
Those who do speak — Doug Ford, for example, or at least Doug Ford channelling Ronald Reagan — get smacked around. The pressure builds, and Trump revels in it everyday.
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