Trudeau the Drama Teacher, Trump the Ham

[Note, added just before this blog goes online: Things are changing fast these days. I finished this piece, and sent it to my estimable editor Claire Grady-Smith, shortly before the Republican Party rally in Madison Square Garden on October 27, which kicked the danger to American democracy up a notch with his and his supporters’ hateful, inflammatory, overtly racist, fascist-leaning remarks. Suddenly the concept of Trump as merely an amateur actor seems quaint, innocuous and sweetly old-fashioned. However, I’m going to let the piece go out as written – as a souvenir from that gentler, more innocent era of a week ago. For all I know, by the time you’re reading this, the Madison Square Garden rally may look like tea with Queen Camilla.]   Now that an election is approaching, we may be due for a revival of one of Pierre Poilievre’s favourite accusations against the current Prime Minister: the suggestion that Trudeau is somehow unqualified to be the nation’s leader on the grounds that he used to be – and this is, apparently, hilarious – a high-school drama teacher.  This tactic began under Harper. During the 2015 election campaign, a Conservative attack ad attempted to portray Trudeau as a