When Populism Wins, The Past is the Future

 In 2011, Canada's incumbent prime minister Steven Harper, pictured below, won a federal majority as part of a political journey that began in the Tea Party-like populism of Canada's western hinterland. Not unrelated to this and the success of America's Tea Party movement, I have recently returned to a question that I first investigated back in the 1990s: why do voters so often love self-avowed conservative politicians who are neither particularly conservative, nor all that interested in politics? This evolution (or mutation, as some argue) in conservative politics is one moment in a long lineage that, as I argued in my 1998 book Summing It at the Rodeo, goes back to the days of cowboys and Indians.

I'm talking about colonialism here, and it remains a powerful force in politics. 

Canadian prime minister Steven Harper doesn't need the Tea Party. He has Nickleback. (Note kitten in lower left quadrant of photo.)It's a story about history and the cultural DNA of nations, something that doesn't bear much popular account. Here is my argument: as an organizing principle of settlement and governance in the West, the influence of colonialism remains strong, resulting in a political culture with a weakness for gospel about liberating wealth from markets and the landscape, targeting enemies and weaklings, and, most importantly, institutionalizing the triumph of one tribe over another. It's this quasi-religious sense of political destiny that the Tea Party has so soundly encompassed, one that still includes no small amount of antipathy and confusion about issues of race, class, authority, and the commons. 

In other words, I argue America's mid-term 2010 election and Steven Harper's 2011 victory make much better sense viewed through the political culture of late 19th and early 20th century North America, back when today's fringe positions on immigration, environment, natural resources, and social policy were actually quite mainstream. 

I'm not suggesting that the left doesn't have issues. For example: Canada's architect of medicare, Tommy Douglas, was also a known supporter of eugenics in North America in advance of Nazi Germany. But whatever the left's past weakness for progroms, tragic ideas, and group think, I don't think these excesses pose much of a current threat, regardless of populist rhetoric about the nanny state. (The influence of progressives on modern government is a topic for another occasion.) 

To me, what is more interesting is that, in the past, Canada had plenty of real conservatives who actually worked to conserve liberties, resources, people, and sovereignty, often without excess amounts of ideology. But that was another century. Today, it still comes across as a shock when, for example, a Royal Canadian Legion Halloween Party gives first prize to a guy in a Ku Klux Klan costume, but the ugly side of this former colony has always been there; it just doesn't always organize itself into convenient news events. 

Americans looking North for inspiration for Obama's next move might want to look elsewhere. You'll be looking back at yourselves. Here in 21st century Canada, our steely neglect of global environmental concerns and the hollowing out of our middle class mark us as a failed-polity-in-waiting, an oil-rich version of America without all the Tea Party drama. Like America, ours is a society marked by increasingly divided economic and social futures. The brand of colonialism we sport in our politics is simply more British; our current prime minister, Steven Harper, is all about sweater vests, building political empire, and cashing out natural resources as fast as pipelines and cargo ships will allow. For the record, Harper is no cowboy; he becomes whatever is required, much like formula rockers Nickleback, who perform beneath the PM's enormous head in a file photo above, apparently in tribute. 

The point is not to blame Harper, Obama or any other transitory political figure. The point is to recognize patterns and recurrence. The left has been so busy trying to score points and salvage its long-depressed prospects that it has seldom looked deeply at why, exactly, it continues to lose elections to opponents who often have less experience, less credible policy, and, increasingly, smaller ideas. 

I don't claim to have all the answers, or even have a coherent notion of left versus right anymore. But I am increasingly fascinated by this paradox: as we move into the future, our past seems to be moving even closer to the forefront of politics. What does this mean?

I'll be investigating this quandry in a couple of weeks at a plenary session of the Parkland Institute's 14th annual conference in Edmonton, Alberta. The session is with award-winning journalist Marci McDonald and it should be interesting. (I was a speaker at the Parkland's very first conference in 1996, advance promoting my first book, a yet-to-be published Slumming it at the Rodeo, one that earned some very nice reviews. Again, it's all about cycles.) Event info and my abstract is attached below. Tickets and conference info can be found here.

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The Conservative Remake of Canada: Americanization or Home-grown? 
Sat, November 20, 2010 | 9:30 am - 10:45 am
Parkland Conference 2010 @ the University of Alberta

The Colonial Connection: Why Canada Loves Steven Harper
Gordon Laird 

Canada has a deep and homegrown culture of neo-conservatism that can be traced all the way back to colonialism: ideas and assumptions from the late 1800s on European settlement, First Nations, and natural resources still play a significant role within our political culture. This is particularly the case in Alberta where the legacy of an immature polity, rich resources, and (to a lesser degree) a cross-border influence helped create the right-wing populist movement that became today's federal government. 

Re-imagining Canada as a neo conservative country is therefore unnecessary: to a significant degree, it was here since the beginning. It is easy to identify foreign capital in the tar sands and cross-border think tank connections, or blame exterior forces for lapses in democracy. It is more difficult to explain why Canada is so strongly predisposed towards neo conservatism in its current form, and why, in turn, neo-cons have enjoyed such persistent electoral success since the late 1980s. Harper's Conservatives have famously neglected everything from climate change policy to democratic reform, for example, yet public opinion polls only have recently showed decline in support. Our collective tolerance for the modern-day Indian Agent and all-powerful colonial regent remains curiously high. This is a blind spot in public life, one that we sometimes fail to investigate.