The Cognitive Transference of “Fuck Trudeau”

“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.” — Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“From hell’s heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.” — Khan, from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

I saw Star Trek II the weekend it came out. But it wasn’t until years later that I learned that Khan’s final words of hatred towards James T. Kirk were lifted from Melville. But, no matter if it’s Khan vs. Kirk or Ahab vs. the whale, stories of obsessive hate have always enthralled us.

Maybe it’s Batman and the Joker; maybe it’s the Jets and the Sharks; or maybe it’s you (or someone you know, or knew in high school and see on Facebook) and Justin Trudeau.

But, what happens when the villain is gone? What happens when the thing that fuels so much of one’s negative emotional energy isn’t there anymore? What if you woke up in the morning, and learned that the Calgary Flames no longer existed? And, what happens to the “Fuck Trudeau” flag-waver when the Prime Minister steps down? Sure, that person is likely to hate the PM’s successor, but will it really be the same?

David Rast III is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Alberta whose expertise is in how humans process information in groups, and how they relate to each other in groups.

“I think about it in terms of the intergroup divide,” says Rast of the “Fuck Trudeau” and the misanthropes you’ll find on social media. “So, we’re really signalling that we’re not part of this group, and we’re actually antagonistic about people who belong to that group.

“Part of it just comes from this idea that ‘we’re conservatives, and we’re different from the liberals’ in this case. And they want to make sure people know that and one of the easiest ways to do it is to say ‘fuck Trudeau, he’s their leader. He symbolizes everything about Liberals. Instead of saying fuck Liberals, we can just say fuck Trudeau.’”

So, now that he’s on his way out, will the Fuck Trudeau flags be taken down? Not so fast, says Rast. For now, Trudeau will still be the lightning rod for all things liberal. But, then, Rast predicts that “cognitive transference” will occur.

“We’re taking one object, and transferring our thoughts and feelings about it to another object,” he says. “In this case, Trudeau is just symbolically representing Liberals. Now that he’s no longer in office, there’s going to be some sort of cognitive transference to another attitude, object that people don’t like.”

So it may shift to the next Liberal Party leader, but it could also shift to another prominent liberal thinker, or even a left-leaning or centrist policy. Maybe the scrap-the-carbon-tax rhetoric gets ramped up all that much more. In the United States, we even saw Taylor Swift become the target of far-right wrath.

But like the Joker needs the Batman to “complete me,” what about the person who needs to hate Trudeau? What about the void that’s there when Trudeau is gone?

“I don’t think it’s grief that some people are feeling, but some sort of celebration,” said Rast. He outlines the thinking as such: “I hated Trudeau so much, and so many people hated Trudeau so much, that we finally got rid of him. And there’s that glimmer of hope that we’ll be able to do the same thing with the next one. No matter who those damn Liberals put forward, we’ll be able to get rid of that person too, because everyone hates Liberals and their policies.”

Expect to see some new bumper stickers available for sale at your local convenience store.