As Justin Trudeau continues his tour around the country, seeking to inspire Liberal Party members’ hearts and minds as his father did some 42 years ago, no one has yet worked up the courage to mention to the family scion that the Liberal Party has been defunct for almost two years.
“I was about to tell him, I swear,” said campaign manager Tommy Caroso, “but you should see the look in his eyes when he talks about being Party leader. It would have been like telling a kid there is no Santa Claus.”
Caroso and other aides have managed to successfully satisfy the delusions of the great Pierre’s eldest son by staging events at seniors homes where the residents suffering from dementia also still believe the Liberal Party remains a potent political force, and paying homeless people to shake Justin’s hand at meet and greets.
“We even got the Conservative Party to do us a favour for old times sake and pretend to be outraged by Justin’s 2010 interview where he said Albertans shouldn’t be in charge of the country. The truth is that interview wasn’t even real; Justin was just talking to my buddy Roy”
Yet those closest to Trudeau are worried the longer he remains in the dark, the harder it will be to maintain the facade.
“There have been a lot of close calls,” said wife, Sophie Gregoire. “Last weekend we had to scramble when Justin wanted to do a photo-op where he is kissing babies. We only managed to get one couple out that had a little boy. The poor thing was passed around the room and his clothes were changed several times to make it look like more than one baby.”
Others say they were expecting Trudeau to figure it out for himself by now.
“I thought after the fourth completely empty leadership rally, the charade would have been over. But instead he just spent 45 minutes yelling TRUDEAU-MANIA! into an empty basketball gym,” said longtime friend Cindy Little.
“They had to postpone the quarterfinals of the girls intramural volleyball championship,” she added.
Dr. Martin Heft, psychologist, said Trudeau’s level of denial was a fairly common ailment among Liberal supporters that have been around since the party’s heyday.
“On some level, Mr. Trudeau probably realizes the Liberal Party has long since shuffled off its mortal coil, but because he wants it so bad, he has convinced himself the political climate is the same as it was in 1993. That may also explain why he has started wearing a lot of neon purple clothing and is constantly quoting old Beverly Hills 90210 episodes.”
