‘Another kind of populism’
Trudeau yet to enter full campaign mode
Dennis Matthews knows a thing or two about the political zeitgeist, having worked as advertising guru for Stephen Harper and Doug Ford.
He said on Twitter recently there is a sense among some Conservatives the populist wave which elected Ford and Donald Trump, and ushered in Brexit, is coming to an end. The dwindling approval ratings for the former two, and buyer’s remorse over the latter, suggests there’s something to the argument.
Canadian Conservatives had best hope the wave has broken, because there are few more capable exponents of populist techniques than Justin Trudeau. He is clearly not an authoritarian rightwing demagogue, playing on the insecurities created by cultural competition that have left many voters feeling estranged from the predominant values in their own country.
But even if his causes are more cosmopolitan — globalism, diversity, women’s empowerment — they are similarly tribal and, at times, equally disdainful of divergence from their orthodoxy.
Trudeau and his team have been adept at using polarizing rhetoric, symbolism and identity issues, even while accusing his opponents of adopting “the politics of division.” Earlier this month, his
chief of staff, Katie Telford, tried to associate the federal Conservatives with the arrival in Canada of an anti-abortion movie, Unplanned. While some fringe Tory MPS had petitioned the movie be shown, the party leadership has been adamant it will not legislate on abortion.
Trudeau’s chief digital strategist, Tom Pitfield, told a panel on media and elections in 2016 that Trudeau’s successful election campaign the previous year and Trump’s presidential campaign shared many of the same techniques.
Both dominated the online battle by pitching a candidate whom voters judged to be “authentic,” and who, in Pitfield’s words, “rocked the boat and was brave enough to say what he thinks.”
Both Trudeau and Trump used their celebrity to shortcut their way into the public eye. Both claimed to represent ordinary people — in Trudeau’s words, “middle class Canadians, and those working hard to join them” — over the interests of wealthy elites. Both offered simplistic solutions to the complicated questions facing all governments.
Politicians and magicians are both said to draw attention away from what they’re really doing. Trudeau was elected on a promise to rack up modest deficits to make life a little “fairer” for the middle class, not to remake society in his left-wing image. It may be difficult to repeat the election trick in 2019, given so many of those simple solutions have proven more difficult to implement than was advertised — balancing the economy and the environment, for example.
The enthusiasm gap is tangible. An Ipsos poll this week suggested only onethird of voters think Trudeau has done a good job and deserves to be re-elected. Generally, when that “time for change” number is around two-thirds, the leader of the Opposition should be measuring the curtains in the Prime Minister’s residence.
But as Pitfield pointed out, the change narrative only works if the alternative is seen as authentic and engaging. There remains a big question mark whether Canadians truly see Andrew Scheer as their next prime minister — do they believe he is authentic? Can he engage them?
There are other imponderables. We have yet to see what party favours the Liberals will offer to voters to help them get over their disillusionment.
We have yet to see Trudeau in full-on campaign mode, laying out a positive narrative for why people should vote for him again.
As Pitfield told me in an interview for my new book on Trudeau — out next month — the Liberals believe they can depict a selfless, empathetic leader who is taking action on the environment, First Nations and gender not because they are vote-winners, but because they are the right thing to do.
“Justin speaks his mind, which some feel is a liability. But that also reinforces his authenticity,” he said.
Trudeau is, Pitfield said, “another kind of populist.”
Canada’s flirtation with populism has followed a different track than that elsewhere — perhaps the legacy of the fragile consensus that still exists in support of immigration. Populists elsewhere have been older, male, more religious, more rural and less educated. They have sparked a resentful backlash against the forces shaping the modern world.
That description does not fit the profile of the people who voted Liberal in 2015.
The so-called “politics of arson” that created Trump and Brexit may have had their day elsewhere. It seems less likely Canada’s populist experiment is done yet.