In the immediate aftermath of the election of Donald Trump to the American presidency there was a sense of momentum in the air around populism. Will it happen here in Canada? Or elsewhere? And how soon? What form will it take?
The Brexit vote had only just gone down a few months beforehand and European elections were scheduled to come a few months after. It was as if the world was bracing for some sort of flash flood reckoning, where everything would change within the course of a year. Then of course it didn’t happen, not immediately, not like some sort of well choreographed global phenomenon or like a movie plot.
So talk of the rise of populism shifted to talk of the death of populism or, at the very least, that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Yes, there were some quiet months between the middle of 2016 and now. But things are ramping up again. Reports of populism’s demise were premature. It’s happening again both abroad and at home here in Canada.
The most prominent example is the gilets jaunes, the yellow vest movement, that began in France and has bled over into other countries and even seen protests in the streets of Canadian cities this past weekend.
It took weeks of serious protest for President Emmanuel Macron to finally agree to nix the much hated fuel tax increases. And now that he’s caved, the disparate groups that have taken to the streets under one big leaderless umbrella want more.
Some want nothing less than the resignation of King Macron, as many over there now call him with a sneer. Others have particular requests, like the youth demanding a halt to student fee increases.
It’s funny that the election of Macron – and the defeat of National Front leader Marine Le Pen – was used as an excuse to herald the decline of populism. As if a failure to score a quick hat trick following Brexit and Trump meant the whole thing was done and over.
Whereas instead what’s happened is that less than two years of Macron’s imperial attitude has been enough to get the populist embers roaring more than any tired old Le Pen stump speech was able to do.
That’s the counterintuitive thing about populism. The election of an elitist doesn’t just mean it’s not over. It may even increase the odds of a populist backlash.
This is where Canada comes in. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s rhetoric has become increasingly divisive and dismissive over the past year. He seems more than pleased at the prospect of fighting the next election over the national carbon tax and immigration, which aren’t exactly the most unifying of issues.
And when Trudeau speaks about them, he doesn’t use positive messaging. It’s all about hectoring those who aren’t on board with him as peddling misinformation and vilifying the Conservatives as a bunch of meanies.
Will it work as a re-election strategy? Quite possibly. Many diehard Conservatives I know grudgingly predict a Trudeau minority at this point. And it sure doesn’t hurt that the NDP leader is persona non grata and Andrew Scheer fails to inspire.
A victory rooted in the sort of elitist attitude Trudeau now revels in will come at a cost though. It will only turn more of the disaffected against him. Even those who benefit from one or more of his programs, like the enhanced child benefit, can still be turned off by his tsk-tsk tone or his insistence on ramming the carbon tax down protesting provinces’ throats.
Next year we could find ourselves in a situation where Trudeau wins re-election but the forces of populism, the frustrations of regular people, only ramp up.