The Conservatives’ lead over Trudeau’s Liberals is now 14 points.
First, let’s get two things clear.
First, I am a sovereigntist. I will vote for the bloc.
Don’t talk to me about the usefulness or uselessness of the block. That’s not my topic today. We’ll talk about it another time.
I would like to point out that in my opinion sovereignty has nothing to do with left or right. We will have these normal debates in a normal Quebec country.
On the other hand, I have no particular sympathy for Pierre Poilievre and his ideas.
panic
However, I look with amusement at the Canadian left, which is panicking over the rise of the Conservatives.
Choking with indignation, she brings out the old Halloween costumes that no longer scare anyone: Trumpism, radicalism, populism, privatization, breaking up the CBC (would that make you cry?), etc.
An unknown Conservative MP you’ve never heard of says something stupid, and it ushers in the Dark Ages.
In reality, Pierre Poilievre, his speech and his way of doing politics are just the Canadian version of a phenomenon that is spreading in the West, with exceptions here and there.
Essentially, it is a rather divisive political discourse that plays on emotions, that targets the everyday concerns of those who no longer feel heard, that criticizes institutions that have not kept their promises.
There is obviously calculation in the marketing of this political offer. Poilievre knows exactly which buttons to push.
But instead of making a fool of itself and portraying Poilievre as the Trump he is not, this now fully woke left should ask itself why this approach works.
Let’s broadly sketch the outlines of the “normal” voter and his daily life.
Everything costs more. The salaries don’t keep up. He needs a car to go to work. Crime is increasing. The treatment has become very complicated.
He knows that the future will not be bright for his children. He finds new college graduates who speak incomprehensible gibberish annoying.
He doesn’t like it when a harmless joke from yesterday becomes a national scandal today.
For him, a man is a man, a woman is a woman, and we should not make a big problem out of the extremely rare exceptions.
All sorts of cultural and moral changes are being forced upon him, about which he has not been consulted.
Listen to yourself
Worried, frustrated, disoriented, looking for a ray of hope, he listens to the surrounding noises.
What does the Canadian left hear when they talk to him?
No more taxes, no more government, no more bureaucracy, no more constraints, no more doing what we’ve been doing for ages with the added bonus of more foreigners, no more re-education to eradicate the racist cancer, no more indoctrination of one’s children etc.
When he says no, he is told that he doesn’t understand or that it’s scary to think like that.
Instead of stupidly demonizing Poilievre, the left should start listening to itself.
