Eights ways O’Toole is copying Trump’s playbook
Ever since he became Conservative leader, Erin O’Toole has been working hard to dramatically reshape his party’s public image and to set the stage for the next federal election.
His campaign includes speeches, political ads, press interviews, social media postings and virtual sessions with voters across the country.
His goal is to reposition the Conservatives as a “big-tent” party that appeals to more than just the party’s hard-core base of fiscal and social conservatives, as well as rural and western voters.
O’Toole is trying to do that by reaching out to union workers, middle-class voters and suburban families, focusing on issues like lost jobs, “income inequality” and “the radical left.”
Some analysts suggest O’Toole is shifting the party so far to the left that at times he sounds like U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders or that he’s trying to steal traditional NDP voters.
In truth, though, what O’Toole is doing is fashioning himself as Canada’s Donald Trump — but without the bombast, lies, bigotry and polarization that mark Trump’s presidency.
Indeed, O’Toole is openly stealing pages straight from Trump’s 2020 election strategy playbook.
In doing so he is trying to duplicate Trump’s successful strategy of building a polarizing populist coalition of traditional Republicans and disaffected voters, reaching out to people who were furious with “cancel culture” and “the radical left,” revved up by “grievance politics” and fed up with “elites” who they believe don’t give a damn about them, their families, their jobs or their very existence.
Here are eight specific ways, from trivial to substantial, that O’Toole is copying Trump:
> First, O’Toole’s leadership campaign slogan of “Take Back Canada” is an echo of Trump’s slogan of “Make America Great Again.” Catchy? For sure! But one can easily ask, “Take back from what — or whom?”
> Second, O’Toole is pushing a “Canada First” economic strategy, with hints of trade tariffs on imports and action against companies that move jobs out of the country. Asked recently how this differs from Trump’s “America First” strategy, the Tory leader replied: “It’s not different at all.”
> Third, Trump made huge headway in reaching disaffected voters by demonizing elites. That’s exactly what O’Toole has started to do with attacks on “elites” in business, politics and the media, although the truth is the Conservatives are the party of business “elites” and many media “elites.”
> Fourth, like Trump, O’Toole has openly courted social conservatives with such moves as signalling a willingness to allow his MPs to reopen moral issues, such as abortion. Some pundits dismiss the political influence of social conservatives, but they remain a powerful force, well organized and well financed.
> Fifth, O’Toole has adopted Trump’s get-tough approach to China, bashing it for cybertheft, human rights violations and aggressive trade stands. O’Toole doesn’t refer to COVID-19 as the “China virus” as Trump does, but he does echo the U.S. president when he alleges there is “no greater threat to Canada’s interest than the rise of China.”
> Sixth, again like Trump, O’Toole is vigorously courting union workers, saying in a recent speech there is “too much power in the hands of corporate and financial elites who have been only too happy to outsources jobs abroad.” He’s also reaching out to suburban voters, saying in the same speech that “middle class Canada has been betrayed by the elites, on every level: political elites, financial elites, cultural elites.”
> Seventh, in another Trump-like strategy, O’Toole is stepping up his pro-gun reputation, promising gun lobbyists that he would weaken — not strengthen — firearms laws.
> Eighth, mimicking Trump, O’Toole now favours moving Canada’s embassy to Jerusalem, a move calculated to appeal mainly to Jewish voters, but destined to do zero for Middle East peace.
O’Toole has time to fine-tune his Trumpian strategy before the next election. But a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute indicated that his personal approval, while rising slightly, remains significantly below that of both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.
Given how much Canadians despise Trump and much of what he stands for, it’s a risky strategy to copy the U.S. president’s playbook. Still, it’s a risk O’Toole seems eager to take.