As for charismatic politico-types, they are always being born. It’s just that they are neither opting for a life in politics or don’t survive against those with other political talents… This reminds of my lament at the absence of musical and literary genius (Bach/Mozart/Beethoven/Dvorak/Stravinski; Dostoevsky/Tolstoy/Proust/Joyce). My working answer is that they now opt for a different profession… You could of course get on some politico’s support team; but I question the return on your investment.

Yes, the next line talks about homicides dropping, but violent crimes in general have increased, to the point where criminologist Ron Melchers, interviewed for the article, refers to a “disturbing trend.” He also comments on an increase in violent crime among teenagers – which supports my argument about swagger and violence, despised by RFK, becoming the measure of the uncertain man.

As for our own complacency, this is a subjective take on the three decades I’ve been following Canadian politics. Love him or hate him, Trudeau was passionate and vibrant. He was sufficiently charismatic, dynamic, and intellectual to play on the world stage. Harper shows no evidence of any of that.

I wasn’t trying to make a rebuttable presumption; this was not a scientific argument and was not meant to be. It is a political argument that we don’t seem to be able even to try to bring passionate leaders to the national stage (the only passionate people we put there turn Parliament into a circus and continue to degrade the once noble status of the NDP as a viable opposition; now they are a VW full of loud clowns).
The demand is down, but it should not be. This is not about someone who brings in tough crime laws, although Kennedy did that as Attorney General when JFK was president; it is about someone who grabs our national image, our collective personality, and says, “Grow up! Be a leader; be a pillar; show your neighbours how to be a mentsch!”

Thus the supply of heroic figures may down simply because the demand for them is down.

–G