Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake went on OANs Weekly Briefing with Chanel Rion this week. The popular Populist-Republican revealed why she is the future of the party.

Kari is absolutely fearless. She will not bow to the desires of the Democrat-media complex.

Kari Lake: Whats gonna happen next time is, I believe were gonna have a red wave

But when Im Governor, I know were gonna have a big red majority in the state legislature

TRENDING: Pro-Abortion House Democrats March on Senate Chanting "My Body, My Decision!"

Were going to drag the 2020 election out, unlike some people who want to brush it under the rug. Were gonna drag it out, under the spotlight. We are going to examine what went wrong. Well take that forensic audit and were gonna find each and every loophole that was used to cheat and steal our vote, and were going to fix it.

Kari Lake truly is the future of the Populist-Republican Party.

Via The Storm Has Arrived.

More here:

Kari Lake Reveals Why She Is So Popular - The Future of the Populist ...

The People's Party, also known as the Populist Party, was an important political party in the United States of America during the late nineteenth century.

The People's Party originated in the early 1890s.It was organized in Kansas, but the party quickly spread across the United States.It drew its members from Farmers' Alliances, the Grange, and the Knights of Labor. Originally, the Populists did not form a national organization, preferring to gain political influence within individual states.

The Populist Party consisted primarily of farmers unhappy with the Democratic and Republican Parties.The Populists believed that the federal government needed to play a more active role in the American economy by regulating various businesses, especially the railroads.In particular, the Populists supported women's suffrage the direct election of United States Senators. They hoped that the enactment women's suffrage and the direct election of senators would enable them to elect some of their members to political office.Populists also supported a graduated income tax, government ownership of the railroads, improved working conditions in factories, immigration restrictions, an eight-hour workday, the recognition of unions, and easier access to credit.

During the early 1890s, the Populist Party garnered numerous victories.The party won governors' seats in Colorado, Washington, North Carolina, Montana, and several additional states.The Populists gained control of state legislatures in Kansas, Nebraska, and North Carolina, and they succeeded in electing members to the United States House of Representatives in Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and California.

In 1892, the People's Party formed a national organization. The party selected James Weaver as its candidate for the presidency of the United States.The Populist platform called for government ownership of the railroads and the telephone and telegraph networks.It also demanded the free coinage of silver, an end to private script, a graduated income tax, direct election of senators, additional government and railroad-owned land being made available to homesteaders, and the implementation of secret ballots.The Populists won numerous political offices at the state and local levels, but Weaver finished a distant third to Grover Cleveland in the presidential election.By the election of 1896, the Democratic Party had absorbed many of the Populist ideals, causing the People's Party to cease to exist as a national organization.

In Ohio, the Populist Party remained a relatively insignificant force in politics.Thousands of Ohioans, especially farmers and industrial workers, agreed with the Populists platform, but they made up a minority of the states populace.John J. Seitz, a Populist, ran for Ohio's gubernatorial seat, but he received less than three-tenths of one percent of the votes cast in the election. The party performed significantly better in the gubernatorial race of 1895.Jacob S. Coxey ran as the Populist candidate and received fifty-two thousand votes. It was a respectable showing, but Coxey still lost the election.He ran again in 1897.This time he received just over six thousand votes, illustrating the declining popularity of the Populist Party.

The People's Party in Ohio helped Republicans tremendously, because the Populists tended to draw their supporters from the Democratic Party.To win back their former members, the Democrats in Ohio, as the party did nationally, quickly adopted many of the Populists ideals.

Original post:

Populist Party - Ohio History Central

Populist voters are often assumed to be driven by anger or disillusionment with the political system. But does this overlook the possibility that many citizens simply believe populist policies would benefit society? Drawing on a study of the French gilets jaunes, Frdric Gonthier and Tristan Guerra explain that concerns about wider society have a major impact on the choices populist voters make at the ballot box.

Populist voters have long been viewed as driven by anger toward elites and the political system. With the mainstreaming of populist parties and the resurgence of populist social movements across Europe, a new generation of studies is now devoting more attention to the notion that populist voters can also be motivated by concerns about wider society.

Populist voters are, in particular, highly supportive of institutional reforms on which populist leaders have raised awareness when competing on democratic issues with mainstream parties. This is notably the case with democratic innovations favouring direct democracy, like referendums. Such a concern is due to the fact that populist voters are not only worried about their own personal situation but also by the state of society at large.

The gilets jaunes

In a new study, we expand on this emerging literature by showing that populist support for referendums also translates into voting choice. We focus on the populist French gilets jaunes movement, whose core demands included the establishment of so called citizens initiative referendums, through which citizens would be able to dismiss elected representatives, amend the constitution, make legislative proposals, and oppose government policies.

Although the gilets jaunes initially emerged in opposition to a rise in fuel taxes, citizens initiative referendums ultimately became their main demand. These referendums can be seen as a reflection of populism because they are built on both people-centric and anti-elitist principles. Pushing for these referendums also cemented the movements unity by replacing the various and sometimes conflicting demands of the gilets jaunes with a simple and inclusive policy that could bring people together. By the same token, it no doubt helped subsume previous subgroup identities and enhance a sense of belonging within the community.

The voting choices of the gilets jaunes make for an interesting case study for our purposes because their supporters should be torn between backing candidates that either share their background, have similar political ideologies, or support the establishment of citizens initiative referendums. To resolve this, we conducted a conjoint experiment on a sample of 2,743 protesters between December 2018 and March 2019.

We found that candidates standing up for policy issues brought to the forefront by the gilets jaunes such as an increase in the minimum wage or reinstatement of the solidarity tax on wealth garnered more support than candidates who were similar to protesters in terms of their social background, or who signalled their ideological proximity by means of anti-elite statements. We also found that candidates supporting citizens initiative referendums were far more likely to be endorsed than alternative candidates, as illustrated by the magnitude of the estimates in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Preferred candidate features among the gilets jaunes

Democratic theorists usually posit that the general public prioritises substantive political representation (that is, representation based on shared political preferences) over descriptive representation (that is, representation based on shared social characteristics). Our results are in accordance with this theory as statements in favour of citizens initiative referendums not only had the biggest impact on support for candidates, but also conditioned the impact of all other candidate features.

On top of that, we also found that the effect of statements in favour of citizens initiative referendums tapped into people-centrism, a core component of populism. Members of the gilets jaunes that held people-centric attitudes were more likely to support candidates in favour of citizens initiative referendums. However, this effect was less apparent with members of the gilets jaunes that had anti-elitist attitudes.

In sharp contrast to the often-negative image of populist motivations, our research therefore suggests that policy measures enhancing direct democracy may appeal to a populist electorate and channel their discontent. In particular, congruency between people-centric attitudes and referendums appears to be a key route for populist citizens to arrive at their vote choice, even when competing with other core populist appeals such as anti-elitism.

From roundabouts to ballots

Our study echoes the results of the 2022 French presidential election. Even though the gilets jaunes were unsuccessful in getting their own candidates elected, and citizens initiative referendums failed to make it to the top of the agenda, candidates that expressed the strongest support for citizens initiative referendums, such as Jean-Luc Mlenchon and Marine Le Pen, improved their electoral performance between 2017 and 2022.

Most interestingly, Jean Lassalle, the presidential candidate whose referendum proposals were ranked first by the associations advocating for citizens initiative referendums, received a significant boost of around 666,000 votes, finishing above the candidates from the French Communist Party and the Socialist Party.

Institutional issues, such as citizens initiative referendums, also gained in salience during the run-off election between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. Le Pen even pledged to start a referendum revolution to bridge the democratic divide and mobilise disillusioned populist voters against Macron. Taking up the issue of citizens initiative referendums was obviously not enough to get her elected, but it nevertheless energised her political campaign and brought populist protesters back to the polls.

For more information, see the authors accompanying paper in Political Psychology

Note: This article gives the views of theauthors, not the position of EUROPP European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: ev on Unsplash

The rest is here:

Evidence from the gilets jaunes: Which candidates win the support of populist voters? - London School of Economics

[MUSIC]

Its The Argument. Im Jane Coaston.

It seems like right now any conversation about the 2022 midterms is actually kind of about 2024. And any conversation about 2024 is inevitably about Donald Trump even if its not about Donald Trump the person, but Donald Trump the idea. Because even if Donald Trump doesnt run again, his ideas, his ethos, his whole vibe will be. Itll just be coming from a different Republican. In this primary season, were seeing a lot of that. So this week Im joined by two conservative writers who are thinking a lot about what the winning G.O.P. candidates can tell us about the waxing or waning influence of Donald Trump, or the idea of Donald Trump on the party.

Hello. Nice to meet you both.

Hey, good to meet you.

Yeah.

I cant believe weve never talked, I dont think.

Yeah, I actually am kind of surprised that this has never happened until now.

Yeah.

Good, well, thats what youre for, right?

Uh-huh. Yep. Im bringing people together.

Thats right.

We try. Heres David French.

Im a Senior Editor at The Dispatch, a Contributing Writer at The Atlantic, and Memphis Grizzlies fan.

And Chris Caldwell.

Im a Contributing Editor at The Claremont Review of Books, and a Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times Opinion Section.

This all started Chris, you wrote an article for New York Times Opinion about J.D. Vance, the best-selling author who just won the Ohio Republican primary election for Senate, analyzing what you think contributed to his popularity in Ohios primary, including and beyond Trumps endorsement, and I think we can use that as an interesting case study and jumping off point for discussion. I was particularly interested, because Im from Ohio. I grew up in Ohio. Its always been a very conservative place in a lot of ways.

But I wanted to walk through your piece with David, because I know he disagrees with some of the major points. First, you say the people who voted for J.D. Vance havent changed. Whats changed is that Trump gave them an outlet for their grievances.

But I disagree with that, because in 2016, Vance was not a Trump supporter. He described him as reprehensible, as cultural heroin. Flash forward to his campaign, he said that he underwent a political evolution of sorts, that Trump was right, elites are corrupt, and then he got Trumps endorsement in the race. So I think if you read Hillbilly Elegy, and you read some of what Vance wrote, it wasnt that there were no problems, it was that Trump was the wrong solution. Why, and what do you think changed, Chris?

Well, as I say, I am not sure that Vance changed as much as you are. I think through traveling with him, I formed the impression that we might have taken some of the wrong things out of Hillbilly Elegy. That is, we might have misidentified the center of the book. That book was written in 2013, 14, 15. It came out into the Trump campaign, and I think people grasped that as a way to explain Trump.

But I think the emotional center of that book is his relationship with his family. And I think that the sociological explanation of the politics of that region I think its secondary. Now, if you look at the political attitudes the book does describe, a lot of them are really youd call them arch conservative.

When I say I think that Trump changed Ohio more than other states, its because of the nature of the Ohio economy and the Ohio culture that grew out of that economy. It is, again, a varied economy. But if you have a manufacturing style economy, it has really suffered more than other economies in the last, lets say, generation. And the fact is, you have never had, with a few peeps here and there, but youve never had a presidential nominee of one of the parties who made a full-throated assault on the arrangements that destroyed that economy. And Trump did that, and its something unique among presidential candidates.

Ive been alive since 1987, and I remember George W. Bushs election in Ohio, and Ohio helped propel him to two presidential elections. And much of the state-level language that George W. Bush and Karl Rove were relying upon was talking about poor white voters, and talking to poor white voters, about a compassionate conservatism.

Right.

So, David, is Vance offering something truly new to low income white voters than say George W. Bush did, or is it a different packaging, and how is that difference actually showing up?

Yeah, I think Bush and Vance were moving towards working class white voters, but appealing to different aspects of the culture of working class white voters. But theres two things going on at once one is, Bush, through the language of compassionate conservatism, is appealing to, not just in Ohio, but broader in the United States of America, appealing to the better angels of our nature. So there are people who are being left behind that we need to help.

So you had Medicare expansion under Bush, for example, you had tariffs under Bush, for example. A lot of sort of the economic conservative purists really got upset about so many of the things that Bush did, and for a while it worked. Now, of course, we know what happened as America soured on the Iraq War. We know what happened in the aftermath of Katrina and the financial crash.

But I think whats different about the appeal now, in the Vances appeal, the Trump appeal, is it is much less reminiscent of a George W. Bush, and much more reminiscent of a George Wallace. And when I see Vance, and when I see this newest incarnation of Vance, Im not seeing so much compassionate conservatism as I am seeing a reemergence though of the kind of populism that dominated much of the South for a very long time in the South. And its a populism of resentment. Its a populism of tribal loyalty. It neglects appeals to better angels of our nature in favor of appeals to rage and anger hatred even.

And I think whats ultimately playing here isnt so much the globalization argument as it is much more the cultural argument. Much less rooted to, oh, here is this specific policy that Donald Trump or J.D. Vance is going to propose that is going to bring back manufacturing to this region, or their specific policy that they advance that the Democrats dont advance that is going to make my life better. I think it goes much, much deeper than that. It makes me question how unique Ohio is.

Yeah, Im curious about that, Chris, because from a what to do perspective, what is the difference between what J.D. Vance would offer and what a compassionate conservative who knows that cutting Medicare is politically a very bad idea do? This isnt J.D. Vance versus Paul Ryan. This is J.D. Vance versus the Republicans who have been Republicans in Ohio since I was a kid.

Right. Yeah, I think David lays it out as a choosing fellow feeling versus choosing group hostility, and I dont think that thats the way it happened. I think that whats happened is a shift in the economy thats brought a shift in the class system.

And I think that, lets say at the dawn of the New Deal, you had a Democratic Party that was, although idiosyncratic, pretty identifiable as the working mans party, and the Republican Party that was more or less a proprietors party. The New Deal changed that, and it created a kind of alternative way of rising through the society. There was sort of a Democratic Party constituency of both working people and, lets say, educational institutions that gave an alternative way to rise.

And so when you get to the 1980s, neither of the parties had a strong class identity. They had a class mythology in them. I think that the Democrats still thought of themselves as the party of the downtrodden working man, but the downtrodden working man might have a second house on one of the Great Lakes with a boat, you know.

Right.

Whats happened lately is a few things. Weve had deindustrialization, but weve also had the rise of a new economy, a lot of it around universities, and the Democrats are the party of universities. And so very gradually to the point where you havent really even noticed, we have emerged back in a world where the parties have class identities.

And so I think that what youre seeing is loud class arguments from certain Republican candidates. Vance is one of them, and thats one of the reasons I began the article by quoting Vance really shouting very passionately about wanting to break up the tech companies. And its not that the people who vote for him dont use the internet or anything like that, but they dont feel they have any say in the way the new, lets say, high tech economy and social order is set up.

David, youre looking askance.

Im thinking were over-analyzing this a lot. I think J.D. Vance is a very online, New Right politician. He has a Twitter constituency

Right.

so he has Ive got your grievances new right Twitter that sort of builds some zealous support that he has in that world, which is really, truthfully, electorally irrelevant. Its mainly useful because he has some of the same hobby horses that Tucker Carlson has, for example, so that helps get him on Tucker Carlson.

But the reality was, there was this race for the Trump endorsement and he captured the Trump endorsement, and then hes running in a multi-candidate primary where that Trump endorsements going to make a big difference. And you know, he goes for the Trump endorsement in a couple of ways. One of the ways he goes is by fighting like Trump, by appealing to that lowest common denominator kind of rhetoric fight, fight, fight, never back down, fight, fight, fight.

This isnt, I dont think, an exercise in difficult sociological analysis. He was in a multi-candidate primary, he appealed to lowest common denominator populism. One of the things he said is, Our people hate the Right people. Our people hate the Right people. And he captured 30 plus percent of the electorates still bigger than folks thought. Now hes going to run in a general election in a two-candidate race, where its really rough for Democrats, and that negative polarization is the single dominant factor of American politics.

I also think its worth recognizing here that because it was a multi-person primary, its not like J.D. Vance won an overwhelming number of votes. There were a lot of people running for that nomination, and he beat Josh Mandel, the most try hard person, perhaps, in the history of American politics. And I do want to pivot to the general election, because Chris, you wrote that Vance told you that he thinks he got Trumps endorsement because he embraced Trump as a political program to be carried out, not just as kind of like a vibe to follow. What is the program? What is he going to do?

Yeah, I should make very clear, though, that was a beautiful quote that Vance gave, but I didnt get it. Actually, its from a Dayton television reporter named Chelsea Sick. So I think that the context in which she asked him that question was the one you say that a lot of candidates were going for the Trump endorsement.

Right.

The one who didnt seek it, Matt Dolan of Cleveland, a State Senator, got about 25 percent of the vote. But this indicates that whoever got that

Endorsement.

endorsement was in a very strong position.

To do what?

Well, it leaves him in a strong position in the election. Now, whats he going to do? I dont know. When he talked about Trumpism being an agenda, he named trade, the border, and not getting us into wars of choice.

And so, I tend to think that Vance will be protectionist, you know. He would not revive the Pacific Trade Pact that Trump pulled out of. He would build the wall, if he could get the votes for it in a non-metaphorical sense, and in a metaphorical sense, he would be much more restrictionist on the Mexican border. And hell oppose the Ukraine war or the United States role in it. I think those are three things trade, the border, foreign policy.

I mean, it still seems to me, and Im curious to get your thoughts, David, that because of what Id call the nationalization of politics I grew up with it makes me sound like Im 80 years old to talk this way but I think it is interesting to me that after growing up with Ohio politics being Ohio centered, as if Ohio was, and I quote, the heart of it all.

But now you see like you were just talking about, the trade policy, and the war in Ukraine, and securing the Mexican border. And Im just like, what does this have to do with my mom? What does this have to do with if I am elected, this thing will happen. Well finally do something about the I-71, 75 interchange. I mean, this is perhaps just a general pet peeve of mine.

But I think that the nationalization of politics coincides with the sense that Congress cant actually do anything because individual congresspeople are talking about the Mexican border, or war with Ukraine which are both really important issues. But at a certain point, if J.D. Vance wants the wall to get built as a United States Senator, hes got some power to do so, but not much. If you are supposed to call your Senator when theres a thing going on in your state and theyre, like, hang on a second, I got to stop unnecessary wars in Ukraine

Yeah.

I would get a sense of who are you here for? Are you here for Ohioans, or are you here for this larger political project?

Well you know, I think that the rise of negative polarization kind of enables a J.D. Vance style candidate, who I see as sort of what is he going to be like in the Senate? I think weve seen the model, and the model is Josh Hawley. I think thats what youll see with J.D. Vance, is youre going to see a guy who will become a Senator and hell file some really performative legislation. He has this whole album side about, you know, seizing the endowments of universities and things like that.

But if were going to take for half a second this idea that if and when he wins the Senate in Ohio that thats going to show that Republicans really dont want to see American military support for Ukraine, we need to rethink that kind of analysis because hes going to win because he won the primary because he got Trumps endorsement. He didnt get Trumps endorsement because of some really difficult, highly ideological test.

One of the reasons he got it is Trump liked his golf swing. I mean, this is the world were living in right now. And what weve constantly tried to do, I feel like, in this post-Trump world is were constantly trying to apply a complex intellectual frame

Yeah, were trying to intellectualize someone who also endorsed Dr. Oz.

Right, endorsed Dr. Oz, endorsed David Perdue in Georgia for the very simple reason that David Perdue will do his bidding on arguing about the 2020 election. And so this is where I feel like theres this disconnect often when we try to intellectualize Trump, and theres this disconnect when we try to intellectualize J.D. Vance.

Trump, A, tapped into this well of animosity. He tapped into it, and I agree that he changed the country in some ways. He changed the country by amplifying pre-existing trends towards partisan antipathy in much of the way that sometimes a symptom can make an underlying disease worse, like a hacking cough can break a rib. He did not really, actually, at the grassroots, introduce some sort of really fascinating new ideological enterprise, because the reality is kind of, whatever Trump did, they liked.

And look, Ive piled a lot on the Republican populist movement now, but let me flip this around a little bit here. The Democrats really made a pivot towards an identity-based coalition. I remember all the talk after 2012 of the coalition of the ascendant, right? People of color, single women, all of the rising demographics of America are going to rise and swamp you. Its all over for you, Republican Party.

Why is it all over for you, Republican Party? Well, youre just too white and too male to win anymore. And I think when your political opponents move very much towards an identity-based coalition and away from a working class-based coalition, you leave a lane and you leave a lot of voters just right there. And if you look at the demographics of Ohio, Ohio is 81 percent white thats more white than in America.

I know. Im aware.

Jane, news to you, Jane?

Ohio is more white than the rest of America. If you look at Iowa that is now completely in the G.O.P. camp, its super white. And so its not that the Democrats were necessarily wrong that there was an emerging Democratic majority, its just that the majority was emerging in a lot of the wrong places where they didnt need it to emerge. You know, how many more progressives do you need in Brooklyn or Berkeley?

And so youre doubling down on identity-based politics, leaving behind class-based politics. And my issue isnt that Republicans have moved into this open field that Democrats have left them, its more how theyve moved into it than the fact that theyve moved into it.

I just theres a premise thats come up that I think I disagree with both of you on, which is that theres something unusual about a Senate candidate dealing with these national issues.

I dont think its not unusual to me, but my point is that I dont think its good. I think that it is problematic to have candidates who inherently focus on issues that they themselves could not fix, or they themselves could bear no responsibility for.

Oh, but I think you could. I think, you know, the Senate has a constitutional responsibility regarding treaties. Congress gets to declare war, and not

Well, they do.

The border is a national matter. There is a division of labor between, you know, state and national governments, and I think theres a feeling that the government of Ohio is pretty well in hand.

Thinking more about you wrote about Trump in your piece, saying that you know, globalization and being against NAFTA was one of Trumps most effective rallying cries. And you wrote yourself though, Whether Mr. Trump has effectively stopped anything related to globalization can be debated. And it seems that maximalism is the privilege of being able to say anything you want without anyone really calling you on it.

Yeah.

So with Trump, you have someone who doesnt really do anything related to globalization, because its an effective boogeyman. Its effective to just have the thing that is there is a problem, and we all know what the problem is, but youre not going to do anything to fix the problem because either the solution is too politically complicated, or too politically unpopular. We are asking, or would be asking, J.D. Vance to do something, to be a United States Senator to represent my mom.

But if you are leaning hard on, here are all of our problems. We are in late-stage capitalism. We have to fire everyone and liquidate the Kulaks. And then you get into actual office, then what do you do?

I know, but I dont think people are saying that. And I dont think that the difference is between rhetoric and reality, I think it has to do with the passage of time. Governing is really complicated, and I think that failed governments, whatever they propose enacting, learn a lot from the way they were thwarted, and they get better at it as time goes on. So the rhetoric always seems to be at odds with reality until it becomes reality. So I dont, you know, some of these ideas might be good, some of them might be bad, but Im not suspicious of them just because theyre being proposed.

You know, I think you raise a really interesting question about the distinction between fixing and fighting, OK? So you say Ohio has problems A, B, C and D. What are we going to do to fix them? is one kind of thrust in campaigning. Then theres another that says the Democrats have problems A, B, C and D. What are we going to do to fight them?

And I think thats where Trump really discerned the building wave of Republican resentment. It wasnt so much on the fixing prong, it was much more on the fighting prong. And you know, the interesting thing, if youre diving into the ideology of Trumpism, is there isnt really an ideology, its more the ambitions and power hunger of a single man. If you look at his single term in office, his two largest concrete policy achievements were a corporate tax cut designed by Paul Ryan, and the nomination of a whole slew of Federalist Society judges that were put into a pipeline over the last generation of establishment, Republican, judicial and legal activism.

And I would note here on that point that there is no reason to believe that any other Republican president would have not nominated those judges.

Oh, yeah.

The judges were going to be in there, no matter what.

Oh, they were coming out of the establishment pipeline. You do not get more establishment than Brett Kavanaugh. But what did make Trump different, it was the fighting, it was the fighting.

And I think if you talked to J.D. Vance in 2016, he would say, wait a minute, this fighting stuff is a distraction from what needs fixing. And I think what changed in 2016 to 2020 was not these folks, it was J.D. and the way he transitioned from the fixing to the fighting. And I think what he saw in Trump was somebody who would inhibit the fixing. He was somebody who was certainly an avatar for grievances, but not a instrument for remedies.

And I think that thats what Im talking about when Im talking about if you have a population of white working class voters where there are real problems and how do you appeal to them and mobilize them, I think that there are constructive ways to appeal and destructive ways. J.D. was concerned in 2016 that the very method he chose in 2020 was deeply destructive, and yet thats where he went.

I think theres no doubt that Trump is a fighting politician. But I think that fighting I was really struck by the entrance of the word fight into a lot of political rhetoric well before Trump 10 years or so ago. And it seems to have come with a lot of psychological research on how people respond to rhetoric.

And I think its of a piece with the negative advertising which we see because negative advertising, whether we like it or not, has a strange effectiveness on voters. If you listen to Elizabeth Warren, she talks about fighting probably even more than Trump does. I think its really more a best campaign practice than an ideological side-effect.

I dont think anyone disputes it. Theres a wide open lane for populist incitement. I think the issue with J.D. Vance, and the issue with the Republican Party in general, is this move that says, were going to indulge it, were going to stoke it, were going to ride it. There isnt actually a program of governance thats attached to that beyond a few basic impulses about border security, and some vague ideas about trade.

I think its wrong to assume that theres going to be a symmetrical Republican policy program to the Democratic policy program. The Democrats are the party of policy programs. They have a lot more initiative in devising new things for government to do. And youre just not going to find a sort of reflected mirror policy image on Republicans. Its not a symmetry.

The Republicans will tend to be obstructing new policy initiatives. And I havent really thought about what this would mean in terms of rhetoric, but the rhetoric is bound to be different. You know, just simply sitting around and doing nothing, for Republicans, can in certain circumstances be a constructive way to spend four years. And people participate in politics for different reasons, and not all of them are constructive.

Well.

I think we will find unanimous agreement on that one.

[MUSIC]

More with David and Chris on the new standard bearers of Trumps legacy after the break.

[MUSIC]

So we have debated whether Vances win and Trumps endorsement of Vance is about policy or about vibes, and whether some of the fighting rhetoric is just usual stuff politicians do to get elected. I want to talk a little bit now about how much we should infer from his victory about where the G.O.P. is going, and if Trump clearly is king here. And I want to know where you think the Republican platform is, going forward, because I dont think its party stalwarts like Mitch McConnell. I think its, quote unquote, fighters like Ron DeSantis.

Yeah, I think the most politically effective way in which a Republican politician is trying to inherit Trumpism is Ron DeSantis. And thats not a novel insight here, but there are two aspects to the way in which Ron DeSantis is inheriting Trumpism effectively.

And that is, one, he has the right enemy, and that is the media. So he got very fortunate that the mainstream media, left media, really focused on him early in the pandemic, more so than Texas, more so than Tennessee, more so than anywhere else. Really drilled down on him and launched a frontal attack sort of on the Florida approach. And so he built up this immediate constituency just because people are going to rally on the side of whatever Republican is seen to be in the cross-hairs of the media, so he emerged with the, quote unquote, right enemy.

And then the other thing is, what he has done that is different from Trump is that Trumps fighting was a lot of rhetoric, was a lot of tweeting with a lot of outbursts. DeSantis version of fighting is a lot of legislation aimed at targets that are popular targets for the right. So, in essence, DeSantis is the next evolution of Trumpism in that its taking the online beef into the real world through legislation.

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Opinion | What J.D. Vances Primary Win Says About Populism and Resentment in the G.O.P. - The New York Times

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This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Disclosure information is available on the original site.

Author: Sam Routley, PhD Student, Political Science, Western University

The Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) governments attempt at re-election brings to the forefront questions of Canadian conservatism and its viability, not just in the countrys most populous province.

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Throughout its tenure, the PC government has undergone significant changes in policy, appearance and general tone. A 2018 populist movement has seemingly shifted to the moderate PC coalition of old.

To capture this change, is it necessary for Ford to turn back the clock to 2018? After all, he won both the party leadership and the election on a populist agenda.

Following the more centrist Patrick Browns removal as PC leader in January 2018, Ford entered the race brandishing his previous anti-establishment and brash Toronto City Council persona.

In narrowly beating Christine Elliot for the leadership, Ford quickly shifted the image and platform of the party to his own image.

The partys electoral platform, titled A Plan for the People, contrasted the people from the elites, who, through waste, mismanagement and scandal, had along with a set of special interests benefited from exploiting every day Ontarians.

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The platform argued that Fords PC party, by being better connected to the taxpayer, would bring in a period of fiscal restraint, less wasteful government spending and a more common-sense driven policy process. Among the partys promises were to fire the CEO of Ontarios utility provider, Hydro One, launch a full audit of Liberal government spending and repeal the provinces cap-and-trade program.

Controversial policies

These initiatives shaped the initial year of the Ford government as it brought in aggressive and controversial policies.

By the time the 2019 spring budget was tabled, the government had scrapped cap-and-trade, legislated an end to the strike at York University, cancelled several green-energy contracts, put in place the student choice initiative that was later struck down, fought teachers unions over increased class sizes, limited the salaries of public servants and budgeted significant cutbacks in public spending in addition to $26 billion in tax relief.

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In particular, the decision to cut the size of Toronto City Council, coupled with the threat to use the Constitutions notwithstanding clause to enshrine its bill limiting third-party election advertising, seemed to show the willingness to lash back against conventional norms and institutions.

To many, this was met with a certain dread: critics, particularly those on the left, saw Ford as the Donald Trump of the North whose emergence to power marked Canadas entry into a brash, authoritarian and xenophobic populism seen throughout the world.

Alternatively, many Conservatives positively regarded Fords government as a return of former premier Mike Harriss Common Sense Revolution of neo-liberal reform.

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Neither of these predictions have turned out to be correct.

The impact of COVID-19

By 2022, Ford and the Progressive Conservatives have come to resemble an older, conservative powerhouse: the Big Blue Machine of onetime premiers Leslie Frost, John Robarts and Bill Davis.

This is because rather than making efforts to display its ideological or populist integrity, the Ford government has come to focus more pragmatically on the consequences of each of its policies. In particular, there remains next to no rhetoric on elites versus the people.

The party was in power for 42 consecutive years in Ontario, from 1943 to 1985, and its success has been attributed to its pragmatic, moderate and borderline bland style of governance, particularly in the way it ensured a consistent level of economic growth.

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The change in tone for the Ford government seems to have started in late 2019 when, following a significant drop in popularity, it regrouped via a drastic cabinet shuffle and staffing changes in the premiers office.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 showed a new side to Ford and his government. The governments response, while far from perfect, suggested Ford was emphatic and, most importantly, concerned about the practical success of policies.

Rather than disparaging the media or other governments as part of the elite, the Ford government developed a solid working relationship with the governing federal Liberals.

This new, more moderate and pragmatic tone has taken over the partys 2022 policy platform, entitled Get It Done and there appears to be no intention to shift back to right-wing populism.

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As Get it Done communicates, the party now bases its appeal in the claim that it can effectively get results and most competently manage the affairs of the province.

This includes providing more benefits for workers, expanding health care and investing $158.8 billion in several large transportation projects. The governments prior fiscal hawkishness seems to have disappeared given a balanced budget isnt projected until 2027.

Populism hard to sustain

This suggests that a contrarian populist appeal, while it could be useful in attaining office, is much more difficult to sustain as a coherent, effective and popular governing strategy over time.

As the Ford government learned, an aggressive and contrarian approach can quickly create too many enemies, especially given Ontarios large and powerful public sector.

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This could be unique to Ontario. The provinces political culture has long favoured moderation and pragmatic governance.

But its also important to recognize the implications this could have for the rest of Canada, because it provides Canadian Conservative governments with one of two choices in the coming years.

First, form legislatively influential but short-lived populist coalitions or, second, compromise to enjoy a longer, but likely much less impactful, control over the government.

Sam Routley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Disclosure information is available on the original site. Read the original article: https://theconversation.com/what-doug-fords-shift-to-the-centre-says https://theconversation.com/what-doug-f

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What Doug Ford's shift to the centre says about the longevity of populism - National Post

Moskovskiy Komsomolets columnist Dmitry Popov, an ardent supporter of the war, claims that Ukraine's decision to demolish the monuments commemorating the Soviet soldiers who died in order to defeat Nazism in World War II proves that Ukraine has sided with the new Nazism. This is no longer the Nazism of the Hitlerite variety. There are no concentration and slave labor camps ringed with barbed wire and patrolled by snarling dogs. The new fascism is repackaged and sanitized but is no less an unadulterated evil, even though it relies on credit slavery and inculcating LGBT ideas. It wants to ensure that the West and its "golden billion" continue to live a life of luxury at the expense of the Russian and other peoples. Just as the Russian soldier blocked the path of the old Nazism, he will know have to stand in the way of the new Nazism.

Popov's op.ed. follows below:[1]

Demolishing monument to Soviet Soldiers in Ukraine (Source: Russian.rt.com)

"Ukraine is demolishing monuments to Soviet soldiers. This is not simple vandalism. There is a sacred meaning behind these acts of destruction. Its a choice, a marking of ones side in a global conflict, whose hot phase is underway on our soil.

"It may prove difficult, but one can detect a logic (however sick and erroneous it may be) to the demolition by Ukrainian nationalists of anything related to Russian history and culture. Residents of the periphery are seeing what is fashionable today in Parisian operas and on Broadway. And there its fashionable to avoid everything Russian, to expunge things that are Russian from the cultural code of humanity.

"And that means [think the Ukrainians] that we are not worse than them [the Russians], we have our own history and culture, such as the digging up of the Black Sea by the ancient Ukrainians. That is why the Pushkin and Gorky monuments are falling apart, while streets named after Leo Tolstoy and Pyotr Tchaikovsky are disappearing. Simulacrum is emerging in their place. After all, Ukraine has no history and culture of its own, but only one in common with Russia. And the attempt at separation is a difficulty of puberty in the artificial body called 'Ukrainianism.'

"What is the logic behind the demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers, you ask? It might seem that its just that they dont want have anything to do with the communist regime. But that is not the case.

"Was World War II a war between capitalism and communism? Was France communist or was England Soviet? It was a war against unconditionally unadulterated evil, for universal human values: freedom, equality, and yes, for life itself. Soviet soldiers were on the side of that struggle. They brought to the world freedom, equality and life itself, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. They defended the right of man to be human, not a bonded animal, serving supermen [ubermenschen].

"Now, what they didnt dare to disguise before (i.e. bald fascism, racial theory), they wrapped up in a beautiful package. But the essence remains the same. No one builds concentration camps, equipped with barbed wire, German shepherds and machine guns; no one is forcing people to slave labor. No one conducts open experiments to sterilize unwanted ethnic groups. Simply speaking the idea of the 'golden billion'[2] is brought to life on a new level: credit slavery, digital GULAG, man's degeneration by inculcating him with LGBT-ideas. The very same unadulterated evil has been repackaged, and now calls itself either a progressive liberal idea or the civilized world. And once again the Russian soldier has to stand in its way.

"Thus, the demolition of the monument to the Soviet liberator is not simply a betrayal of the ancestors, or a lack of gratitude towards them. It signifies a choice of sides in the conflict, which is actually a spiritual one it is a conflict of values."

Dmitry Popov (Source: Ujmos.ru)

[2] A term popular in the Russian world that is based on the Malthusian idea that the earth's resources cannot afford a high standard of living for everyone and therefore comfort is limited to the Western "golden billion", while the rest Russia included are kept down. The idea has spread to people such as Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russia's security council. See MEMRI SD No 9952,. Putin Alter Ego Patrushev: West's 'Empire Of Lies' Aims To Destroy Russia, May 9, 2022.

See the article here:

Russian Populist Columnist Popov: In Demolishing Monuments To Soviet War Dead, Ukraine Is Siding With 'Sanitized' Fascism Of 'Credit Slavery,' 'LGBT...

The Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) of the Chinese Communist Party is an institution that, as Socialist Youth League, came up even before the partys foundation date. On 5 May, the CYLC celebrated its centenary and youth activism, changing Chinas history forever with its first National Congress in Guangzhou, Guangdong. The CYLC has a complex history that puts the league at odds with the elders of the party, but it remains an important institution which isnt entirely under Xis control.

The realisation of the Chinese dream is a historical marathon, and contemporary youth must strive to be the first in the race to realise national rejuvenation, said Xi on Tuesday at a gathering to celebrate the centenary of CYLC.

The hashtag Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Youth League was the number one trend on the Chinese social media platform, Weibo, and the Chinese search engine, Baidu.

According to someestimates, the CYLC has over 81 million members, compared to the CCPs 95 million, roughly 6 per cent of Chinas population. The CYLs membership is independent of the CCP, and individuals can be members of both or either one of them.

Also read: India-China talks on Ladakh face-off have hit a wall. Only a Modi-Xi summit can resolve it

After the abdication of the Qing dynasty in 1912, thenow defunctGuomindang,or the Chinese Nationalist Partytried to use the youth-led movement for their political goals. The CCP, a very young partythen, was caught in a tussle with Guomindang for control over youth politics in the early 1920s. Initially established as Socialist Youth League in 1920, the organisation went through a name change in May 1922becomingthe Chinese Communist Youth League thereafter.

During the Cultural Revolution, the organisation ran into trouble and was accused of bourgeois revisionism. Mao promoted the youth to join his Red Guard and shun the youth league. CYLs activities were seized between 1966 and 1973afterthe organisation wasreinstatedunder Deng Xiaoping.

Within the CCP, the CYL acts as an organisation that has allowed non-elite aspirants to rise to the partys ranks. Since the Deng era, the partys top leadership has seen a power-sharing agreement between the populist coalition and the elitist coalition. Many of those from the populist coalition advanced through the CYL system and were from non-elite or princeling backgrounds. The CYL origin leaders within the politburo are referred to astuanpaior the league faction.

President Xi belongs to the elitist coalition, and Premier Li Keqiang represents the populist coalition. Before Xi, Hu Jintao sat at the top of the CYL andpromotedyoung leaders who could enter elite politics.

Influential members of the league faction have included Hu Jintao, Li Keqiang, Hu Chunhua, Hu Yaobang, Li Yuanchao, Wang Yang, Liu Yandong and Zhou Qiang. Among the past and current league faction members, Hu Chunhua has the potential to enter the Politburo Standing Committee later this year.

Also read: In Myanmar, a new criminal State is rising. And China is paying to build it

Under Xi, the CYLC has undergone few transformations, andthe Presidenthas targeted CYLC to reduce its influence in elite politics. Xis targeting of the CYL can beattributed to his strategy of reducing the chances of his rivals promoting an alternative to his authority. But Xi still has to bring the influence of the league faction under his control, which still has a significant presence within elite politics.

Experts who closely follow Chinese elite politics havespeculatedthat the league faction acted as a tool to maintain a balance of power within the Politburo Standing Committee.

In 2015, Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) launched an inspection and rectification work into the CYLC.TheCCDI has become Xis preferred tool, first with the help ofWang Qishan and then Zhao Leji,both top Chinese politicians close to Xi, to target his rivals on the behest of corruption charges.

And, in a 2017 book compiling his comments on youth issues, Xi Jinping warned the CYL against empty slogans (konghan kouhao) and becoming an empty shell (kongke). He has also argued for more Party control,writesJrme Doyon inChina Quarterly.

Yang Jing, who served as the CYLC secretary for Inner Mongolia, was a rising star within the party, promoted by Hu Jintao untilhewas put under one-year probation and demoted from his role in 2018. It was the CCDI whichinvestigatedYang for serious disciplinary violations.

Ling Jihua, anothertuanpai, was close to Hu Jintao and a rising star. In 2016, Ling was givenlife sentencefor corruption.

But Xi might be out to remove the factional influence of the CYLC.

The 100-year journey has shaped the foundation of the Communist Youth Leagues adherence to the partys leadership, the political soul of the Communist Youth Leagues adherence to its ideals and beliefs, the driving force of the Communist Youth League to devote itself to national rejuvenation, and the source of vitality of the Communist Youth League rooted in the youth. This is an important guide for the Communist Youth League to face the future and make new contributions Xisaidat the centenary celebration.

As Chinas youth face a jobs crisis and there is rising dissatisfaction with the future direction of the country, the youth-led politics could have a surprise to offer as there is no clear successor to Xi.

Despite Xis attempts to eliminate the league factions influence, the CYLC remains a dynamic organisation which will continue to influence Chinese politics.

The author is a columnist and a freelance journalist, currently pursuing an MSc in international politics with focus on China from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He was previously a China media journalist at the BBC World Service. He tweets @aadilbrar. Views are personal.

(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)

Continue reading here:

Communist Youth Leaguethats where Xi sees a political challenge coming from. Hes taming it - ThePrint

When school choice policy began making headway in the late 1990s, it came with a "voucher program" descriptor, as if a child possessed a golden ticket to visit Willy Wonka's chocolate factory but would instead use it to attend a private or parochial school.

Critics (primarily Democrats and their political benefactors, teachers unions) would harshly criticize the programs, calling them an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state or claiming it was a vehicle for Christian schools to "indoctrinate" young children.

It was one example of how Democrats used the culture wars to fuel their victories. Democrats and their political operatives were masters at attacking Republican motives and always keeping them on the defensive. When Republicans won control of Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years, their first budget included a proposal to consolidate various federal school lunch programs to reduce bureaucracy and overlap. Democrats called it "mean-spirited" and said Republicans "wanted" school children to "go hungry." It was all baloney. Still, it was effective, and it's all that mattered. Democrats played the part of the victim very well and used the politics of resentment to their advantage.

Over the past two decades, the fault lines have shifted. Democrats were once seen as the party of blue-collar, non-college-educated voters, while Republicans were seen as the party of the wealthy and the bourgeoisie. While those with higher incomes still generally vote Republican, the educational shift is where the stark change took place.

In 1996, Sen. Bob Dole beat President Bill Clinton among college graduates 46% to 44%. Among those who didn't attend college? Clinton won 51% to Dole's 37%. In 2020, Joe Biden received 55% of the vote among college graduates as opposed to President Donald Trump's 43%. Trump won non-college graduates 50% to Biden's 48%. But among those who never attended college? Trump won 54% to Biden's 46%.

It explains the hold populism currently has over the Republican Party. Whether it's economics, culture, or foreign policy, the Overton window within the GOP and a significant base of its voters shifted. What bothers Democrats and their allies in the press is not so much that Republicans are doing it but that they've become successful at it. It's similar to gerrymandering. It was never a "threat to democracy" until Republicans started doing it effectively.

People have recoiled at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for going after Disney for getting involved in the fight over the Parental Rights in Education bill after succumbing to pressure from some employees and LGBT advocates. But again, singling out corporations or specific industries is a tried and true Democratic tactic. "Windfall profit taxes," threatening to penalize companies financially that don't pay employees at least $15 an hour, threats of Federal Trade Commission investigations, and using environmental, social, and governance scores to force corporations into adhering to preferred Democratic climate policies are examples.

I mentioned it on Twitter and had several people offering up the "That's different!" excuse based on why Democrats did it vs. DeSantis. You see, Democratic motives for doing so are valid, while Republican motives are not. It's typical of the mindset that tries to reason, "It is awesome when our side does it."

Personally, I am not a fan of such tactics. As one who still adheres to conservatism's embrace of the three-legged stool (a robust national defense, free-market economics, and social values) variety, I am not happy with the GOP's populist shift. I think it values short-term success to the detriment of success in the long term. Still, I certainly understand why it's happening.

With a more polarized electorate, it becomes that much more critical for politicians to turn out base voters, particularly those who want to see their political leaders "fight" for whatever they think is worth the fight. Ironically, the liberal Left and nationalist Right have aligned on various economic issues as both bases have played to their more populist elements.

Republicans have found a way to reach what was always a core Democratic constituency. By aligning themselves with working-class voters, the GOP turned Ohio into a bright-red state, making Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota more competitive than they've been in decades. To the Democrats complaining about Republican tactics: The reality is, just like in that old Partnership For a Drug-Free America public service announcement from the 1980s, they learned it from watching you.

Read more here:

Republicans learned some of their political tactics from watching Democrats - Washington Examiner

The Conservative Party of Canadas third leadership race in five years is underway. The high turnover in leadership is, in part, due to the partys failure to topple Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus Liberals in the last several federal elections. These failures, however, do not mean that the Conservatives are seeking to crown a new leader for a ragtag outfit of also-rans. In both the 2019 and 2021 elections, the party received more votes than the Liberals.

In the election of 2015, with the country weary of the nine-year reign of his Conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, Trudeau won a majority government. A majority government is roughly the Canadian equivalent of a US president winning control of the House of Representatives. It was only because of the peculiarities of Canadas British-style parliamentary system, however, that Trudeau was able to scrape by in the following two elections with a plurality of seats in Parliament.

Trudeau was able to win this plurality while placing second in the popular vote because the Conservative vote was overwhelmingly concentrated in Western Canada. The Tories were further hindered by a surge from the far-right Peoples Party, whose leader, Maxime Bernier, narrowly lost the 2017 Conservative leadership race to Andrew Scheer. Although the Peoples Party tripled its vote share to 5 percent, it didnt win any seats in the House. Nevertheless, the partys increased vote share came at a cost to the Conservatives.

Scheer, a member of the partys social conservative wing, was turfed after the 2019 election, in which he won 238,589 votes more than Trudeau. Like Scheer, his successor, Erin OToole, who projected a more moderate image, also won the popular vote this time by 185,800 votes but failed to substantially change the seat count in Parliament.

The party caucus booted OToole by a vote of 73-45 for supporting and fast-tracking the Liberals ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ people. OTooles maneuver was likely an effort to avoid an uncomfortable internecine conflict between the partys social conservative and Red Tory wings. OToole also likely lost caucus support because his lukewarm support for the far-right Freedom Convoy put him at odds with many of his members of Parliament.

The current leadership election, which is scheduled for September 10, has roughly three main front-runners. These front-runners represent three different wings of the party: libertarian ideologue Pierre Poilievre, who has engaged Canadas emergent populist bloc; former Quebec Liberal premier Jean Charest, who represents the partys more centrist wing; and evangelical zealot Leslyn Lewis, who is a spokesperson for the social and religious right.

While OToole tepidly supported the convoy while denouncing its extremist elements, Pierre Poilievre was enthusiastic in his support. Freedom, not fear. Truckers, not Trudeau, he told a crowd of convoy supporters. According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance which denounced the convoy 85 percent of Canadian truckers are vaccinated.

Poilievre, who was first elected to Parliament in 2004 at twenty-five years of age, is highly adept at generating sound-bite-ready one-liners with which to thrill his massive social media following. But his popularity isnt just an online phenomenon. Poilievre has been holding rallies with thousands of attendees across the country, building a movement that is reminiscent of Trudeau at the height of his popularity in 2015.

At a rally in his hometown of Calgary, Poilievre demonstrated his populist appeal and the danger it poses to the Left by invoking a faux empathy for the poor and downtrodden:

Think of the single mother whos skipping meals so her kids dont have to, because food inflation now means that four in five families have to cut the quantity or quality of their diet just so they can afford to pay for it; or the working guy who cant afford to drive to work with a-buck-sixty-a-liter gas, or the thirty-two-year-old forced to live in his moms basement because he cant afford the price of a house after home values have doubled in just seven years.

Poilievre referenced the example of a couple living in an Ottawa trailer park who make $100,000 working in a quarry that supplies housebuilding materials for homes they themselves cannot afford as an illustration of just how bad things are. When the people who build our homes can no longer afford to live in them, our economic system is fundamentally unjust, he declared to thunderous applause.

However, Poilievres criticism of the economic system is that it is insufficiently capitalist. He blames what he calls Justinflation for Canadas economic woes, which he claims can only be solved by common cents. As a solution, Poilievre has a plan: Were going to print less money build more houses. This shortcut may be a great way to make developers rich, but absent additional measures like rent control and expanded public housing, its not clear how it will make housing affordable.

Poilievre also raged against the bankers and politicians responsible for the 2008 financial crisis. He then pivoted immediately to plugging cryptocurrency. What we should do is have a free market where people can choose which money they use, Poilievre said. The notion that crypto is any kind of panacea for economic problems is highly dubious. Thus far, early reports of similar experiments in other countries do not point to favorable outcomes.

Theres no denying Jean Charest is the most experienced candidate in the race. Like Poilievre, he was first elected to Parliament in his mid-twenties. However, Charest cut his teeth thirty-odd years ago during the supermajority government of Brian Mulroneys now-defunct Progressive Conservative (PC) Party in 1984.

During his partys tenure in government, Charest rose through the ranks of the party caucus to various cabinet portfolios, including deputy prime minister. He successfully ran for the party leadership after its devastating 1993 election, in which he was one of two PC members of Parliament reelected.

Charest then moved onto provincial politics, where he became Quebecs Liberal Party leader in 1998 and premier in 2003. In Quebec politics, the left and right dividing lines between parties matter less than the line between sovereigntists and federalists. The Liberals are the federalist standard-bearer. The Poilievre campaign has nonetheless used Charests history with the Liberals, and his support for carbon pricing and enhanced gun control while premier, to attack him for being insufficiently Conservative.

Charest launched his 2022 leadership campaign in Calgary the financial center of Canadas oil and gas industry where he waxed nostalgic about his time as Quebecs leading champion of federalism. He leaned on this experience to cast himself as a candidate who can unite the partys various wings. He told his audience which was about one hundredth the size of Poilievres that:

the party needs to look at itself and ask itself, who is it that we represent, what is it that we represent? Today, with the obsession around identity politics, everything becomes hyphenated, between red and blue, so-cons and others when, in fact, we are Conservatives, and I am running as a Conservative.

He may want to unite the partys various factions, but it remains to be seen whether they want to be united under his guidance.

Lewis ran for the Conservative leadership in 2020 as an outsider without a seat in Parliament, placing third in the race that OToole won. Seizing on this relative success, she was elected to Parliament representing a rural Ontario district in last years election.

Lewis, a black evangelical Christian, has played up her race and gender while in the same breath lambasting the Conservative shibboleth of identity politics. My presence alone sends a very strong message, Lewis told the Canadian Press in 2020. I dont think I need to articulate the obvious. Like Poilievre, she is unyielding in her support of the Freedom Convoy.

She received a green light from the Campaign Life Coalition, an antichoice lobby group who gave a red light to Poilievre for his libertarian leanings on abortion and same-sex marriage as well as his opposition to conversion therapy. The coalitions support for her is due to her open desire to curtail abortion rights in Canada. Her advocacy relies on using the canards of sex-selective and coercive abortions as a means of whittling away at the right to choose.

For Lewis, Christian values are under attack across Canada. When it comes to education policy, she uses a series of dog whistles to the religious right that will be familiar to American readers:

We need to do something about [education], because our children are being indoctrinated. Theyre not learning reading, writing, and arithmetic, like when we were in school. They are learning ideology and most likely the ideology of the dominant political group. What we need . . . is a parental rights legislation that will support parents raising their children in accordance with their values and not values imposed upon them by their government.

At an event in Calgary, I asked her to what extent faith should play a role in the public square. She responded with an evasion that is unobjectionable in isolation: I think its important that people be able to practice their faith without government interference. But her ringing endorsement from the Campaign Life Coalition suggests that protecting religious people from government persecution is not the sum total of her motivations.

While the religious right is not the dominant force in Canadian Conservative politics it is in the Republican Party, it still holds influence. With a ranked ballot, Lewis is poised to serve as a kingmaker if Poilievre doesnt win outright on the first ballot.

That is a big if. The intense enthusiasm Poilievre is drumming up makes it look like this race is his to lose. Although his solutions will only make matters worse for the middle and working classes, Poilievre is articulating the real material concerns of many Canadians. A Poilievre-led Conservative Party should be of tremendous concern to Canadas slumbering left.

The rest is here:

Canada's Noxious Conservatives Are Duking It Out for Party Leadership - Jacobin magazine

Hackneys mayor Philip Glanville has responded to the Queens Speech, delivered by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, which outlines the Governments agenda for the next parliamentary session.

The speech contained 38 bills (pieces of proposed legislation) on topics including regeneration, policing, Brexit, education and energy.

Mayor Philip Glanville said: Three years after the Government first said it would level up the country, todays speech shows ministers still have no idea what it means in practice.

First, it was removing peoples say over local developments and attacking the right to protest or vote, and now its reheated planning and regeneration reforms that will do nothing to tackle Hackneys housing crisis.

If the Prime Minister believes he can rebalance the economy after Brexit by dressing up a few boarded-up shop fronts and making it easier to change street names, it shows the failure of his ambition.

Instead of tackling the cost of living crisis, todays proposals showed the Government seems more bizarrely preoccupied with needlessly privatising Channel 4 or rewriting the Human Rights Act doing nothing to tackle inequality or support families struggling in Hackney.

We welcome moves to reform business rates, tackle illegal schools and new SEND standards, all areas we have campaigned on, but these measures will only be effective with adequate funding for local government to provide frontline services after 12 years of austerity.

We will study the detail of these bills and respond when they are presented to Parliament, but others like the ban on conversion therapy dont go far enough,.

Three years after first announcing a ban on Section 21 no-fault evictions for private renters, we remain concerned that action has again been kicked down the road into a new parliamentary session, and call on ministers to bring forward legislation as soon as possible.

With the end of the lockdown evictions ban, soaring rents and weak protections for renters the Government can and must do more for those living in the private rented sector and squeezed by the cost of living crisis.

We support the Generation Rent campaign to strengthen this Bill, action by London Renters Union locally and highlight this report by Shelter that shows homelessness due to these no fault evictions is up 37 per cent.

From the delivery of new council homes to tackling climate change there are so many missed opportunities. At a time when Hackney is setting a bold agenda for action, all I can see is dither and delay.

The lack of meaningful policy in [the Queens] Speech showed a Government prioritising populist hobby horses over action to tackle the major issues facing Hackney and the country.

Read this article:

'Populist hobby horses rather than tackling the cost of living crisis' Mayor responds to Queen's Speech - Hackney Citizen

Federal Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre holds a campaign rally in Toronto, on April 30.Chris Young/The Canadian Press

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Re Canada Isnt Facing The Same Threat As The U.S. (May 5): In the 1970s and 1980s, Henry Morgentaler performed numerous illegal abortions and was arrested and tried more than once. Juries knew he broke the law but acquitted him anyway. The law had to be changed.

The best policy for the Conservatives is to affirm statements that, while some members may oppose abortion on moral grounds, the party will take no action to enact a law prohibiting them, as any such law would be unenforceable.

T.S. Ramsay Guelph, Ont.

Re When Lying Becomes Normalized In Politics, Democracy Suffers (May 4): Very true and rampant in the United States today, but not yet so much in Canada. Why should we care?

We elect politicians based on a series of facts and promises in their campaigns. As citizens, we pay their salary and retirement benefits.

If they lie, they are gaming the system. There should be an easy and straightforward mechanism to remove liars. In the private sector, employees are often fired for lying on their rsums. Should politicians be exempt? No.

Recalls may be the answer. To work, they would need to be manageable. Waiting until politicians run for re-election should not be the answer to redressing political wrongs.

Gary Raich Westmount, Que.

Re Poilievre Has A Point On Digital Currency (May 3): A central bank digital currency would be an alternative to cash and live alongside existing payments such as debit and credit. It would be built with privacy safeguards, equal to or stronger than those we have with banks.

Pierre Poilievre is making a populist statement that the government plans to control society. But he seems to miss the point that a CBDC would help those who are less fortunate and do not make full use of retail bank services, while having minimal impact on the rest of society who do not wish to use it.

Norman Shaw Associate professor, Ted Rogers School of Retail Management, Toronto Metropolitan University

I believe cryptocurrencies exist to monetize greed in the digital world, and it is nonsense to argue that bitcoins purpose is to displace currencies on any meaningful level.

I have yet to order a pizza with bitcoin. Libertarians and civil-rights proponents notwithstanding, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies seem to exist to allow unfettered speculation, with a side hustle of money laundering.

Ron Beram Gabriola, B.C.

Having all our financial data directly in the hands of the government is a frightening thought. Is the implication that banks are somehow more trustworthy than the government?

In a capitalist democracy such as Canada, the government represents our collective interest, while financial institutions represent only their shareholders financial interests.

Brian Lowry Fredericton

Re Every Canadian Should Have A Primary-care Medical Home (May 3): My primary-care clinic functions on a capitation system. It is paid an annual fee for each patient. Appointments are never rushed. Generous vacation schedules and time for medical education is built in.

However, the wait time to see my doctor is currently more than six weeks. If I have an urgent problem, I simply cannot be seen in a timely manner and a trip to emergency is the result.

Family medicine should be seen as appealing to medical graduates. Medical schools should take responsibility for ensuring that family medicine is seen as a go-to specialty that is financially rewarding and intellectually stimulating.

Without change, the Canadian health care system may look more like that in the United States, with devalued primary-care providers and growing emphasis on specialty care with all its costs and access issues. Giving family doctors more money remains only part of the solution.

Iain Mackie MD; division of general internal medicine, University of British Columbia; Vancouver

Regarding overflowing ERs and hallway medicine: Crowded emergency waiting rooms, ambulances unable to off-load patients and our vulnerable elderly warehoused for days in hallways are direct products of insufficient hospital bed capacity and home care.

By all means, lets fix primary care. But lets not believe that can solve the problem of delayed access to emergency care for the majority of Canadians.

Alan Drummond MD; co-chair, public affairs, Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians; Ottawa

Nurse practitioners are underutilized outside of hospitals. They have the training, empathy and understanding to assist the public seeking answers or direction for a health care issue.

Working in hospital-affiliated outside clinics or alongside family doctors in expanded offices, a nurse practitioner could recognize a problem, provide initial care and direct a patient to an appropriate test or other health professional.

Throughout my surgical career, nurse practitioners contributed greatly to my patient care on the ward, in clinics and in affiliated health facilities.

Bernard Goldman CM; emeritus professor of surgery (cardiac), University of Toronto

I worked for a number of years as a registered nurse with a family health team in Ontario.

This was an excellent example of co-ordinated care: physician coverage seven days a week augmented with nurses and nurse practitioners, occupational therapists, podiatrists, psychiatrists, chronic disease specialists and geriatric specialists for our aging population comprehensive care in one spot.

This worked well for the 40,000 or so patients on that roster. Why cant we extend this to the rest of our population?

Policies and systems that work should be studied for effectiveness, then implemented and quickly, before the crumbling of our system worsens.

Angie Mackie RN, North Vancouver

Re Pensions Hold On To European Firms That Carry Russian Gas (Report on Business, April 30): I am an Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System member who is disappointed to hear about the pipeline investment associated with Russian gas. I am bothered by the thought of my retirement savings funding Vladimir Putins war in Ukraine, with fossil fuels that worsen the climate crisis.

Europe is rapidly investing in renewables to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and contribute to a sustainable future. It seems like renewables would be a better investment area for OMERS in the immediate time frame.

Paul Burns Toronto

Re Leafs-Lightning Game Delivers Realistic News (Sports, May 5): A more succinct headline might have been: The Leafs are back!

Michael Vollmer Burlington, Ont.

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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Letters to the editor: May 6: 'Pierre Poilievre is making a populist statement that the government plans to control society.' Politics and digital...

Whoever wins our election today has overwhelming problems to face on day one. Assuming the winner is sincere in running this country well and not to the ground, the first order of business is how to get us to think and act as one nation.

We are badly polarized and for similar reasons that America is also rather polarized these days. At the base of it is economics The rich have become richer and the gap between rich and poor is now wider than ever.

A large segment of our population is feeling increasingly deprived and frustrated. The economic impact of the pandemic made everything worse. They are ripe for the picking of populist politicians entertaining anti-democratic thoughts.

Indeed, there are observations made about a raging democratic recession around the world that populist politicians are stoking. Trump, for example, cultivated people Hillary Clinton described as despicables on his way to the White House.

The South China Morning Post cites a Pew poll of 38 countries conducted in early 2017 that found about 47 percent of those surveyed deemed to be less committed to democracy.

The tendency as measured by their willingness to support representative democracy or the alternatives of military or one-man rule or rule by experts is more pronounced in Asia.

SCMP reports that in the Philippines, 67 percent said they were willing to consider alternatives to representative democracy.

Political scientist Richard Heydarian notes that countries such as the Philippines have been making clear economic progress at the national level, but have not distributed its fruits equitably.

In the resulting emerging market populism, populist leaders promise quick solutions to seemingly intractable problems, such as access to healthcare or education, or the quashing of corruption and crime.

In the Philippines and I believe in some parts of Asia, such populists will appeal to the rising aspirational middle classes, Heydarian said.

This disgruntled constituency, according to Heydarian, includes people who went to second-tier universities, have stable jobs, and drive SUVs but still feel their social mobility has been hampered by a lack of access and connections that the elite possess. They have achieved some measure of success, but are not there yet.

I picked up a few government statistics from a PIDS paper by Dr. Jose Ramon Albert that describes the environment we are in.

First of all, Dr Albert said we should ultimately get bothered that around three out of every 20 Filipinos (16.6 percent) are from families with incomes below P 10,727 a month (if the family is a family of five), and that one in 20 (5.2 percent) even are part of families with incomes 30 percent less than this threshold (around P 7,528 a month).

As of 2018, the estimated poverty rate in the Philippines, based on the 2018 FIES, is 16.8 percent (equivalent to an estimated 17.7 million Filipinos in poverty out of a total of 105.8 million Filipinos in 2018).

Beyond poverty is income distribution.

The non-poor, Dr. Albert points out, is a very big portion of society, with a lot of inherent heterogeneity.

Filipinos in a family of five would be in the middle class if their monthly family income falls between P 23,000 and P 140,000 in 2018 (or around P 25,000 and P 150,000, respectively in 2020 prices).

Expenditure patterns tell us that the low-income class spends about three-fifths (56.9 percent) of its total expenditures on food, while total food spending for the middle- and high-income classes are about two-fifths (42.8 percent) and a-fifth (22.9 percent) of total expenditures, respectively

It is so socially volatile that many have little protection against shocks, such as job losses and food insecurity. Life for the vast majority of Filipinos can be very challenging.

According to SWS, the estimated number of jobless Pinoys is 11 million in December 2021 and 11.9 million in September 2021. Then there is the large army of underemployed, many of them unable to qualify for available jobs due to inadequate skills.

Thats the other big problem. Leni Robredo said there is a need to declare a state of crisis in education largely because of the substandard quality of education being provided in public schools. International assessments have placed us at the very bottom of a long list of countries in math, science, and reading.

Education already gets a lions share of the national budget, but apparently thats not enough. The UN recommends allocating six percent of the countrys GDP to education. We are only allocating three percent of GDP now.

We can go on with many more big concerns, but it is clear that the government and the private sector must work together.

Big business may complain and say they are already paying taxes. True, but we are in an all-hands-on-deck situation here now with the potential of a social volcano eruption at Alert level 2 or 3.

It is time the conglomerates get serious with their corporate social responsibility programs and bring it beyond PR values. Their business survival depends on social stability. There are many urgent needs.

There is hunger. The national Social Weather Survey of Dec. 12 to 16, 2021, found that 11.8 percent of Filipino families or an estimated three million, experienced involuntary hunger being hungry and not having anything to eat at least once in the past three months.

There is housing. It is a perennial problem and the private sector should start to help. With property conglomerates making money hand over fist and creating new billionaires regularly, this is something they should help solve.

There are many other examples and we can discuss them in future columns. Suffice it to say that we are all our brothers keepers. We are all responsible in making sure no Pinoy goes hungry, has a roof over his head, and every Pinoy kid gets the education he or she needs to break out of poverty.

Or risk our democracy being hijacked by populist politicians who will take advantage of our peoples willingness to give up some freedoms for the promise of a better life.

Boo Chancos email address is [emailprotected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco

Link:

Your brothers keeper - Philstar.com

Ben Worthy and Mark Bennister argue that Boris Johnson as Prime Minister was overvalued and oversold.

Boris Johnsons leadership has again come under scrutiny in the wake of the local elections, which proved to be at the far end of pollsters worst case scenarios. Initially, the reaction from Conservatives in England was relatively subdued, though by Saturday one unnamed MP was muttering that the Prime Minister was killing our traditional vote and others that partygate was coming up on the proverbial doorstep. Significantly for a Prime Minister who made himself Minister for the Union, the Scottish and Welsh Conservatives squarely blamed Johnson and his scandals. Ministers are now having to publicly insist their leader is still an asset.

How, in the space of three years, are we here? Johnsons story as Prime Minister can be told through one of two narratives. One approach, lets call it the Shakespearean tale, is of hubris and nemesis. This is a very human story of a populist and popular politician with a common touch, brought down by their personal failings, all very apt for a leader throwing out threats from King Lear. It is the rogue who finally got caught, or the gambler who bet the house and lost. A second way of understanding Johnson, we can call the tides of fortune tale, is about context, and tells of a Prime Minister whose sunny optimism and sloganeering strengths on Brexit became weaknesses in the face of a deadly pandemic.

These two stories strike at the heart of how we think about leaders, and straddle the age-old question asked by Machiavelli, as to whether it is personality or context that matters in leadership. Do leaders manage to change the political weather or whatever their perceived power and authority are they stymied by forces beyond their control?

Depleted Leadership Capital

Each of these stories implies that Johnson was once strong and is now weak. However, using the idea of leadership capital, a rather different picture emerges. Leadership capital is the idea of a leader having a stock of capital or authority that they can spend or lose over time. It is based on three core elements: skills, relations, and reputation. Much was made of Johnson appearing to have deep stocks of leadership capital, and having the weather-making power to remake British politics however he wished. After months in power in 2019, one journalist claimed that Johnsons short period of time has been revolutionary, and his resounding victory means he can remake the country.

However, there is a different story of fragility and oversell, rather than fallen greatness or changing tides. To pick out a few strands, on close investigation his communication, popularity, and party relations are all more brittle than they had appeared.

Fragile Skills

Johnsons communication skills were always seen as his major source of power, though his skills were very far from the oratory traditionally expected. His set-piece speeches have been bizarre failures, whether a frantic diatribe delivered at such a pace that the audience looked bemused at a party conference or a key a speech to the CBI, which many hoped would set out a vision for levelling up, that instead focused on Peppa Pig World.

His influence, and supposed reach, lay in this informal style, coupled with an ability for self-mockery. His approach attracted attention, distracted opponents, and helped avoid difficult questions, often simultaneously. They also helped seal his outsider-ness while also sending messages to certain voters. Yet somewhere between 2019 and 2022, Johnsons style became subject to diminishing returns an inverse Midas touch. His informal style proved particularly unsuited to the pandemic response, from his continued hand-shaking to allegations of much worse off-hand comments. His false accusations over Keir Starmer around Jimmy Saville exposed his darker side, provoking dissent in his own party. At the same time, voters became increasingly unhappy with the lies, distortion, and untruths that seemed part and parcel of his approach.

Fragile relations

Theres a similar fragility to his popularity. Johnsons claim to Heineken status and electoral appeal rests on his time as Mayor when he twice won in a Labour-controlled city.

Yet data tell an interesting story of over-sell in Downing Street. As this YouGov analysis explains, since the 2019 General Election, there has been something of a myth surrounding Boris Johnson that he is (or was) apopularPrime Minister on which very little wouldstick. Theresa May was more popular than Johnson ever was, and his unpopularity has now plumbed depths Mays never reached. His popularity has always been relative, not absolute: it was dislike of Red Ken and Jezza that lost it, not love for Boris that won it. The myth of Johnson as a different and popular politician was pushed along by media portrayals of a man who supposedly did quadratic equations to relax, and Conservative MPs hoping it was true.

This is not to say Johnsons presence didnt count at certain points. There was clearly a Boris effect in 2016 and one study of Brexit concluded that he had a particularly important effect if you liked Boris then even after controlling for a host of other factors you were significantly more likely to vote for Brexit. Again in 2019, Johnsons impact was important but in a rather more narrow way of attracting parts of the leave vote, and was less about his popularity and more Jeremy Corbyns unpopularity.

But by 2022, Johnsons electoral coalition of Red and Blue Walls, supposed to be the basis of new settlement in English politics, looks now increasingly fragile and unstable. After the 2022 local elections, it appears the Blue Wall is crumbling under the pressure of the Lib-Dems. In the famous Red Wall, as this Sky News analysis explains, the average voter didnt like Boris Johnson any more than in other parts of the country. It was just that there were Leave voters there in higher numbers.

Fragile Reputation

A final area of brittleness is his own party, which is as divided as the voting coalition which created it. Johnson should have presided over a group of MPs grateful for his election victory and getting Brexit done. His MPs have proved to be appreciative of nothing, making his current 73-seat majorityextraordinarily shaky. He has faced rebellions on a whole range of issues, from NHS parking charges to lockdown laws. Instead of a Prime Minister passing laws and making changes to embed a reputation, there were continual U-turns and shifts. Since October 2021 and the Owen Paterson vote, relations have soured with the Conservative Parliamentary Party, with only events putting off a leadership challenge over the rumbling partygate saga.

Johnson is neither a charismatic failure nor a tragic figure. He hasnt made the weather simply because he has been oversold. As others have pointed out, Johnsons time in office increasingly resembles Berlusconis: a supposed outsider promising change, coming to power amid a politics in deep flux, and sitting atop an unwieldly coalition and polarised country. Both were masters of over-promising and saying much (often controversially) but doing little. They even share a love of (unbuilt) bridges. But like Berlusconi, will it be scandal that finally removes him?

___________________

About the Authors

Ben Worthyis a Senior Lecturer in Politics at Birkbeck, University of London.

Mark Bennister is Associate Professor in Politics at the University of Lincoln.

Featured image credit: by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street on Flickr underCC BY-NC-ND 2.0 licence.

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Johnson is neither a charismatic failure nor a tragic figure. He hasn't made the political weather simply because he has been oversold - British...

May 10, 2022

ISLAMABAD PAKISTANS enduring political fault lines are well known. But newer ones have emerged to make the political environment more challenging if not combustible.

Key among the more long-standing fault lines are ceaseless government-opposition confrontations and the countrys persisting structural economic problems, which the lack of political consensus has left unresolved. These have been consequential for the country and have undermined both the evolution of democracy as well as economic and political stability. They continue to be perpetuated by tediously recurring conduct and policies.

New fault lines may resemble long prevailing ones but are distinct in many ways. The most obvious is the political polarisation that today characterises the country. There are few if any precedents of this even though divisive politics is not new. This polarisation has divided people, society and families as never before along intensely partisan lines. The brand of populist politics practised by PTI, with its either-with-us-or-against-us stance, has drawn rigid political battle lines especially with its leaders now casting all its opponents as venal, unpatriotic and pawns of foreign powers. Its narrative of being ousted from office by a foreign conspiracy finds ready believers among its base of angry urban youth who are willing to discard facts. This narrative also helps to delegitimise opponents in the eyes of its followers. The xenophobic nationalism purveyed by its leaders is sowing further division in the country.

Polarisation and the narrative defining its contours has meant that politics has assumed the form of ferocious political warfare in which opponents have to be eliminated from the political scene in a terminal conflict and not competed with, much less accommodated. This take-no-prisoners approach has erased any middle or meeting ground and ruled out any possibility of bridging the divide. Extreme partisanship is making the working of the political system near impossible.

True that democracies elsewhere are also floundering in the face of intolerant populist forces polarising their societies. But that only testifies to how democratic systems are being challenged because of weak commitment to democratic norms by demagogues, rising intolerance and lack of restraint in politics. In fact, democracy is rendered dysfunctional when denuded of the essential ingredients to make it work tolerance, consensus and accommodating the interests and views of others. The danger Pakistan faces today is of democratic backsliding.

An aspect of the countrys polarised politics is how this has injected a toxic quality into political conversation and debased what passes for debate. The language and political narratives deployed by party leaders increasingly flout the basic norms of civility.

Politics has, of course, never been polite in Pakistan. The 1990s, for example, saw a good deal of political name-calling, character assassination, and accusations of disloyalty to the country, with top leaders frequently dubbed as security risks. But the political culture today has sunk to even lower depths of incivility.

Provocative rhetoric and statements that routinely fail the truth test are made with abandon and with no regard for the consequences. The no-holds-barred vilification of opponents has also meant insults have become a principal political weapon. The weaponisation of politics has spawned a culture permeated by incendiary allegations and norm-breaking behaviour. The political fabric is now in danger of being perverted on a more lasting basis.

Weaponisation of politics has spawned a culture of norm-breaking conduct.

There is no doubt that social media has amplified the countrys polarisation and reinforced this political fault line. Again, this is part of a broader worldwide trend. Demagogues and their followers elsewhere have vigorously used digital platforms for political gain by purveying misleading information to manipulate opinion. Here the social media has become a new arena or war zone for a political battle aimed mostly at maligning opponents and disseminating sensational revelations about them.

Recent weeks have seen malicious campaigns by supporters of the former ruling party not only against leaders of the coalition government but also against the countrys military and judicial authorities. Accusations of no less than treachery have been made against almost anyone who doesnt support this party.

Anonymity on digital platforms gives party activists deniability and frees their trolls from fear of any retribution. That encourages them to continue efforts to create an alternate reality by spreading false information. The foreign conspiracy/imported government narrative, for example, has been trending on Twitter for weeks even though it doesnt rest on a shred of evidence.

Apart from influencing gullible minds, social medias magnifying power generates paranoia by such messages and promotes a hollow form of nationalism in this post-truth environment. By playing off and reinforcing polarisation, messages spread through digital channels that call out others as traitors, are not just deeply offensive but also corrosive of the political system.

This brings up another new political fault line. Defiance of institutions be it the judiciary, parliament or the Election Commission, when they do not deliver decisions that suit a particular political party, encourages disrespect for them, breeds cynicism and widens divisions in society. This is now happening on a scale rarely witnessed before.

Supreme Court judges have been the target of criticism by PTI leaders who have also demanded the resignation of the chief election commissioner. This has translated among the partys supporters into a blanket rejection of these institutions and refusal to accept their decisions. The most damaging consequence of this is that it rules out resolution of political disputes through institutional means.

Unwillingness to play by the rules is hugely destabilising for the political system. It can also sow public disorder and lead to a chaotic situation that poses a danger to the democratic system itself. This, sadly, is where the current political situation may be headed today.

We have seen in other parts of the world, including our neighbourhood, populist demagogues show contempt for their nations constitution and its institutions and upend democratic norms. The question is whether Pakistans fragile democracy can survive such assaults at a time when social cohesion itself is at risk from old and new fault lines.

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Pakistan's new fault lines: Political polarisation and defiance of institutions - asianews.network