Frozen Bank Accounts & the Prize Fighter

American tough guy knows we have no claim to moral superiority.

This past Saturday, a stadium full of sports fans - in Toronto, of all places - ended up chanting ‘F-Trudeau.’ Loudly and in unison. (See a 7-second video here.) The event was a mixed martial arts fight between American Sean Strickland and South African Dricus du Plessis.

Strickland, who lost the fight, had caused a stir the day before at a press conference. When Neil Davidson, a senior sports writer with the Canadian Press identified himself, Strickland asked: “Were you a COVID bank account stealer, too? Were you on board with that?” Then he joked that Davidson was “going to go back and f**king give my bank account information to f**king Trudeau.”

That’s what Americans now know about Canada. They know that peaceful protesters were abused by the government, and that journalists applauded rather than screaming bloody murder.

Next it was Alexander Lee’s turn (beginning at the 2:30 minute-mark in the video above). “Did you vote for Trudeau?” Strickland asked Lee, who declined to answer. Assuming that meant yes, Strickland then called him an “enemy of Canada.”

Lee tried to change the subject. He’s the sort of journalist who insists, at the top of his Twitter page, that “Trans women are women.” His goal was to shame Strickland for having expressed politically incorrect opinions. “We’ve got a pretty supportive gay and lesbian community in this city,” he began. “I did want to ask you about something you wrote a couple of years ago. You said ‘If I had a gay son, I would think I —’”

That’s when Strickland cut him off. “He’s the swamp, you guys,” he said, pointing to Lee. “He’s the swamp. Let me ask you something. Are you gay? Are you gay? Are you a gay man?”

Lee replied: “I’m an ally of the community.”

Strickland countered by asking whether, if Lee had a son who was gay, would he not be disappointed that grandkids wouldn’t be part of the picture. Then he returned to the bank account theme:

You’re part of the f**king problem. You elected Justin Trudeau. When he seized the bank accounts. Like you’re just f**king pathetic. And the fact that you have no f**king backbone. And as he shut down your f**king country and seized bank accounts, you ask me some stupid shit like that. Go f**k yourself. Move the f**k on, man. F**king coward.

Sticking to his own script, Lee persisted: “I did want to ask you about some things you said about the trans community” connected to last year’s Bud Light controversy. Once again, Strickland responded aggressively. A decade ago, he said, transgender was considered “a mental f**king illness.” But now it’s being pushed on kids in school, to the dismay of ordinary people.

In his view, journalists who spend their time trying to police other people’s speech are a big part of the problem:

now, all of a sudden, people like you have f**king weasled your way in the world. You are an infection. You are the definition of weakness. Everything that is wrong with the world is because of f**king you.

…This guy’s a f**king enemy. You wanna look at the f**king enemy to our world, it’s that motherf**ker right there. Asking these stupid f**king questions.

Strickland is a martial arts expert. He’s not articulate. Or polished. Or precise in his use of language. Nevertheless, his instincts are deadly accurate. Canadian journalists have devolved into narrative enforcers. They no longer think their job is to hold the government to account. They’re more interested in talking about what a prize fighter said about sexual minorities years ago. That is weak. That is pathetic. That is what’s wrong with the world.

Video clips from the press conference were shared widely on social media. Which is why a stadium in Toronto broke out in anti-Trudeau chants. Strickland’s remarks struck a chord. They reminded us that our current Prime Minister is a stain on our democracy. They reminded us that, at a critical moment in our history, journalists failed us.

Strickland said so loudly. Forcefully. And his words resonated.

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As one might expect, the CBC described Strickland’s comments as a “homophobic tirade” comprised of “Vile, bitter, bigoted stuff.” If a football or baseball player had uttered similar words, the CBC declared primly, they’d surely have been fined or suspended.

When Dana White, the president of the organization that sponsored the match, was invited to denounce Strickland for - as yet another journalist phrased it - “getting into territory of homophobia, transphobia,” he did nothing of the sort.

“Free speech, brother,” he replied. “People can say whatever they want and believe whatever they want.”