Thursday, January 25, 2018

Gone -- But Not Completely


Kellie Leitch has exited -- stage right. But, Stephen Maher writes, her constituency is still out there:

Pollster Frank Graves, who recently completed a polling project for the Canadian Press to explore the prospects for northern populism, sees a shift in Canadian attitudes about the economy, immigration and trade that could provide an opening for someone like Leitch.
“I think Kellie Leitch was mining a vein of this new ordered-populist outlook, which is expressing itself in the United Kingdom with Brexit and with Trump in the United States.”
Graves polled thousands of Canadians, putting them on a spectrum from open—pro-trade, with positive views on immigration—to ordered. He found a growing group of Canadians—particularly in southern Ontario—who are anxious about their economic prospects, hostile to the elite policy consensus, anxious about immigration and sceptical about the benefits of trade.

Leitch tried to paint herself as the Canadian Trump. The problem, however, was that:

Leitch was not a natural politician. She had an arrogant, chilly personae. She would likely have done better if she were more approachable, but I don’t think she would have followed Trump’s path to victory, because racial divisions are not as painful in Canada as they are in the United States.

We dodged a bullet with Leitch. But the problem hasn't gone away.

Image: cbc.ca


8 comments:

Steve said...

This co heart tops out at under 30%. The remedy is simple, eliminate first past the post.

Personally I would like to see Canada adopt the Quebec law. No religion is the public square.
If people want to practice in private, no objection. However if someone is paid by the taxpayer they are agnostic on the job.

We also need a massive investment in public housing.

A guaranteed income would also be welcome. I think if you did the math, just giving money no questions asked would be cheaper and more effective than what we do now. In Austria the attitude is that about 20% (paretos law) are going to struggle. So its cheaper and moral to help them reach a threshold where the family can still achieve a decent existence. This is the key reason there is basically was no crime in Austria. When I was there I could leave my wallet on the main street stuffed with cash, and reliably go to the police station where is would be turned in. The Sudbanhoof train station where hundereds of thousands of people a week would pass had an honour system for selling newspapers and magazines. Same for the newspaper box, a bag of change hung on the side of the box.

Steve said...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/quebecs-law-on-facial-veils-fuels-fierce-debate-1516876200

I saw this after my post but it hits the spot. Given its the WSJ you have to expect a certain nonsense spin.

Owen Gray said...

"Co heart," Steve?

Steve said...

cohurt, cohort, co heart when you think aboot it all three are the same.

Steve said...

Owen stop using deflection and just say.

Owen Gray said...

I'm not using deflection, Steve. They don't mean the same thing. Enough of this!

The Mound of Sound said...


Once again we may find the answer in Bob Altemeyer's book, "The Authoritarians." The U. Man. prof explains that the population includes a segment with latent authoritarian instincts that, in earlier times, remained dormant out of fear of public ridicule. This emerges when enablers such as Trump, the alt.right, Leitch, etc. bring it into mainstream politics. They serve as enablers, activating the virus.

The back story is that Altemeyer wrote the book at the urging of John Dean, a longtime friend.

Since I don't know how to embed links, you can find the page (with another link to the book in PDF free) here:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Owen Gray said...

Thanks for the link, Mound. Experience should teach us that some leaders are very good at urging a significant number of citizens to go off the deep end.