These days, our politics are driven by anger. Konrad Yakabuski writes:
Former federal Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole spoke for many Canadians distressed at the increasing nastiness of our political discourse in tweeting a desire to see fewer “profanity-laden Trudeau flags” hoisted across the country in 2023. He was spot on in warning that these banners attacking Prime Minster Justin Trudeau “and the hyperaggressive rhetoric that often accompanies them are slowly normalizing rage and damaging our democracy.” Kudos to him for speaking up.
No, Mr. O’Toole has not switched sides after being ousted as leader in the early days of last winter’s occupation of downtown Ottawa by opponents of vaccine mandates. But he appears to have had a change of heart after learning the hard way about what happens when attempts to feed popular anger for political gain turn against you.
O'Toole helped fuel that anger:
Remember that Mr. O’Toole ran for his party’s leadership in 2021 by promising to “take back Canada.” The slogan implied that conservatives had been dispossessed of their own country by a Liberal government that was pursuing a leftist agenda. It sought to stoke indignation and anger in just enough new and old Tories to win the leadership under rules that gave disproportionate weighting to low-membership ridings.
Mr. O’Toole fatefully went on to discover that, in the social media age, exploiting the anger of a highly mobilized faction of uncompromising voters can quickly come back to bite you at the slightest sign of betrayal. A vocal minority of hardliners shows zero tolerance for nuanced thinkers within their own parties or movements. This rule applies equally on the right and left, which is why our politics have become so polarized.
Mr. O’Toole became a casualty of this polarization just as Pierre Poilievre was discovering its usefulness in advancing his own political ambitions. Mr. Poilievre’s embrace of the Freedom Convoy protesters who descended nearly a year ago on Ottawa, where the F*** Trudeau flags that Mr. O’Toole denounces first proliferated, demonstrated his superior grasp of the dynamics of social media.
The Americans are further down this road than we are:
American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has attributed Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the U.S. presidency in 2016 to his mastery of these dynamics “in which outrage is the key to virality, stage performance crushes competence, Twitter can overpower all the newspapers in the country, and stories cannot be shared (or at least trusted) across more than a few adjacent fragments – so truth cannot achieve widespread adherence.”
Mr. Poilievre won the 2022 Conservative leadership race to replace Mr. O’Toole by following this same social media playbook. He has continued to follow it since, largely bypassing mainstream media channels to reinforce a message that seeks to intensify feelings of indignation, frustration and anger among Canadians seeking to vent.
His November YouTube video, in which he asks whether “everything is broken in Canada” against the backdrop of “another tent city” in Vancouver, is pure performance art. It is highly manipulative, and representative of the fragmented politics of the social media age, where the art of persuasion has been replaced by efforts to reinforce the confirmation biases of your existing followers.
Today's politicians have forgotten the wisdom of that old tale that reminds us of what happens to the person who rides on the back of the tiger.
Image: AZ Quotes
16 comments:
This reminds me of the"Tea Party" is the US. It was a nice astroturf movement until it was not and started to eat the Republican Party.
They ‘Dare Not Dismount’ ..
nor are they ‘Paul Revere..’ 🦎
That's exactly what happened, jrk. The Tea Party ate the Republican Party.
They have lit the fire that will consume them, sal.
The politics of rage, it seems to me, is predicated on the notion that people are easily led and not naturally inclined to critical thinking, Owen. The question ultimately is, what proportion of the population does this apply to?
In the case of the Canadian cons I think the phrase "on the back of the tiger" should read on the back of Harper
Dani Smith proves we don't elect our leaders.
They are groomed. Most attend Bilderberg before election.
Every one of them carries a trait that triggers a visceral rejection if you are prone. That's how it works.
There isn't a single thing I like about lil pp. He ticks everyone of my boxes.
Trudeaus televised smarmy induction of his cabinet with questionable intimacy, clumsy pomp and ceremony, stuttering nasal lisping and pronunciation that included "the queen and her hairs" pushed a lot to a conclusion.
Nothing against turbans and nothing against pink but the whole NDP show stalled that week.
So politics are merely occupying us, leadership was never the objective. Division and infighting will be the order of the day.
And in that way we will never vote for our self interests and endlessly serve the interests of others.
We are not bright. Wisdom is never on the ballot.
"Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside"
Inside what? Inside the tiger? Sorry, I looked this up but just get more obfuscation. To what tiger did Kennedy mean by that?
Precisely, Lorne. The assumption behind this kind of politics is that people vote on emotion not logic. There's something to that.
Point well taken, zoombats. Harper is the tiger.
Wisdom is a rare metal, lungta. It's hard to find and harder to recover.
The tale comes from Aesop, Toby. A supposedly sly fox gets a trip across the river on the back of a tiger. But halfway across, the tiger turns on the fox.
I suspect that if one took a survey in Canada, asking the question, do you feel believe that your concerns about government policies have an avenue to be expressed, and acknowledged by your government?, the answer would be a resounding NO. Party politics have completely ground serving the constituents into the dust. Policies that were never even floated in elections are passed. Expecting your MP to go against party policies in favour of local concerns seems to be a thing of the distant past. It seems like there is a "purity" test, and if you don't meet it, out you go. For instance, I cannot recall anything prior to JT's election, beating Stephen Harper, that indicated women would see women's rights revoked. No one campaigned that male rapists would be housed in women's prisons, and yet here we are. Were we expecting some major policies to combat climate change? I sure was. But little or nothing of consequence seems to have happened. Is there accountability to constituents any longer? Sure, every four years we get to check a box, or in some cases, spoil a ballot because none of the options are acceptable. And now it appears that government outsource governance to consulting firms, which frankly may explain a lot. I don't think tearing the systems of governance down, or hiring PI's to intimidate judges is in any way acceptable. But I am starting to see where the frustration begins, and how few avenues there are for constructive dialogue. NW
I suspect that at least part of the answer is getting big money out of politics, NW.
Otool Oshmool
Unprecedented climate event in Europe.
Just one more harbinger that the climate/environmental horror story has begun.
We're all in the belly of the tiger now.
Exactly, PoV.
Post a Comment