Polarization Populism and Plenty of Guns

The murder of Charlie Kirk has generated many comments from across the political spectrum in the United States and around the world.

Good Government avoids Polarization and Populism

Perhaps we need to examine the danger of polarization in the messages of the people who draw large audiences for their political speech. Populism is a technique to gather crowds by telling them what they want to hear and affirming misconceptions and misinformation while avoiding truthful analysis and explanation of reality. When access to a Plenty of Firearms is added to Polarization and Populism, we create the conditions for violence as a response to politicians with whom we disagree. Canada needs to consider how we will deal with these anti democratic dangers as the next election cycle approaches.

Planned to Manipulate Populism

The scope and organization of the “Freedom Convoy” protests in Canada have raised concerns about the possibility that a populist appeal to persons frustrated by the COVID restrictions may be the surface of serious attempts to undermine democracy on both sides of the Canada/US border.

 

Populist Manipulation

 

A report on CBC News by Judy Trinh includes a photo taken by a drone on Monday Feb 7, 2020.

 

It shows an overview of a logistics camp set up by protesters in an Ottawa parking lot on Coventry Road between the RCGT baseball stadium and the Courtyard by Marriott hotel.

Experts say the co-ordination of protesters shows they may have military, police or survivalist training. (Eric Laporte/Ottawa Drones)1

As Omicron recedes, an Ipsos poll shows Americans are unsure on how to live with the COVID pandemic in the long-term.

 American support for restrictions declining

The detailed planning of the Ottawa occupation would have seen an opportunity in this trend to rally support around a lessening of restrictions that the poll indicates the population is moving toward. 

New Axios/Ipsos poll shows two-thirds do not believe it’s possible for the U.S. to eradicate the coronavirus within the next year2

Wesley Wark, a national-security expert and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, offers the opinion that the Ottawa Occupation shows that democracy under extremist occupation isn’t democracy at all.

Online propaganda, social-media disinformation campaigns, and fundraising websites ranging far beyond our borders have transformed the Ottawa occupation into an international affair, with a motley assortment of U.S. Republican politicians and far-right and white-supremacist figures jumping on the digital anti-vax bandwagon. American flags are in evidence to symbolize the idea that the Ottawa occupation follows in the bloody footsteps of the January 6 Capitol Hill riot.… The occupation will fail, but its denouement has yet to be written and sadly may not be entirely peaceful, owing to enforcement failures in the initial stages. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may ultimately have to summon the ghost of his father — who, when asked what he intended to do in the face of the FLQ crisis in 1970, famously said, “Just watch me,” declaring an apprehended insurrection, then sending the military into the streets of Montreal. Signs claiming the occupiers are on the right side of history will be banished to the wrong side. The sooner this happens, the better. When the smoke clears, we will see the occupation for what it is — an assault on democracy and on our collective rights.3

NPR News reports, from the Associated Press, that Ontario premier, Doug Ford, is calling on COVID restriction protesters to end their 'occupation'.

 

Demonstrators rally against provincial and federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates and in support of Ottawa protestors on Friday outside the Manitoba Legislature in Winnipeg.4

The insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 demonstrated the danger to democracy of populist movements initiated and supported by individuals and organizations who manipulate public concerns to promote deeper anti-democratic objectives.

 

References

1	(2022, February 9). How organizers with police and military expertise may be helping .... Retrieved February 11, 2022, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/convoy-protesters-police-tactical-knowledge-1.6345854
2	(n.d.). As Omicron recedes, Americans unsure on how to live with ... - Ipsos. Retrieved February 11, 2022, from https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index
3	(2022, February 9). Ottawa shows that democracy under extremist occupation isn't ... - TVO. Retrieved February 11, 2022, from https://www.tvo.org/article/ottawa-shows-that-democracy-under-extremist-occupation-isnt-democracy-at-all
4	(2022, February 4). Ontario premier calls on COVID restriction protesters to end their .... Retrieved February 11, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2022/02/04/1078415610/covid-canada-gofundme-protests

 

Populism Rainforest and Immaturity

The burning of the forests of the Amazon rainforest is properly raising concerns by governments and people around the world.

'Our lungs are on fire' is the headline from BBC Newsnight. The populist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, protests the involvement of outsiders in what he believes is Brazil’s domain. Frank Graves offers a reminder why Canadians need to wake up about populism that typically doesn’t solve the problems that it’s supposed to solve. It’s mainly bombast and rhetoric (“For the People”) but little of positive substance although from the past there have been horrifying historical conclusions. It tends to be xenophobic, nativist, and mistrustful.

At the same time, ignoring the problem or sneering at it as deplorable and wrong-headed is ineffectual. That merely strengthens the emotional engagement of those drawn to this force, and denies the empirical reality that most of those drawn to populism’s outlook are the losers in the new economic machinations of hyper-globalization, automation, and lingering neo-liberalism and the withering of the middle-class dream of shared prosperity.1

Eliane Brum, writing in the Guardian, comments that in Bolsonaro’s burning Brazilian Amazon, all our futures are being consumed. In 2019, we are witnessing the beginning of a new, disastrous chapter. The area of trees being cleared has surged this year. In July, the deforestation rate was an area the size of Manhattan every day, a Greater London every three weeks. This month, fires are incinerating the Amazon at a record rate, almost certainly part of a scorched-earth strategy to clear territory. Why is this happening now? Because of a change in power.

A predatory form of politics called Bolsonarism has assumed nearly total, and totalitarian, power in Brazil. President Jair Bolsonaro’s chief project is to create more ruins in the Amazon forest, methodically and swiftly. This is why, for the first time since Brazil became a democracy again, it effectively has a minister against the environment. For more than 30 years no environment minister has enjoyed the same autonomy as Ricardo Salles. He is a gofer for agribusiness, which is responsible for the majority of the deaths in the fields and forests, and Brazil’s greatest destructive force. The landowners lobby has always been part of Brazil’s government, formally or not. But today, this has reached a new level. They are not just in the government, they are the government.2 

Manuela Andreoni, Letícia Casado and Ernesto Londoño, writing in the NY Times, report that the Brazilian government is struggling to contain growing global outrage over its environmental policies, which have paved the way for runaway deforestation of the world’s largest rainforest.

The fires, many intentionally set, are spreading as Germany and Norway appear to be on the brink of shutting down a $1.2 billion conservation initiative for the Amazon.
Concern over the environmental policies of President Jair Bolsonaro, which have prioritized the interests of industries that want greater access to protected lands, has also put in jeopardy a trade agreement the European Union and a handful of South American nations struck in June, following decades of negotiations.
“The ongoing forest fires in Brazil are deeply worrying,” the European Commission said in a statement on Thursday. “Forests are our lungs and life support systems.”3 

Aristos Georgiou, in a Newsweek article, notes that experts are warning the recent spike in wildfires is likely the result of human activities.

"This is without any question one of only two times that there have been fires like this [in the Amazon,]" ecologist Thomas Lovejoy told National Geographic. "There's no question that it's a consequence of the recent uptick in deforestation."
Recently released INPE data has shown that Amazon deforestation rates have risen to the point where around three soccer fields of tree cover are being lost every minute, The Guardian reported. In fact, the figures show that in July this year, deforestation had increased by nearly 300 percent in comparison to the same month in 2018.4 

Aylin Woodward writes for Business Insider that blazes in the Amazon are so big they can be seen from space. One map shows the alarming scale of the fires.

Source: https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/5d5ef0e39563f4384f698e2a-750-549.jpg

The "lungs of the planet" are burning at a record rate: The Brazilian Amazon has experienced more than 74,000 fires this year, whereas last year's total was about 40,000.About 10,000 of the 2019 fires have started in the past couple of weeks.Some of these fires were started by farmers and loggers seeking to use Amazon land for industrial or agricultural purposes.But once blazes start, hot temperatures and dry conditions because of climate change enable the flames to spread farther and faster.These satellite images, along with a map of the fires, show the scale of the burning.5

Returning to the warning about populist government, the article in the Guardian about the state of the Italian democracy quotes citizens who describe populist politicians as vulgar, irresponsible, opportunistic, and immature.

Vulgar, irresponsible, opportunistic, immature. These are just some of the adjectives beachgoers in Santa Severa, a town near Rome, used to describe the motley crew of politicians at the centre of Italy’s latest political drama.
“I’m bewildered,” said Mirella Castracane-Mombelli as she read a newspaper at a beach bar on Friday morning.
“This situation shows that our political institutions are inadequate and do not represent us. They are all just opportunistic. Sergio Mattarella is the only one with a sense of duty and correctness, the only one.”
President Mattarella’s speech to the nation on Thursday night was brief but clear: either Italy’s main political parties come up with a strong new government by Tuesday, or he will call fresh elections.6 

Canadian and American voters need to use their critical thinking skills to avoid giving political support to the self serving populists in our democracies.

References

1	(2017, March 13). Populist anger is real, and Canada had better wake up - The Globe .... Retrieved July 15, 2019, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/populist-anger-is-real-and-canada-had-better-wake-up/article34268031/
2	(2019, August 23). In Bolsonaro's burning Brazilian Amazon, all our futures are being .... Retrieved August 23, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/23/amazon-rainforest-fires-deforestation-jair-bolsonaro
3	(2019, August 22). Amazon Rain Forests Are on Fire, and Brazil Faces a Global Backlash .... Retrieved August 23, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/world/americas/brazil-amazon-fires-bolsonaro.html
4	(2019, August 22). How Did the Amazon Rainforest Fires Start? - Newsweek. Retrieved August 23, 2019, from https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-rainforest-fires-start-1455685
5	(2019, August 21). The blazes in the Amazon are so big they can be seen from space .... Retrieved August 23, 2019, from https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-fires-satellite-images-map-of-rainforest-blazes-2019-8
6	(2019, August 23). 'They do not represent us': Italians despair over state of politics | World .... Retrieved August 23, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/23/they-do-not-represent-us-italians-despair-politics

Populist politics and the Pope

The rise of populist politics has been connected by several reporters to attacks on Pope Francis.

Source: https://www.ncronline.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_full_width/public/web%20RNS-STEVE-BANNON-082517.jpg?itok=6V5bwrrN

Former advisor to President Trump, Steve Bannon is one of many interesting persons mentioned in these reports. Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist, comments that Mr Steve Bannon stands for a worldview that is antithetical to the liberal values The Economist has always espoused… Bannon helped propel Donald Trump to the White House and he is advising the populist far-right in several European countries where they are close to power or in government. Worryingly large numbers of people are drawn to nativist nationalism. And Mr Bannon is one of its chief proponents.

The future of open societies will not be secured by like-minded people speaking to each other in an echo chamber, but by subjecting ideas and individuals from all sides to rigorous questioning and debate. This will expose bigotry and prejudice, just as it will reaffirm and refresh liberalism. That is the premise The Economist was founded on. When James Wilson launched this newspaper in 1843, he said its mission was to take part in “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”1 

The Associated Press reports that Pope Francis is recommending a Christian kind of populism after being attacked by Italian politicians for defending migrants.

 Francis told a crowd of 100,000 at an outdoor Mass on Saturday that “the only possible populism” is a Christian one that “listens to and serves the people without shouting, accusing, stirring up quarrels.”
The pope spoke in Palermo, the capital of Sicily. Many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants rescued at sea in recent years were taken to the Italian island’s ports.
Francis has staunchly championed the rights of migrants.
Italy’s new populist government is discouraging their arrival. Interior Minister Matteo Salvini insists people rescued at sea from human traffickers’ boats won’t be allowed in Italy.2

Michael Sean Winters, who covers the nexus of religion and politics for the National Catholic Register, reports recently that Richard Engel, of NBC news, began his show "On Assignment" with a segment on Steve Bannon's attack on Pope Francis.

Engel, like the Guardian, shines a light on Bannon's allies. When Michael Voris, the head of Church Militant, talks about the need to "drain the swamp" at the Vatican because "there is a gay network running the Vatican," you felt for Engel: Was he trying to suppress a laugh or was he genuinely flummoxed? Fr. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute admits he does not much care for Francis because the pope does not understand rich people, but he adds that Bannon is "not my cup of tea" and does not know him. Engel produces a letter from Acton's Rome office supporting Bannon's Dignitatis Humanae Institute and Sirico says that he has never seen this before. I believe him: Sirico is gullible about capitalism, but I do not think he is a liar.3 

Mark Townsend, Home affairs editor of the Guardian, writes that Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon advised Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini to attack the pope over the issue of migration, according to sources close to the Italian far right.

Bannon has steadily been building opposition to Francis through his Dignitatis Humanae Institute, based in a 13th-century mountaintop monastery not far from Rome.
In January 2017, Bannon became a patron of the institute, whose honorary president is Cardinal Raymond Burke, an ultra-conservative who believes organised networks of homosexuals are spreading a “gay agenda” in the Vatican.
The institute’s chairman is former Italian MP Luca Volontè, on trial for corruption for accepting bribes from Azerbaijan . He has denied all charges.
Among the institute’s trustees is one of the pope’s most outspoken critics, Austin Ruse, a former contributor to rightwing news website Breitbart. Ruse runs C-FAM, an anti-abortion group whose founder was prone to antisemitic rants about population control and which has been termed a hate group by human rights campaigners. Like Volontè, Ruse is an official of the World Congress of Families, a gathering of far-right, anti-gay Christian groups backed by Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin.
Other trustees include Ben Harris-Quinney, chairman of the Conservative thinktank the Bow Group, who met Bannon in London last summer, alongside Raheem Kassam, the former UK editor of Breitbart. Bannon was a founding member of Breitbart’s board.
Bannon was invited by the Observer to respond but at the time of publication had not yet replied.4 

The position of Pope Francis on migration, climate change, and the excesses of capitalism are in tension with the policy of right wing populist movements.

References

1	(2018, September 4). The Open Future Festival and Steve Bannon - A statement from our .... Retrieved April 16, 2019, from https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/09/04/the-open-future-festival-and-steve-bannon
2	(2018, September 15). Pope says populism should serve people, not stir up quarrels - AP News. Retrieved April 16, 2019, from https://www.apnews.com/94ca83be880049fe8a6a8da701c04641
3	(2019, April 16). Bannon helps spread cancer of populist nationalism | National .... Retrieved April 16, 2019, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/bannon-helps-spread-cancer-populist-nationalism
4	(2019, April 13). Steve Bannon 'told Italy's populist leader: Pope Francis is the enemy .... Retrieved April 16, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/13/steve-bannon-matteo-salvini-pope-francis-is-the-enemy

Politics can no longer save us

Noam Chomsky explains that While Donald Trump works to distract the public, his administration is working to dismantle every aspect of government that benefits the people.


At a conference in 2012, on the theme of ‘Catastrophe and Conversion’, René Girard asserted in a plenary session that ‘politics can no longer save us’.

The statement was both shocking and comprehensible. Its import came home shortly afterwards, at the time of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, when the world’s leaders, fully aware of the evidence of anthropogenic climate change and of the urgency of the crisis, were unable to agree on the required programme of action.
An ‘apocalyptic’ narrative also allows for an interconnected account, rather than seeing the environmental and political, human and natural crises as separate.

Aaron Wherry writes that while attempting to parry the most polarized voices on climate change and resource development, Trudeau has emerged globally as a symbolic counterpoint to the rising tide of populism. In the person of Donald Trump, that tide keeps making Trudeau's life more difficult.

To the challenges of the moment — climate change and shared prosperity — Justin Trudeau seems to think he can make a useful contribution.

Trudeau needs to balance

Pope Francis urges top oil executives to convert to clean fuel. It saw the participation of senior executives of leading oil and gas companies including ExxonMobil, Eni, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Equinor and Pemex.

In his speech, the Pope told them that climate change was a challenge of "epochal proportions” and said that the world needs to come up with an energy mix that combats pollution, eliminates poverty and promotes social justice.

Pope Francis summoned more than 40 oil and energy executives, plus big money managers, to discuss climate change and other sustainability issues at a Conference called “Energy Transition and Care for our Common Home”.

“When you go to the Vatican and see the Pope, it changes the tone of the debate. It makes it much more serious, and much more real.” Lord Browne, former CEO at BP, this weekend.

Close to 100 broadcast meteorologists will don blue and red stripes for their on-air segments Thursday as part of an international effort to raise awareness of the reality of human-produced climate change.

Spiralling global temperatures from 1850-2016 (full animation) https://t.co/YETC5HkmTr pic.twitter.com/Ypci717AHq

— Ed Hawkins (@ed_hawkins) May 9, 2016

References

(2015, November 12). 'Between Politics and Apocalypse': René Girard's Reading of Global .... Retrieved June 20, 2018, from https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/%E2%80%98between-politics-and-apocalypse%E2%80%99-ren%C3%A9-girard%E2%80%99s-reading-global-crisis

(2018, June 2). How last week, and the one coming, might shape Justin Trudeau's .... Retrieved June 3, 2018, from http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-trump-pipeline-trade-1.4688879

(2018, June 9). Pope urges top oil executives to convert to clean fuel - Vatican News. Retrieved June 12, 2018, from https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2018-06/pope-oil-gas-executives-vatican-conference-energy-transition.html

(2018, June 11). 20170926 Conference Sustainable Development Goals SDGs Two .... Retrieved June 14, 2018, from http://www.sust4in.com/20180611-white-on-black--pope-francis-meet-oil-executives.html

(n.d.). Stripes for the Solstice: Meteorologists United on Climate Change by .... Retrieved June 21, 2018, from https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Stripes-Solstice-Meteorologists-United-Climate-Change