CHARBONNEAU – New Populism in the New Year

THE TRIUMPHAL RETURN of Donald Trump as president in the U.S. marks the beginning of new politics.

It’s a new and bizarre brand of politics with echoes of totalitarianism from the past and social media vibe from the present. For lack of a better name, I’ll call it New Populism.

It features a president as a menacing clown – a man with a cheerful facade yet sinister undertones.

Trump, in his orange makeup, bounces on the stage like a marionette. His speeches are both inane and threatening.

Trump is reminiscent of Stephen King’s horrifying clown creation in the movie It. The clown, Pennywise, is a shape-shifting entity who uses a clown form to lure its victims.

I always thought that any political party could be placed on a spectrum with extreme right on one end and extreme left on the other. One graphical representation that I found appealing was a circle, rather than a bar graph, with extreme right and left meeting at one point, perhaps in anarchy.

But New Populism doesn’t seem to fit anywhere on this graph.

Don’t call it Conservative.

In his letter to Armchairmayor.ca, Gerry Chidiac laments the loss of conservative values from the “right wing” of politics.

“Conservative leaders in Canada have a long history of improving the lives of Canadians and building our international reputation,” says Chidiac. “John Diefenbaker fully supported the implementation of our government-funded health care system. Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney made Canada one of the first Western countries to boycott apartheid South Africa. Stephen Harper apologized to Indigenous Canadians for our disastrous residential school system.”

Don’t call the U.S. Republican Party conservative. Not any more.

The Republican Party has been historically rooted in conservatism with a focus on small government, free markets, and traditional social values. Republicans have advocated for free trade in the past.

The Trump-Era Republican Party is no longer conservative with increased federal spending and deficits. His threat of crippling tariffs, renegotiation of trade deals like USMCA (formerly NAFTA), turns the nation inward.

If not conservative, then why is the New Populism so popular in the U.S.?

Can New Populism become even more viral, spreading like Japanese knotweed? This sinister plant forms dense thickets that outcompete native vegetation. The plant’s root system can even create serious infrastructure problems as it grows through asphalt and concrete.

Can the New Populism knotweed take root in Canada, outcompeting native conservatism?

The weedy BC Conservative Party is planting the seeds. Marginalizing the gender non-conforming community is one of those seeds. Chidiac adds:

“In the recent British Columbia election, the only clearly stated educational policy in the Conservative platform was to further marginalize the gender non-conforming community, that is, those whose gender expression, identity, or presentation does not align with traditional or societal expectations associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.”

And Pierre Poilievre, nicknamed “Skippy” early in his political career, is keen on spouting what he imagines is New Populism rhetoric. Like a rubber toy, just squeeze him and he’ll squeak things like “axe the tax,”

Perhaps the axe is an appropriate metaphor. It must be swung vigorously at the roots of the New Populism knotweed.

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.