CHARBONNEAU – Welcome to the big tent of conspiracy theories
Pierre Pollievre.
AS ALL SIGNIFICANT political movements do, conspiracy theorists are merging under one big tent.
Movements are a convenient way of identifying where you fit in on certain issues. If you are a liberal, you can find a set of values consistent with yours.
And if you aren’t sure what you should think about a particular issue, just look at what the group’s opinion is. It helps clarify who’s with you and who isn’t.
Big tents are the goal of successful political parties: the more voters you can include, the greater your chances of getting into power. Big tents are appealing to conspiracy theorists because they create communication networks.
For convenience, let’s label the conspiracy theorists movement as “popster” from populism meaning grassroots, and from Apophenia: the condition of seeing or imagining patterns in random occurrences.
Like any big tent movement, the overarching tenets of popsters are few: believe that a handful of sinister individuals control world affairs for their nefarious ends; that the scientific method to be a means of confirming what they know to be true; that freedom means acting contrary to public health such as vaccinations.
While the overthrow of the government often seems to be the goal of popsters, they seldom have an identifiable platform for replacement nor do they run for office.
An exception was the Trump administration which was a disaster. While President Trump echoed the anger and discontent of popsters, he was incoherent. Popsters are against governments of all stripes.
Conservative leader candidate Pierre Poilievre is making a mistake in thinking he can convince popsters to vote Conservative.
He thinks that by supporting “freedom convoys,” normalizing cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum, and wild talk about firing Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem, that he will win support.
What Poilievre fails to realize is that popsters have a deep seated suspicion of political leaders because governments are just puppets of those really in control; one of those being Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
At a lunchtime rally for Poilievre in Ontario, a woman wanted to know how Poilievre could be trusted when a “member” of the WEF was in his party.
She was referring to John Baird, the former foreign affairs minister under Stephen Harper. As foreign minister, he went four times. “I haven’t had any contact with them since 2015,” said Baird.
The same woman believes that Schwab, who founded the World Economic Forum more than 50 years ago, along with billionaires Bill Gates and George Soros are trying to take over the world.
Another attendee at the Poilievre rally believed that COVID-19 vaccines are “experimental drugs.”
Some popsters believe the WEF either created the pandemic or is using it to control people, through microchips in vaccines or stealth socialism.
Popsters have latched onto language used by the WEF – the “Great Reset.” The WEF used the phrase to mean a greener and equitable post-pandemic world. Now popsters see the Great Reset as a sinister plot for global control.
Sensible Conservatives will realize that popsters will not support conservatives and if they do, it will attempt to undermine the Conservatives party.
Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP Frank Caputo is backing Jean Charest as leader of the Conservatives party.
David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
While I disagree with most of your article (except the Trump was a disaster part). I’ll only comment on one bit, your seeming incredulity that anyone could consider the Covid vaccines as “experimental”. Consider the circumstances of their development and approval. Each big Pharmaceutical company saw a huge financial opportunity, and were in direct competition with each other to be “ the first”. Simultaneously The Trump administration, and governments around the world, were desperate to present a vaccine to the public before the US election, directing upwards of $10 Billion USD to Big pharma under the “Operation Warp Speed” banner. Being in a poor bargaining position, those same governments agreed to let the Pfizers of the world wriggle out if any responsibility for damages from their vaccines, even allowing them to dribble out the results of the limited testing they did do over 75 years. US courts have now ordered the faster release of the the information, and Many of claims made are now known to wrong. The most egregious of which is that the vaccine is Safe and Effective for pregnant women. Turns out that was never tested. How could it have been, the whole Development and approval process took less than one gestation period. Additionally, It turns out more than 1200 participants in the Pfizer trials died, but the cause, and size of the test population continues to be redacted. The Injected RNA sequence has now been found to cross the blood-barrier, and to migrate from the injection site, both contrary to pre approval claims. “Ninety four percent effective” became 70%, which became “at least you won’t be get as sick” to “at least it’ll keep you out of the ICU” to “At least you won’t die”. All of which are now known to be untrue. Sure sounds like an on-going experiment to me.
In my view defies logic and appears a real functioning democracy is at stake by those supporting the right who want power at all costs.
Yes. Any public figure honoring or sympathizing with the infamous and irresponsible “freedom” protest is clearly unfit for civic office . Those who would govern us must first show a commitment to the principles of government , civic, regional,or national…peaceful is central.
JC in unquestionably a mega-better choice than PP.