The SNC-Lavalin scandal was once considered a serious problem for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but in terms of "seriousness", it can now take a backseat to the newly emerging blackface scandal.

Why?

Well, it's simple: the blackface scandal features pictures; the SNC-Lavalin scandal doesn't.

And that matters a lot because we humans are a visual species.

In other words, thanks to way our brains are hard-wired, what we perceive with our eyes can instantly trigger within us an emotional response joy, fear, anger, repulsion — it's something we can't control, it's instinctive.

So if you see a cockroach crawling around your kitchen, you'll automatically feel revulsion.

This also means we definitely judge books by their covers.

Certainly this is true in politics; voters, for instance, will often cast their ballots based on the looks of a candidate, i.e. they tend to vote for men who are tall rather than for men who are short.  And let's not forget the oft told tale of how Richard Nixon allegedly lost the 1960 US presidential election, mainly on the basis of how he looked during a televised debate.

This is why the SNC-Lavalin scandal, as serious as it is, lacks the emotive resonance needed to give it staying power; simply put, there are no videos of Prime Minister Trudeau or of his minions bullying former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould.

As the saying goes, "pics or it didn't happen."

By contrast, the blackface scandal currently plaguing Trudeau has pics; boy, does it ever have pics!  (And more might be coming.)

Indeed the stupefying images of Trudeau cavorting around in blackface hit us on a visceral level, bypassing our intellect and going straight to our subconscious mind, generating an instant and raw emotional reaction.

Just as when we see a photo of a cute kitten we can't help but feel warm inside and go "awww"; when we saw the blackface photos and videos of Trudeau we couldn't help but feel a little sick inside and we all uttered a collective "ewww."

Not only does he look culturally insensitive, he also looks stupid.

And if any industry understands how the lure of strong imagery can attract viewership and readership and generate clicks, it's the media, which is why Trudeau's blackface predicament so thoroughly dominated news coverage in this country and why it made headlines across the entire globe.

For the media the Trudeau blackface images were more explosive and more compelling than a whole boatload of SNC-Lavalin scandals.

And what makes this sordid political tale so ironic, is that Trudeau himself always understood and benefitted from our inherent readiness to let pleasant visuals seduce us.

His good looks, his willingness to jog half-naked through the woods, his penchant for adorable photo ops, ensured him not only a steady stream of positive news coverage (the media just couldn't resist him) but also made him an iconic political figure.

He was basically the political equivalent of a cute kitten photo.

So it was visuals which helped create Trudeau's brand; it's visuals which could destroy it.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that whereas the SNC-Lavalin scandal merely cracked Trudeau's hip progressive mystique, the blackface scandal will leave it forever shattered.

This is not to say Trudeau won't win re-election.

For one thing, we don't know if either the Conservatives or NDP have the strategic savvy to properly exploit this scandal to the fullest.  It's also possible, of course, many Canadians will hold their noses and still vote Liberal despite the blackface scandal simply because they see Trudeau as the lesser evil.

But the lesser evil is still evil.

My point is, even if Trudeau does win on October 21st, the international headlines won't read: "Canada re-elects progressive, trendy, cute-as-a-button prime minister", they'll say "Canada re-elects man who once wore racist costumes."

That's the power of imagery.

Mind you, it could be argued that all this media hullaballoo about something that happened decades ago is irrational.

That might be so.

But then again the connection between the optic nerve and our subconscious mind, which evolution in its wisdom has bestowed upon us, has nothing to do with rationality and neither does politics.

Photo Credit: The Guardian