Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is hoping working people won’t notice that he’s not, in fact, offering them a return to economic security.
Populist leaders who inspire their angry followers to storm the national capitol seem to be in vogue these days.
But while Poilievre’s handlers may be trying to fine-tune his bio to increase his street cred, it might not matter to those angry men who are, after all, not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Indeed, perhaps the one thing that could be said about them is that they are, well, confused.
Blaming government is a clever bait-and-switch, since the root grievance of the angry men is their economic insecurity. Indeed, that New Deal order had treated the economic security of workers as vital — the very glue that made democracy work; if working people could achieve economic gains and financial security, they would value highly the democracy that delivered all that.
Poilievre is hoping working people won’t notice that he’s not, in fact, offering them a return to economic security. Donald Trump earned his strongman stripes building a crooked real estate empire in rough-and-tumble New York City, while Jair Bolsonaro developed his tough-guy habits as a captain in the Brazilian military .
Where they get off course and start lapsing into loopy thinking is in their inability to grasp who’s to blame for their predicament. And this is where a populist strongman can make hay. A strongman purports to be on their side, grasping their grievances and feeling their pain. If pensions and secure retirement are a mirage today , it’s because the cutthroat corporate world of recent decades stopped providing pensions to its employees.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Andrew Bridgen: Conservative councillor suspended after backing MPDerbyshire county councillor Alex Stevenson's views were described as being 'at odds' with the party.
Read more »
How defending gas stoves became a conservative culture warThis week, Republicans flooded the Internet with messages and memes mocking the idea of halting the installation of new gas-burning appliances. So how did we get here?
Read more »
How defending gas stoves became a conservative culture warFirst there were vaccines and masks. Then school libraries and children's books. And, of course, the 'woke M&Ms' whose diversity offended Fox News' Tucker Carlson.
Read more »
How conservative and liberal book bans differ amid rise in literary restrictionsNEW YORK — The country saw a growing effort to ban books in schools and libraries nationwide in 2022, and researchers expect to see more efforts to challenge books in 2023 as some Republican-backed laws across the country aim to restrict LGBTQ and racial content in school books.
Read more »