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By now it should be clear there is something wrong with Justin Trudeau.

We are not unfamiliar with the public figure who, at some point in his past, did something remarkably stupid or offensive like black up his face for a party. We have no experience with a leader, a prime minister no less, who cannot remember how many times he did so — two, three, 12? — for whom, indeed, blackface appears to have been something of a hobby.

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But when the leader in question is the first son of the country’s most revered Liberal icon, when his own career has been built on his impassioned advocacy of diversity, inclusion and equality — and on the weaponization of these themes against opponents deemed deficient in their commitment to them — we are in altogether undiscovered country.

Perhaps the most damning thing that can be said is that, when the prime minister claims he was unaware, as a 29-year-old teacher in 2001, that dressing up as a member of a racial minority was offensive — that, in fact, it did not dawn on him until after he was elected as an MP, in 2008 — most of us believe him. It is difficult to believe he could be that racist, but it is all too easy to believe he could be that clueless.