Donald Trump’s victory on Tuesday, November 5th, 2024 was much more than darkness triumphing over light. It was a very sad and terrifying further confirmation that a large bloc of the populace has become disconnected from fact, logic, and even science. This has allowed a deadly virus to infect the political landscape in countries around the world.
Trump’s victory was only the latest in a long and growing list of authoritarian politicians exploiting a gullible and uninformed slice of the electorate:
- In Italy, right-wing billionaire media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi was elected four times, serving from 1994 to 2011. More recently in 2022, Italians elected the right-wing leader of the Brothers of Italy party, Giorgia Meloni, as prime minister.
- In France, the far right-wing National Rally (formerly known as the National Front) first appeared in 1972 under the leadership of founder Jean-Marie Le Pen. While initially having only marginal success, its influence began to grow gradually from 1984 on. In 2012, Le Pen passed on the leadership to his daughter Marine Le Pen, who was later succeeded in 2022 as leader by Jordan Bardella. Under the last two leaders, the party the has grown more and more powerful. In June 2024, Bardella won the European Parliament elections in a landslide with 31.4% of the votes. Later that month, the National Rally right-wing coalition led in the first round of the French legislative election It was only a historic last minute cooperation agreement reached among all the centre-left and left parties that prevented a National Rally victory in final round.
- In Brazil, right-wing populist leader Jair Bolsonaro served as president from 2019 to 2023. When he was defeated in the 2023 presidential election by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his supporters responded by storming the federal buildings and calling for a coup d’etat. Bolsonaro has since been barred from running again until 2030 due to his unfounded claims of voter fraud in 2023, among other reasons.
- In Hungary, right-wing demagogue Viktor Orbán has been prime minister since 2010, during which time he has diminished democracy, undermined judicial independence, and limited press freedom. Perhaps not surprisingly, he has also established closer ties with Russia and China.
- In Poland, the Law and Justice party under party leader Jarosław Kaczyński, led a United Right alliance to power from 2015 to 2023, establishing an increasingly authoritarian regime. In 2023 they lost power to a more centrist coalition but the situation there is far from stable.
Back to Trump. It did not matter what outrageous statement he made or acts he had committed. Nothing moved the needle.
White, non-college-educated individuals voted overwhelmingly for Trump. This was at least in part because his base does not read newspapers. They watch Fox News, distrusting more balanced broadcasts. They are not interested in analysis. They listen to podcasts. They are informed by notoriously biased commentators like Joe Rogan and Alex Jones.
A very large percentage of Trump’s vote came from so-called low-propensity voters – people who generally don’t vote. This vast pool of untapped and until recently, ignored voters see in Trump someone who rails against the system. Every outrageous comment Trump makes, even when shown to be an outright lie, is further proof that Trump is not a conformist.
We can and should be profoundly upset, even angry, at what has just happened. But if we do not take the time to understand what made it possible for Trump to be elected, we risk similar outcomes in Canada.
Here in B.C., a party that until February 2023 didn’t have a single representative in the legislature came within a whisker of defeating the incumbent New Democratic Party. As I observed in my November 2nd 2024 blog, the BC Conservatives were able successfully tap into the same segment of the population that Trump did south of the border.
One of the first social media posts made by John Rustad after becoming leader of the BC Conservatives likened teaching students in school about sexual identity and gender orientation to the genocide of Indigenous children in residential schools. Rather than hurting his party, this comment moved the party up in the polls. It gave Rustad media coverage. It helped create a myth that he was against the system.
On the federal scene, Pierre Poilievre is poised to win one of the largest majorities in Canadian political history. In large part, his rise in the polls can be attributed to vociferous opposition to the carbon tax. This in spite of the fact that carbon pricing is one of the most effective ways of reducing our carbon emissions.
In Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith is getting ready to go one step beyond opposition to the carbon tax. She is now proposing that Alberta do away with all carbon emission reduction targets.
In the 19th century, German philosophers Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, architects of the political and economic theory known as Marxism, coined the term lumpenproletariat to describe what they referred to as the unthinking lower strata of society, easily exploited by reactionary forces. While their analysis does not precisely match today’s political reality, it is clear that an uninformed populace is still too easily swayed by self-serving autocrats and demagogues, with tragic results.
If we progressives continue to ignore the signs and political developments that are now all around us, we do so at our own peril. And even if we open our eyes to what is going on without wrestling with why this is going on, things will only get worse.
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (November 12, 2024): 423.34ppm
One year ago (November 12, 2023): 419.55ppm
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