The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Day After -- A Special Smoke, Mirrors and The Truth

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

Bruce is back --- with lots to say

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the Bridge Daily, but of course that music is for Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. This is Thursday, What's going on? Well, what's going on is we couldn't ignore. Doing a second day in a row of Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth, given the events yesterday afternoon and last night and early morning and that are still going on today in Washington. I mean, what a story continues to unfold. So before I bring Bruce in, let me put it this way. October 22nd, 2014. We all remember or should remember that day. Nathan Cirillo was standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, and some guy went up behind him and shot him and killed him with a shot to the back. And then ran across the street, across Wellington Street in Ottawa to the parliament buildings,

ran inside there, started shooting up the place. The different parties were in their regular morning caucus meetings for that week, and they were in their caucus rooms, and they heard the gunfire going on, and people kind of barricaded the doors to keep them closed. The guy, this coward, went running up and down the halls, firing off his guns, until he was shot by Parliament Hill guards, shot and killed. Now, it took a while before that much became clear

about what had actually happened that day, and there was all kinds of rumors and a lot of things circulating, not only in Ottawa, but around the country. And people were scared, and people were shocked and surprised at what had happened in their peaceful country of Canada, in the capital of Ottawa. And that night, I was a guest on the CBS Evening News with Scott Paley, who was the anchor for CBS at that time. And he asked me, he said, put this story in context for us.

What does it actually mean to Canada about what had happened just there today? And I said, well, I don't know. It was an attack on two of the most fundamentally important parts of our country. The National War Memorial, which is kind of like the heart of the country. That memorial that's dedicated to more than 100,000 Canadians who lost their lives in various conflicts, mainly in the last century. And then an attack on the Parliament buildings, which is kind of like the soul of the country. And it's unbelievable to most Canadians that something like this could happen

to the heart and soul of our country. Now, we witnessed what happened yesterday. Circumstances very different, the stakes much different, the reasons much different, and the involvement of the President of the United States, obviously much different than what we'd witnessed in Ottawa. But at the same time, there was this other similarity and this disbelief that has shaken the very core of the United States, which is the attack on what is kind of their heart and soul of their country, which was the Capitol building and the very site of, you know, a rebel flag being paraded through the Capitol buildings next to those great oil paintings of the history of the United States. So when you say, how must Americans be feeling

on this day? Well, it kind of likes some of the ways we were feeling on that day in October of 2014. Although I underline once again, there are big differences between the two situations, but in a way, one similarity, the heart and soul similarity. Anyway, we want to talk about this. Bruce is in Ottawa. We had a terrific podcast yesterday, I thought, one of the best we've ever done with Andrew McDougall joining us, which in many ways, if you didn't hear it, you should probably go back and listen to it sometime over the next few days because there's a lot of good stuff in there that gives you an understanding, I think, of kind of the Trump era and how it's affected all of us, not just Americans, but all of us.

Anyway, this morning, your thoughts on what we witnessed yesterday, Bruce? I mean, I find it, I mean, everybody's blaming Trump, and that's understandable, and it's right. He incited this. What's his penalty so far? His penalty so far is not to be allowed on Twitter for 12 hours. That's it. I mean, good for Twitter. They could make it permanent, but at least they did something.

Here's the guy who holds the nuclear codes. He's not allowed to use his Twitter account because he's irresponsible, but he's responsible enough to hold a nuclear code. Does that make sense? I don't think so. Anyway, not from me, Bruce,

the Cirillo story in Canada. But now that you mentioned it, I remember you and I and Andrew Coyne and Chantal Hébert, the evening that that happened, I believe it was the same evening, we did an at-issue panel outside across from the Westin Hotel beside the old railway station in Ottawa. And I remember now that there was a really key moment in that panel, that session that we did, where I think you asked the question, does this change Canada forever? And I remember thinking, no, I'm sure it doesn't. That Canada, as we know it, is going to be shocked and transfixed by this, but it isn't

going to change who we are, isn't going to change how we operate. And looking back, I think that was right. We didn't do a lot of the things that America did in response to terror attacks. We managed our way through it. There were political disagreements about different aspects of that, but it didn't cause us to wonder whether or not we'd kind of lost our way or were far more vulnerable than we'd ever thought before as a democracy or as a country or as a people relative to terrorist-type threats. I don't – so I agree with you that there is one very great similarity, which is that there was a breach where people who meant to do harm entered into our most visible democratic institution. And that's a shocking thing for people to see. On the other hand, I think there's so many differences that I take away from it, because when I look at what happened yesterday, there are a few things that really jump out for me. One is I watched a lot of media coverage, as I'm sure you did,

and I was really stunned at how often we can see this scenario where some people are saying, it's just shocking that this happened, and others are saying, it's not shocking at all. Trump telegraphed that this is what he wanted to do. You and I were talking about last week when we were going to time our podcast this week and the choice that we were talking about was whether or not we were going to do it

so that we could talk about the runoff Senate seat elections or wait until after Trump's rally happened so that we could pick up that conversation. And we decided in the end that maybe the Trump rally wasn't going to be everything that it could be. And instead, we should time so that we talked about the Senate runoffs, which we did. And I agree with you, it was a really interesting discussion. But here we are, because yesterday basically made those runoffs be a subhead to a story that had been building for some time. president, incited by his family, even his family as they were trying to say, we don't want to be held responsible for any death or mayhem, calling these people, as his daughter did, American patriots. His son Don Jr. on the stage exhorting the crowd, the president himself exhorting the crowd, let's go down, I'll go down with you to the Capitol. And of course, he never did. He kind of went back to watch it on TV in the White House.

So I wasn't shocked, and I'm surprised sometimes at how many American commentators can say they're still shocked. I'm surprised at how it still works for some of the politicians who stood up in the House and the Senate and said they were shocked, even though they had seen Trump up close for all of those years and understood just how wild his mind was. So that was a thing that really stood out for me. I think the second thing that stood out for me, Peter, was the racism. It was impossible not to watch that and realize that if those protesters were black, how many more casualties would there have been? morning and they captured that the thought quite cogently pardon me by saying we're not this is a black person and i think his tweet was i'm not hoping that you shoot them the way that you shoot us i'm hoping that you don't shoot us the way that you don't shoot them and i thought that was a really smart and simple and powerful way to describe the phenomena where you're sort of looking at all these people who were in the chamber, feet up on Nancy Pelosi's desk,

carrying the Confederate flag through the halls of Congress. And the police were standing there watching it for the most part. So that was really shocking. You know, I want to kind of hear what you thought about the media coverage and what you feel like our coverage, if that had happened in Canada, would be like. How different would it have been? You normally would be that person in our country who would be driving and directing and deciding who gets to say what and who doesn't get to say what they might otherwise say. And I saw that there was a CBC reporter. I don't know who it was, and I'm sure she was trying to do a good job. But, you know, she did a piece where she kind of interviewed some of these protesters and said, these don't seem like the kind of people who are going to do what they then went on to do. And of course, you know,

I saw a lot of people comment on that saying, well, what did she mean by that? What was there about those kinds of people that she didn't see would make them capable of doing that? So I like to know what you think about that. And I also think before we wrap up today, because I know we're only going to have a relatively short conversation, is that we're, you know, yesterday with Andrew, we talked about whether or not there was, America was becoming a three-party state. And I think that question is relevant to the conservative movement in Canada, because there are those segments of opinion within the conservative

movement in Canada who don't like traditional conservative, kind of mainstream conservative, and who want to challenge it and think that there's a meal to be made politically that way. But what do you think about yesterday and the media and some of the things that I said. Those are difficult days to cover, right? Because you're never completely sure of what you're getting into, what you're seeing, what perspective you're getting from the camera angles you're getting. And you've got to be really careful, certainly in the opening volley, if you wish, of the coverage. You know, I think at the beginning, at the beginning it was a protest.

And, you know, when you look at the crowd at the beginning, it was a very kind of mixed crowd. There were the wackosos who became much more dominant as the day went on. And then there were, you know, listen, there were some families, there were people pushing baby carriages, you know, and so you don't look at them and go, man, they're going to scale the walls and attack

and, you know, throw things around. You just assume that it's a protest right then it got ugly in the with the speeches with the president's speech with his son's speech with rudy giuliani i mean this guy don't get me started how he can have any place in the history of that country i mean he had one good week around 9-11. He was, you know, New York better than I do, but the guy was about to be run out of town before 9-11 as one of the worst mayors ever. Then all of a sudden he gets, because he actually performed pretty well in that week around

9-11, week or two. And it went straight to his head and it never changed. Anyway, now he just seems as unstable as his boss anyway after that when it started to get out of hand you could see i mean i was flipping around and you know i can't get around this sort of watching different channels i will make one other remark the american channels bailed out of Trump and his speech almost immediately because he was lying right out of the gate. Who was still on? CBC was still on. Yeah. And I was going, what the hell? This doesn't make sense. I mean, you can take yourself out of that country and say, okay, I'm looking at it through a different lens than Americans are looking at it.

And I'm willing to play in that argument for a while. But the guy's lying, you know, like he's uncontested lying. Anyway, they eventually pulled it. it started to clearly trend towards getting ugly. You could see on the different channels that the struggle they were going through about how to describe this, what to say and how to say it. And it's right in that moment that you, you know, when you go, when you go into the, we're going to hammer these guys because that you, you know, when you go, when you go into the, we're going to hammer these guys because what they're doing is, you know,

is wrong. It's unsafe. People are going to get hurt. They're crazy. They've got weapons. This is really wrong. This is bad. And once you go into that pool,

you can't get out of it. You're in it. And they were, they were all the networks, or at least the ones I was watching. I didn't, I didn't, for some reason,

the Fox feed here was gone for me yesterday. I couldn't get it. So I was only watching the MSNBC, CNN, et cetera. They are difficult days, and careers can be made or broken, and networks' reputations can be made or broken by those days. Yeah.

And they continue to be this morning. I mean, I was watching MSNBC at 6 o'clock when Joe Scarborough went over the edge. He was dropping F-bombs on his network. I'm sure he's going to be taken aside for that. But they are all struggling, and he's a former congressman. I mean, the place is obviously very special to him, and watching what happened, he was really upset. He was raising his own set of conspiracy issues that the police must have been involved this couldn't have happened unless they let it happen well you know maybe

i don't know i'd want a little more proof than just my thinking on that front before i went there i think it's interesting you know peter the i agree with everything you said about the the challenge you can see how evident it is. And I'm remembering the conversation that we had only a few weeks ago, I think, with Chantal Hébert about I think it was a choice of networks to cut off the president's speech. Right. Remember that? Yep. and I think that both you and she were in the space of it's not the media's job to decide to cut off his speech. And I understood that argument, and I can see that from a historical standpoint being on balance overall for all of my life being the right place to be. On the other hand, Trump started in office by declaring that the

media were corrupt, would lie to you, would give you false information. And he spent five years now doing it, four years in office, and he basically campaigned on that too. And he's damaged an awful lot with that. He's created an alternative universe, which is a powerful force for insurrection in his country. And so I get that we can look at the role of the media and say, it's not our problem to solve that. But I also sort of think, well, if it isn't media that are going to help solve that, who is? Because right now we've got a situation where the president, as you said, the networks didn't cover his speech really yesterday, except little clips.

Facebook and Twitter shut him down. He's going to be moved out of office in a matter of days. Is he still going to be influential? Maybe, maybe not. But if he is, it's going to be because he's created this large cohort of people who say, I don't care what the regular media say. I want OAN and I want Newsmax and I maybe want Fox. If Fox, you know, not picking a side or always being kind of careful to guard your responsibility, whether being tentative is maybe the worst thing to do in a world where you have politicians who say, I'm not going to let the media be a check on my authority. I'm going to be a check on theirs. And that's really what Trump set out to do. And to some degree, when I watched Cruz and this guy, Josh Hawley, there is a generation now of senior Republicans who kind of learned at that school and said, you know what, maybe that's the

way I should approach. And I think that's a very dangerous thing for the media and for society generally. But the only other thing that I wanted to kind of bring up this morning, Peter, if we have another minute or two, is I don't know how many times yesterday we heard American commentators and some journalists say in one form or another, how could this have happened in the greatest country ever to exist on planet Earth? And I don't know about you, but when I hear those words spoken by an American about America, you just want to kind of raise your hands in the air and kind of shake your head because it speaks to such a lack of understanding, both of what's going on in the rest of the world or what might be good in other parts of the world, but also a lack of knowledge of or

acknowledgement of the deep problems that the rest of the world can see in America. It looks most days right now like a failed experiment in democracy, corrupted by money, without the ability to get much done, and now without even the ability to protect the Constitution. I mean, I think we're probably going to get through this, but when Jake Tapper said at one point yesterday, again, according to somebody who was reacting to it on Twitter, when he said, you know, when I look at these scenes, I feel like I'm watching footage from the streets of Bogota. Well, some correspondent from Bogota responded, well, I'm a correspondent from Bogota and that doesn't happen here in decades. And I'm reminded by, and we had that conversation with David Axelrod about American exceptionalism, which sometimes feels like a drug that Americans take to make themselves believe that their

problems aren't severe or aren't as significant as problems that exist in other parts of the world. And I think that's part of the problem that they have. And the rest of us shouldn't necessarily pile on and criticize them for it. But I think it's, you know, hopefully going to be the situation where they look at this and go, well, this isn't shocking because we're the best country in the world. And how could this have ever happened here? What's shocking is that they just didn't see it coming. Didn't see the accumulation of things going on in their country that they were kind of looking the other way around. Not everybody, obviously.

Deep left-right splits. But a lot of people look the other way as a lot of bad things happen under Trump. Yeah. Listen, I don't disagree with you on that. I cringe every time I hear them do the whole thing about greatest country in the world and blah, blah, blah. Listen, there's a lot to admire about what the Americans have contributed to the world, especially in the last century.

Agreed. There are parts of this world that would be in dire, dire straits if it wasn't for the Americans and the way they came in to make a bad situation a lot more comfortable. Did you see Ben Sasse say we kicked Hitler's ass yesterday? That drives me crazy, Ben. I hear that, although I will concede them on this point. Because my father, who was a war hero of his own, certainly in my eyes, flying for the Royal Air Force out of Britain, and watched the Americans come in and when they came in

and what they did when they got in, eventually into the Second World War. And he would always say, we wouldn't have won when we won if it hadn't been for the Americans. There's no question about that. And the decisions they made, I mean, they could have gone straight to the Pacific War and bypassed Europe. But Eisenhower and others said, no, we've got to go. We've got to defeat Hitler first. Well, look, I'm not saying that they're not a great and others said, no, we've got to go, we've got to defeat Hitler first. Well, look, I'm not saying that they're not a great country.

No, no, no, I know you're not. And let me just say this, because I totally agree with you when I hear those phrases coming out, rolling out. Just like I do when I sometimes hear the same things said here about us, by Canadians about Canada. Humility is important. Yeah, and we have things we shouldn't be proud of,

and we have to fix. But, well, it's not a but. I agree with you. I totally agree with you. And listen, the image that was shown of the United States, the world yesterday, is not one that they can in any way be proud of. One other quick comment on, you know, I don't think I ever said that we should run uninterrupted Trump speeches. I mean, I don't forget I was one of the first to declare and I took heat for it that the guy was a liar.

And this was like day two of his presidency. And to me, there's nothing more important than the truth. Truth matters, and it matters more than anything else. And if you have a president or leader of any kind who's continuously spewing lies, you've got to do something about it. And if it means cutting them off, then you do it. Now, it was interesting the power of the lie that he's had, as you say, especially when he's talking about the media and that the media is the enemy of the people and how that's had an impact.

And, you know, on days like yesterday, we witnessed it. And he was asked once, why do you keep saying that? And he said, I can't afford to have people believe them. Yeah. It might have been the most honest thing he ever said. Yeah. This is true. Okay, before you go, you know, this is –

I know. There's something about this subject, right? We just can't – we can't stop talking about it. But I do think we have to – I mean, who knows where this direction this is going to go. But if past means anything with this guy, when – he knows how to change the channel. I mean, look, 24 hours ago, the most important thing that was happening was the Democrats winning the two seats in Georgia, as you mentioned earlier. And that is a monumental thing. And it changes everything about the next two years and the early presidency of Joe Biden. It is hugely important.

One could make the argument that it's more important than anything else that happened yesterday. But nobody's talking about that anymore. They're all talking about what happened yesterday. So he doesn't necessarily want everybody talking about what happened yesterday today. So what does he do? This expert at changing the channel. That's the really scary part.

Yeah, I don't think he's done. I part. Yeah, I don't think he's done. I agree with you. I don't think he's done. All right. Okay. Thank you for this special edition of Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. Thank you. It was good to put the coffee that I drank to some use

and get a few thoughts out this morning, so I enjoyed the conversation, even if it's a bit dystopian. All right, Peter, take care. Have a good one. Yeah, you too. Thanks, Bruce. Okay. A couple of quick other points I want to make on totally different issues. Because, you know, what we're like here at the Bridge Daily and Smoke Mirrors and the Truth is we try to leave you with some kind of uplifting thought or something different than the disasters that are happening around us. And look, we've just gone through two days.

We haven't even talked about the pandemic. I mean, talk about a story. And here's what I wanted to mention. There's an interesting poll out this week, and it was trying to get a sense of, and now obviously this was before yesterday's events in Washington, but it was an Axios survey monkey poll. It was a big poll in the States. And it was part of their kind of year-end stuff from 2020,

and they're trying to get a sense of where people's views are about how worried they are, how exhausted they are by stories, how chaotic they think the world is. So let me read a couple of things here. Nearly half of people in the U.S. describe 2020 as worrisome, 46%, and exhausting 45%. With both words selected at about one and a half times the rate they were two years ago. Chaotic and hellish, both about doubled in mentions from the year end 2018 to 2020. Fewer than one in 10 characterized 2020 as great. I'd like to know who they were. 2020 was

great. Great year. It's 1 in 10 people are saying that. 6% of 1 in 20 describe 2020 as awesome. Oh boy. Still, Americans' optimism is only strengthened after an exhausting and worrisome year. More people now than two years ago, so this is the upside, the good part,

the feel-better part of this poll, 63% versus 51% say they are more hopeful than fearful about what the next year has in store for the world in general. Here's the part that's not so good. 2021 brings the end of the Trump administration, but not necessarily an end to Trump's influence. I don't know. I really don't know about it. I'm still a believer that this guy, once he's out of there, his influence is going to drop like a stone. Few in the U.S., 31% think Trump will play no role at all in the future of the Republican Party after his last day in office,

so I'd be in that. While 32% expect him to play a minor role, 34% expect him to play a minor role, 34% expect him to play a major role. What's helped get us through the last year? Well, apparently in many, many cases, our pets. 10 months into quarantines and working from home because of the pandemic household pets lives and relationships with humans have in many cases changed and not always for the better this is an associated press story with this month's u.s rollout of vaccinations offering hope for normalcy in 2021, long-term impacts are not known on that relationship with our pets. If we think how much time most of our pets prior to the pandemic typically would spend without people, being around us now 24 hours a day, seven days a week,

it's quite a lot, said Candace Crony, a Purdue University professor who teaches about animal behavior. While estimates vary on how many pets there are in the U.S., there is general agreement that the majority of U.S. households have at least one pet, with dogs and then cats far outnumbering other pets such as birds and fish. There also was a surge in pet adoptions this year, 2020, as stay-at-home restrictions took effect. For all those tens of millions of dogs and cats, it's been an opportunity to teach humans a thing or two about themselves. A couple of other small points from that.

I love this story because, you know, I've got a dog. We have a dog, Bella, Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever. Loves to bark when there's somebody at the door, and the door is right beside the studio. So you've heard Bella before. The pandemic hasn't been positive for all pets, though, such as those with owners who are struggling financially. Veterinarians and owners report some pets are being medicated for anxiety, and others are being put on diets because of too many treats and not enough exercise in parks that humans may be avoiding because of too many treats and not enough exercise in parks that humans may be avoiding because of virus concerns.

I know that's a problem for Bella. Now, she's older, 13, she's got arthritis, so she doesn't get out like she used to get out. And that's been difficult. Last point. As humans begin to return to work and vaccines roll out, the next year likely will bring a test of the relationships between pets and their owners. Back to Candice Crony, that animal behavior professor.

She says, after two decades of experience, she's worried what will happen when she returns to work and not only to her pets. I'm starting to worry a little bit for me, she admits, on becoming a little codependent of my animals. Dan Sewell from the Associated Press wrote that story. And it isn't true. We watch Bella. She knows it's like clockwork. She knows exactly what we're going to do each hour of the day. And if we don't do it on the hour that it's supposed to happen, she starts to look uncomfortable. She'd get up and she'll look at us and she'll

sort of move around. But she's very fixated on a schedule that over the last year she's noticed and she wants it to be followed literally to the minute. All right. That's our special podcast for today. Special edition of the podcast within a podcast, Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth, right here on the Bridge Daily. Two things to remind you of. One, tomorrow is the weekend special day, so we're bound to have some of your letters. Remember I asked you a couple of days ago to write if you had the name of a restaurant

that was one of your favorites in your area, whether your town, your village, your community, your cottage, wherever, that has closed because of the pandemic. They've had a rough year. And we'd like to signal how much we miss them. So some of you have written with naming of restaurants. And I'd like to have a few more. So don't be shy about writing in to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com,

themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. And you should do that as soon as you hear this podcast because the weekend special is recorded early on Friday morning, so it'll be letters that I get or emails that I get either tonight or during the night that make it onto the show. And any other overwhelming concerns you may have, and you may have something you'd like to contribute to the discussion around what happened in the United States over the last couple of days. That, plus I warned you, I explained to you before Christmas that there had been a couple of organizations who were interested in working out a deal, an arrangement with the Bridge Daily.

They love the podcast, and the numbers are apparently pretty good. And they both wanted to purchase distribution rights for the podcast without interfering on how the podcast is done. But it obviously is going to mean certain things. Hopefully next week I'll be able to tell you who we're going to associate ourselves with. It will mean that there will be some sponsorship, uh, of the podcast, but it's also going to mean, uh, you know, better equipment. It's going to mean, you know, uh, help on things like sending out book plates. You know, that costs me a lot of money making that silly promise.

And it's still happening. I still get requests. Now I'm just about out. As I said, I think earlier last week or earlier this week, just about out of book plates. Um, and so that, uh, that offer is going to end in the next couple of days. Uh, anyway, we should have news on how this is

going to roll forward on the podcast. Um, but I think everything that you'd like about this podcast will remain with this podcast. Because I'm not giving up either editorial or content control. We just want to make it better. And more available. And that's what it'll be. And with more options of how and where to listen to it. Anyway, more on that next week.

Okay. And on Tuesday night, I can tell you who it is yet, but I have a very special guest for Tuesday night next week. You won't want to miss that. All right. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been the podcast within a podcast, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, right here on The Bridge Daily.

We'll be back. Well, we'll be back, you know, in 24 hours. Thank you.