'Those on the political right who are reluctant to say that they are, for example, racist, Islamophobic, or anti-Semitic will describe themselves as populist because it’s euphemistic, and increasingly acceptable in a political system. The term has become a catchall for many of the toxins once kept at bay in western society, and we have to be less forgiving of the epithet.'

This week I moderated a panel at the Progress Summit in Ottawa, organized by the Broadbent Institute. The theme of the discussion was “This is what Right Populism Looks Like”, and with the obscene events recently in New Zealand, and the deeply disturbing “secularism” announcement in Quebec this week the timing could not have been more acute.

Columnist and anthropologist Emilie Nicolas was joined by Todd N. Tucker from the Roosevelt Institute, and Zita Gurmai, a Member of the Hungarian Parliament and vice-president of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies. While the three of them speak from Canadian, U.S., and European experiences, what was so noticeable was the commonality behind the populist phenomenon.

Gurmai spoke of populism’s obsessive need for a leader, “a boss who people believe is someone just like them, one of the people, the ordinary people, but is in so many cases in fact a multimillionaire. In Hungary our Prime Minister Viktor Orban has an enormous control over the media, and you see this in other countries too. These leaders claim to believe in democracy because they need democracy so as to win elections, but they don’t act in a democratic manner.”

Tucker saw this example in Donald Trump as well, the alleged “man of the people” who is, of course, anything but. He also emphasized two crucial factors: social media, and the addressing of previously neglected issues. “Mainstream media can be bypassed, and what the internet provides is immediacy and instant coverage, unedited and often sensational. This plays into the hands of right-wing populism. Then there is something we saw often when Trump was campaigning, and even now, when he will explain that he’s going to discuss a policy that other politicians have ignored, and frankly sometimes he’s right.”

The point about this approach, and one we shouldn’t underestimate, is that Trump and other populist leaders make all of this seem conspiratorial and fraternal. In other words, the “other” politicians won’t discuss the issue because of vested interests and elites, but Trump or Doug Ford or whomever will talk about it because they’re like you, part of the club, or as Margaret Thatcher used to like to say, “One of us.”

As for the “other”, this is a constant that permeates right-wing populism. Whether its East European workers during the Brexit campaign, Roma in Central Europe, or Mexicans under Trump, a group outside of the clan and beyond the acceptable always has to be identified and blamed. And one common victim is Muslims and Islam, with the situation becoming more volatile by the day.

Nicolas emphasized our forgotten history, and how English Canada should not be overly self-congratulatory when it came to resisting populism. She said that Quebec did have particular challenges and problems, but that these infected all of the country. “Remember that America, north to south, is built on two genocides: that of native people and of black people. Ideas of racism are hardly new in our society.”

She also made the extremely incisive comment that we have to be careful when critics, even on the left, speak of “poor white men” being disenfranchised and this forcing them to look to populism. First, she said, they’re generally not genuinely disenfranchised. Second, people of colour suffer just as much if not more and don’t react in the same way.

For me, there are also other concerns. Those on the political right who are reluctant to say that they are, for example, racist, Islamophobic, or anti-Semitic will describe themselves as populist because it’s euphemistic, and increasingly acceptable in a political system. The term has become a catch-all for many of the toxins once kept at bay in western society, and we have to be less forgiving of the epithet.

Gurmai is convinced that her country’s leader, Viktor Orban, has ambitions that spread beyond the borders of Hungary. “He has links and relationships in Poland, Bulgarian, Slovenia, and Macedonia, he has media connections there, and would like to extend this idea of a Christian Europe as far as he can. This would be a small but frightening populist empire.”

That Hungarian experience has spread to North America, where the demonization of liberal philanthropist George Soros — a Holocaust survivor from Hungary who donates enormous amounts of money to progressive causes — is replicated even in Canada. Populist social media warriors frequently allege he has connections to Justin Trudeau, and to numerous other liberal personalities. The attacks stink of anti-Jewish hatred as well as being downright absurd.

But absurdity, the rejection of intelligent analysis and the embrace of fake news if it’s sufficiently hysterical and fulfils a populist agenda, is a crucial part of the equation. It ranges from the clownish yet successful boasts of the Ontario government to the repugnant and dangerous lies of U.S. conspiracy fetishists — but it’s all part of the same continuum. As one leading British politician, by no means a stupid man, said during the Brexit campaign, “I think the people in this country have had enough of experts.”

Right-wing populism will not be easy to stop because by its nature it’s mutable and ill defined. But its actions are evident and its work obvious, and as Hungarian MP Gurmai said so passionately, “We have to do something, before it’s too late. We really, really do.”

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