One of the worlds leading populism experts says Pierre Poilievre isnt quite a populist – The Hub

The Conservative Partys leadership race has been conventionally seen as a battle between the moderate establishment candidate Jean Charest and the rowdy populist Pierre Poilievre.

But one academic who studies populism and its cultural causes says Poilievres campaign has been fairly traditional, especially when compared to the global populist movement that has swept the Western world in the last decade.

The populist moment really was about parties moving away from just talking about economics to talking about those tricky cultural issues. Its happened with the Peoples Party, but its not happened with Poilievre. I guess I would still see that as pretty much a standard conservatism, more of an establishment conservatism, said Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birkbeck, University of London and the author of Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism, and the Future of White Majorities.

On a recent episode of the Hub Dialogues, Kaufmann said one clear sign that a candidate is pushing into populist territory is a fixation on immigration and the social justice politics (or wokeness) embraced by the Left. Instead, Poilievre has trained his rhetorical sights on inflation, the Bank of Canada, the countrys housing shortage, and an all-encompassing opposition to gatekeepers.

Poilievre, I think, has shied away largely from those (cultural) issues except in a few places. Hes largely about economics, which in my view is a relatively safe topic. Youre not going to get canceled for it, said Kaufmann.

Although Poilievre has been the consistent frontrunner in the race to succeed Erin OToole as the permanent leader of the Conservative Party, he has been dogged by questions about whether he will be palatable to moderate voters in a federal election.

A recent survey by the Angus Reid Institute seemed to confirm that Poilievre is disliked by previous Liberal and NDP voters, although Peoples Party of Canada voters view him favourably. Poilievre may also be shunning the conventional strategy of chasing swing voters and, instead, pursuing people who have previously chosen not to vote in federal elections.

In chasing these new voters, Poilievre has doubled down on opposition to COVID-19 restrictions and vaccines mandates, while vocally supporting the cause of Freedom Convoy protesters, to the chagrin of establishment Conservatives.

Kaufmann believes that the populist spasm in response to the pandemic, seen in Canada and other Western countries, will pass quickly and wont necessarily fuel the larger populist movement.

I actually dont think that that is a significant source of populist movements we see across the West now. Even though it has played in Canada, I think thats a departure from the pattern that we tend to see across the West, said Kaufmann.

Kaufmann said that conventional populism, which targets immigration and other cultural issues, hasnt taken root in Canada due to a strong taboo against those topics in the media and other elite institutions.

I think its because of the power of the cultural Left in Canada. Now, of course, the way the power of the cultural Left works is that it works up until the point it doesnt work. The suppression works to keep ideas such as reducing immigration out of the political debate until that crumbles, said Kaufmann.

In his book Whiteshift, Kaufmann wrote that attitudes in Canada arent very different from other countries, like the United States, that were rocked by a populist candidates.

What you see in Canada is you do see the Peoples Party raising these issues. You do see that Conservative voters, for example, compared to Liberal and NDP voters, are like 50 points apart on immigration. Theres a natural place for the Conservatives to go, but of course, the media environment and the cultural environment in Canada is very strongly dominated by the cultural Left, he said.

Kaufmann said he views populism as a fundamentally cultural phenomenon, and with the Left currently dominating important institutions like the media and academia, it could mean that our populist moment turns into a populist era. In his research, Kaufmann has tracked the ideological shift in journalism and academia that, over decades, has pushed progressives from a slight majority to utterly dominant in these institutions.

I think there is a kind of in-built dynamic here where were going to see populism as long as there is a very strong cultural Left controlling these institutions, said Kaufmann.

Theres an awful lot of incentive to rail against the elites in those institutions.

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One of the worlds leading populism experts says Pierre Poilievre isnt quite a populist - The Hub