After vote, anger must be tamed
Observers have warned that ... the increasingly toxic temper of politics — with spikes into menace and violence — is cause for concern
The visceral fury greeting canvassers at the doors. The angry crowds of protesters dogging leaders’ tours. Gravel flung at the prime minister. The most contemptible of insults, too.
It isn’t Trump Nation north. But it also isn’t the Canada of comforting myth.
It will be the task of whoever forms government after Monday’s federal election not merely to implement a platform, but to try to remedy something corrosive and worrying in the Canadian temper.
Canadians have traditionally considered their country a peaceable realm, a commendably civil society, politeness personified.
We haven’t experienced recent shocks such as the assault on the U.S. Capitol building in January or the murder of British MP Jo Cox in 2016.
Not that our history is free of political violence. Canada was founded on a program of eliminating the inconvenient First Nations and saw MP Thomas D’Arcy McGee assassinated within sight of Parliament Hill just a few months after Confederation.
As pollster Nik Nanos made clear in his book, “The Age of Voter Rage,” the ugliest of emotions are no longer limited to stereotypical venues of roads, rinks and airports.
During this campaign, a man in St.
Thomas, Ont. — a local executive with the People’s Party of Canada — was charged with assault with a weapon after gravel was thrown at Liberal
Leader Justin Trudeau.
As well during the campaign, a man taunted Trudeau with filthy insults aimed at his wife, while anti-vaccination protesters have aggressively vented their spleen, not at legislatures but outside hospitals.
Nanos and other observers have warned that, while one episode of alleged assault and a few examples of verbal abuse may not constitute a crisis, the increasingly toxic temper of politics — with spikes into menace and violence — is cause for concern.
“You needn’t look too far into the history books to find examples of societies that abruptly pivoted away from rights, democratic governance and religious tolerance,” Michael Adams writes in his book, “Could It Happen Here?”
In his own book, Nanos draws a number of salient conclusions.
One is that the anger of voters is complex, with different sources and triggers in different countries. But rage does travel easily across borders.
Another is that rage is driven by relatively small swings of voters, chiefly those who feel marginalized by globalization, ignored or poorly served by institutions, fearful of rapid social change, laid low by loss of hope, and animated and empowered by social media.
Usually, it takes a cynical leader willing to weaponize that cauldron of humiliation and fear by giving legitimacy to feelings of grievance and victimhood and licensing rage.
Once ignited, that rage is loosed on virtually all institutions, establishment symbols and elites.
“Populist-style politics in many instances is more about punishing the establishment than advancing coherent policy options,” Nanos said.
It’s to the credit of all party leaders that the denunciation of the assault on Trudeau was quick and unequivocal, that a bright line was drawn to separate legitimate dissent from the utterly unacceptable.
Still, it appears the rage contagion has crossed the border from the United States, where it has been on particularly livid display since 2016.
“The creeping rage of voters should not be underestimated,” Nanos wrote.
“It signals that the fundamental diagnosis of disconnectedness, disaffectedness and economic pessimism has not been addressed.
“The age of voter rage brings into question how democracy works, whether it works and who it works for.”
American writer Ezra Klein has said the polarized and rageful “will justify almost anything or anyone so long as it helps (their) cause, and the result is a politics devoid of guardrails, standards, persuasion or accountability.”
Klein says these problems will not be remedied by changing players in favour of those promising better, only by changing the system.
If he’s right, the failure of the federal Liberals to deliver on their promise of electoral reform in 2015 carries greater consequences than recognized.
The twin challenges of inequality and identity need to be addressed.
Economic inequality is creating existential stresses on society. The “winners” need to take the lead on forging a better way, a new deal for those who’ve paid for the economic revolution.
As well, multicultural societies such as ours will thrive or fall not by merely tolerating newcomers, but by how well immigrants are welcomed and supported.
Media, too, must examine their tendency to amplify the angriest voices, making the grievance of an implacable few the soundtrack of election campaigns.
It’s been said three concepts underlie democracy: representation, accountability and equality.
In Canada, there’s been evidence for some time of dissatisfaction on all scores. Addressing those challenges — reimagining the guardrails, standards and accountability — will be as difficult as it is necessary.
Peace, order and good government, after all, is an aspiration, not a guarantee.