Pete Hegseth's post just the latest 'frat boy' insult to Canada, academics say

Anti-Canadian rhetoric by U.S. officials is being characterized by two political experts as “really weird, really bizarre” and “frat house humour.”

The latest example comes from U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, who posted to social media yesterday an image of a female cadet and instructor at a Canadian military training camp, seeming to mock the picture by commenting with a Canadian flag and the words: “(this is real).”

The original image was posted a week ago by the Instagram account of the Vernon cadet training facility in British Columbia, with the caption: “Congratulations and well done to all recipients who received awards on the final day of Vernon CTC 2026! This is recognition of the amazing effort you have all put in as course cadets and staff!”

Hegseth did not explain his comment but it was widely taken to be a poke at the instructor’s size, given his repeated use of the phrase “fit not fat” in relation to the desired state of the U.S. military.

Asked about recent remarks by the Trump administration on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said: “It’s beneath their office.” He added: “When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions.”

Phil Triadafilopoulos, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, called remarks by Hegseth and others “weird” and “novel,” adding they were also unchecked.

“In the second Trump administration, there’s been no real effort to restrain rhetoric, to not post really defamatory and tasteless videos, to go after opponents with the full power of the American state,” he said. “And to do all sorts of things that would have been hard to fathom not that long ago.”

In fact, he still finds them hard to fathom. “I don’t see other administrations in other advanced industrialized democracies doing similar things,” he said. “We expect elected officials, especially executives, premiers, presidents, prime ministers, to comport themselves differently, to hold to higher standards.”

“I wish I could say it was unbelievable,” said Ryan Hurl, assistant professor of political science at the U of T, of the recent attacks. “But I feel like we’re in the movie Idiocracy,” a reference to a 2005 comedy that imagines a distant future where people have spent centuries getting stupider.

Here are just a few other instances of recent rudeness by American officials.

In a weekend appearance on CNBC, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brushed off the suggestion that the U.S.-Canada trade dispute could be categorized as a war, while taunting Canada for its lack of naval power.

“We’re not at war with Canada,” he said. “How are we going to be at war with Canada? What, are they going to take their two submarines from the Edmonton mall and sic them on us?”