We’re not reading the room. With Love, Meghan (and the Liberals, too).

Nobody's buying what inauthentic, elite public figures keep trying to sell.

If you've spent any time online in the last 24 hours, you've likely encountered Netflix's latest collaboration with Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. The trailer for her new docu-lifestyle series, With Love, Meghan, showcases her gliding around a high-end kitchen wearing uber-luxe designer wear, arranging lush florals while sipping impeccable bespoke cocktails with socialites, and attempting to convince lesser mortals like us that such a life is attainable if we follow her tips for joyful living.

Now, dear reader, you might be wondering why a Member of Parliament is writing about this particular show in a space typically dedicated to dissecting the politics of the day.

The answer is simple—if the trailer is any indication, the Duchess’s new show seems to provide a perfect example of the type of tone-deaf misread of today's political and social climate that has become the hallmark of beleaguered left-wing elitist public figures like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The considerable amount of negative online reception from all political quarters that With Love, Meghan received today should be viewed as a cautionary tale about the perils of lack of self-awareness for elites wanting to connect with us plebs in the masses—particularly to Liberal politicians who presently find their polling numbers at historic lows.

Here's why.

Much like Canada's current Prime Minister, the Duchess of Sussex desperately needed a public perception makeover. That's because her biggest claim to fame in recent memory was not for accomplishing anything remarkable in the philanthropic or public policy arenas. Rather, it was for her and her husband taking a wildly explosive and highly public, nuclear-grade shit on members of her husband's immediate family, apparently in a bid to land things like their lucrative deal with Netflix. While they’ve had their defenders, the fact remains that the Duchess and her husband faced much anger from around the globe. With a few years now settled between those events and the present, her public relations team has been hinting at a new image launch for months now, starting with the soft launch of a luxury brand of jams and other pantry goods.

The era of the new, forgiving, down-to-earth Meghan was to be upon us.

But this morning, after the Netflix trailer for her show was released, I had several apolitical friends forward it to me, accompanied by reactions that ranged from "LOL" to "insufferable" to "barf." After watching it myself, it seems that the disdain for the trailer for the Duchess’s new show is rooted in the show’s premise being simultaneously hypocritical, preposterous, and infuriatingly condescending.

The trailer begins with the Duchess talking about her ability to "elevate the ordinary." The problem with this premise is that the Duchess of Sussex is not an everywoman - nor does anyone expect her to be. She is a formerly successful Hollywood actress married to the son of King Charles III, after all. She lives in a multimillion-dollar gated mansion in Montecito - one of the wealthiest enclaves in the world. She can afford a cadre of staff to support her elite lifestyle. She is the furthest thing from normal possible. So by virtue of her station in life, any attempt on her part to effortlessly make "ordinary" homemaking seem "elevated" to the average person is bound to be automatically tinged with hilarity and condescension.

Now, the Duchess could have been forgiven for thinking that schtick might have landed in some quarters about ten years ago, in better economic and geopolitical times. But it certainly doesn't in today's climate of unaffordability and rightly deserved public fatigue with out-of-touch elites. Her and her public relations team's inability to read the room on that front is breathtaking.

But as a Canadian politician, what struck me about the Duchess seemingly asking someone living in the real world to find the time to incorporate the creation of fresh-flower encrusted homemade glazed donuts into their housekeeping routine was the similarities between her tone-deafness and the Liberal’s actions over the last several years.

Lacking the self-awareness and introspection necessary to correct course against a growing tide of public anger at policy decisions that have increased debt and inflation, crime, and societal division, that party has continued to produce a cringeworthy show of hypocritical vapidness. Recent inanities, like former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland attributing the crushing cost of living to a "vibecession," resonate with the public about as genuinely as a royal figure launching a contrived brand of expensive jams on Netflix in the grounds of a gated multimillion compound in coastal California. The Prime Minister lecturing people about the virtues of a costly carbon tax while taking the government jet on vacation to a wealthy friend's luxe mansion in Jamaica screams, "I'm relatable!" as much as the Duchess gardening in Princess Diana's Cartier Tank watch does.

And so the unfortunate problem for both the Duchess and the federal Liberals is that both seem dogmatically committed to selling a fairy tale that few people can afford to believe in anymore. In today's high-cost, low-wage reality, most women don’t have the financial means that comes with being married to royalty. They face hard choices and want leaders who empathize with their struggles and help fix them, not ones who perpetuate the airs of out-of-touch elites. With Love, Meghan, through the mere existence of its premise, risks inadvertently highlighting the growing disconnect between those living in privilege and those simply trying to get by. Meanwhile, the Liberals keep purposefully putting forward policies that make that divide even worse.

Canadians can neither afford elites who condescendingly extol the virtues of small-batch prosciutto while pretending to be a relatable to the everyperson, nor political leaders who cling to ineffectual and costly policies like the carbon tax. They are tired of being ignored by people who are incapable of reading the room in their day-to-day reality.

May 2025 bring leaders who do more than tell us to eat their expensive, multi-layer, raspberry and mint leaf encrusted, vanilla pound cake.