As Trumpism falters south of the border after the failed Capitol Hill invasion, there has been no shortage of pundits and commentators on this side of the border imploring the Conservatives to purge the Trumpers from their own ranks including from voices within the ranks of the Stephen Harper loyalists.  Erin O'Toole released a whinging statement on Sunday to complain that he was being called "far-right" while he tried to burnish his progressive credentials, and insisted that there was no room for the far-right in his party.  A day later, it came to light that former leadership candidate Derek Sloan accepted a donation from a notorious Canadian white supremacist, and O'Toole declared that he would seek Sloan's removal from caucus.

If things are a little uncomfortable for O'Toole in this declaration, it's because Sloan's candidacy was crucial for O'Toole's victory in the leadership contest.  After all, under the way their leadership contests are structured, either with the federal party or Ontario's Progressive Conservatives (who employed the same system), the social conservative voting bloc is ultimately the kingmaker it was for Andrew Scheer, it was for Doug Ford, and ultimately it was for Erin O'Toole.  Sloan's 15.64% on the first ballot, combined with fellow social conservative Leslyn Lewis' 24.67%, was a hefty trove of votes that O'Toole had a vested interest in courting as second choice in order to defeat Peter MacKay.  O'Toole not only had to manoeuvre in the race to protect Sloan, he also had to come up with messaging that loudly denounced the comments MacKay previously made about the social conservatives being the "stinking albatross" around the party's neck that lost them the previous election.

When previous attempts by certain members of the caucus to have Sloan ejected for his racist statements about Dr. Theresa Tam during the leadership period, O'Toole stood up for Sloan and protected him, ensuring that there wouldn't be enough votes for him to be ousted.  Remember under the rules of the (garbage) Reform Act that the party adopted, the leader doesn't have the power to kick an MP out of caucus, but rather, only the caucus can make that call.  The leader still ostensibly has the power to veto a nomination and O'Toole did also promise that as well as moving to have the Reform Act process to have Sloan defenestrated, he would ensure that Sloan could not run in the next election under the Conservative banner.

Sloan, of course, is fighting back, and pointing out that it was the party that processed the membership and payment of the aforementioned white supremacist, and he couldn't possibly be expected to know his name (and he used a legal name he is less commonly known by) out of the 13,000 donors.  Oh, and the party not only accepted the membership and donation, which included a verification process to ensure that the donor was not over their yearly limit, but they took a cut of it for their own coffers too, which is going to be a black eye for all involved.  After all, when O'Toole said that Sloan accepting the donation was "far worse than a gross error of judgment or a failure of due diligence," that accusation must now be worn by party officials as well.

This raises all kinds of questions, however that this was the straw that broke the camel's back for one, given that Sloan has made a name for himself in previous outright endorsements of Trumpism, in opposing banning conversion therapy using absolutely cartoonish misinformation about the bill, in his racist attacks against Dr. Tam.  O'Toole protected Sloan when others in caucus wanted to oust him for said racism, and he has yet to actually answer for that (even though we all know it was a crass political calculus), which really starts to stretch the credulity of just how "progressive" O'Toole claims to be.  O'Toole was already making it really hard to suspend disbelief that he's "pro-choice" when he voted for legislation that was attempting to ban abortions through the back door, or that he's pro-union when he enthusiastically voted for anti-union legislation when he was in Cabinet, or even that he's pro-LGBT when he stated that he supported banning conversion therapy just not the Liberals' bill (and I have my doubts that all of those Conservatives who voted to send it to committee will vote for the final version of the bill).

I'm not saying that O'Toole himself is personally far-right all evidence points to the contrary, which is fair enough, but he has inherited a party with a problem when it comes to courting the constituent elements of Trumpism because they think it's a political winner for them.  They have been happy to adopt the American culture war wholesale and import its corrosive tactics to this country, and when he had a chance to take the helm and start charting a different course, O'Toole didn't.  He doubled down, going from the moderate conservative who came in third in the 2017 leadership contest, to a hard-right "true blue" conservative determined to court the problematic social conservative elements and denigrate any vestigial Red Toryism that it was assumed Peter MacKay still held (despite all evidence to the contrary).  He hired better professional shitposters than the amateurs that Andrew Scheer did, and he went full-bore into the tactics of constantly lying to Canadians about everything under the sun in order to try and create an alternate reality that served the goals of keeping the population in a perpetual state of irrational anger, because they feel that kind of populism will get them into power.

O'Toole keeps talking about himself as a man of principle who believes in service and who hasn't inherited his place, insinuating that Trudeau swanned into office on the strength of his father's name when Trudeau had to fight for his nomination, won a riding back from the Bloc, and outperformed in a hotly contested leadership race.  What O'Toole has shown himself to be is an opportunist, and now all of the winks and nods to Trumpism are coming back at him fast, and he has to figure out how to deal with the upward of 40 percent of the party's base that is supportive of it at a time when he's looking to grow the party's reach if he wants to have any hope of winning an election.  The next few weeks are going to be an interesting test of his abilities and character.

Photo Credit: CBC News