Elitism's Double Standard

On Why The Tories Need A Better Answer

Why did Donald Trump not face any backlash from working class voters for being a Manhattan elite? A lot of people – and admittedly, that list includes 2016 version of me – thought this would be a problem for working class voters, but it never proved to be. It’s only possible to claim he was one if you want to make the case that a Republican nominee who wasn’t Trump would have won rural and regional voters by more than he did, which given the history of 2018 and 2022 results when Trump wasn’t on the ballot is balderdash.

The reason, pretty clearly, is simple – and extends to Boris Johnson in the UK too, which is helpful. Telling voters that Trump was a Manhattan elite or that Boris was an Etonian toff wasn’t effective because it wasn’t telling us anything we didn’t already know about them. Brexit supporters in the North and Midlands and Obama-Trump voters south of the I-71 weren’t moved by their elitism, because they already knew it before they decided they liked them.

The same thing applies to Justin Trudeau, but importantly it doesn’t apply to Pierre Poilievre, who is actively pitching himself as an outsider to not just the political system but to the broader elites. Yes, Trump ran on Drain The Swamp, but he didn’t pretend he wasn’t a Coastal Elite. The common thread of Trudeau, Trump, and Boris isn’t just their elitism, but their message – in effect, “I’m not one of you, so let me use that to make things better”.

Poilievre, on the other hand, is everything he rails against. He’s a career politician masquerading as an outsider, he’s someone who’s never worked a day in his life in the private sector cosplaying as a fighter for “real” workers, and he’s someone who’s sat at the Cabinet table before trying to pretend that he’s never made a decision and that everything that has gone wrong in this country has nothing to do with the guy who’s been a MP since the George W’s first term.

Why does it matter? Because if the Conservatives are going to win the next election they will do so by in large part winning voters who are anti-establishment, anti-system, and who have lower levels of institutional trust from both the Liberals and the NDP. Their coalition at the next election will have to draw on anti-establishment Liberals in Atlantic Canada, Dippers on the west coast, and both in Northern Ontario and Windsor. If they can’t win those voters, they’re utterly fucked.

And “Justin Trudeau is also an elite” isn’t an answer to Poilievre’s real weakness.

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The problem for Poilievre is that a lot of his appeal is built on the idea that he’s an outsider and even more than that, that he understands “Real Canadians”, not just Laurentian Elites and those trying hard to join it. The idea that he, the member for Carleton whose riding’s single biggest employer is the public service and who literally was a Cabinet Minister under Stephen Harper, has this insight is obviously for the birds. But yet, it persists.

Why does it? Simple – we have a Laurentian Elite media and pundit class that is (in aggregate) out of touch, so they don’t actually have a good sense of what “Real Canadians” care about or think, so they sub in biases and prejudices for analysis or assume that their bubble is representative of reality. The problem with that is it’s not, of course – as Tom “Jean Charest will easily become the next Conservative Leader” Mulcair proves so elegantly. I’m sure every Conservative Mulcair knows was a Charest voter – and I was also sure at the time it was a ludicrous thing to say.

The problem for Poilievre is that he’s coming at his goal – winning culturally conservative voters who dislike Central Canada and who think that the elites don’t give a fuck about people like them – in a semi-sensible way. It’s perfectly sensible to acknowledge the bleeding obvious that that is the path the next Conservative government in this country will look like, but it’s utter insanity that the Tories don’t get that running someone lying to the electorate is a problem.

Justin Trudeau never lied to the electorate about his status. Everybody knew he was an elite nepotism baby, and they elected him anyways! Poilievre, on the other hand, is a genuine unknown to people, having never fought a national campaign and not having been a senior enough Minister in the Harper years to elicit the kind of tough scrutiny a Jason Kenney or Jim Flaherty went through. Poilievre is pitching himself as a new kind of Tory, which is completely fine to do but it’s not tactically smart.

What Poilievre is attempting to do is accrue the benefits of populism without anyone actually getting too spooked by him, which is why he is focusing on not actually saying anything particularly coherent. Look at Poilievre’s statements on the PSAC strike this week, and try and tell me what side of this issue he’s on. He rants about the bureaucracy costing more and services taking more time than ever, but nowhere in any of his statements does he say whether the government should cave to the demands or bring them back to work, for the simple reason that however this ends he wants the latitude to potentially oppose it.

But Poilievre will need to win some voters who aren’t institutionally distrustful and who don’t oppose Trudeau on the basis of his being a nepo baby. The Tories are trying to thread a needle where Poilievre is what he needs to be on his culturally conservative, lower social trust flank, and then doesn’t alienate soft Liberals in southern Ontario, but socially liberal O’Toole voters in Niagara Falls or Peterborough.

The Tories need a better answer to the career politician who lives in a government owned house stuff, because “Trudeau is an elite too” doesn’t matter. Everyone knows it, and their views of Trudeau – good or bad, to be clear – have priced that in. There’s no more water to be gotten from that stone at this point. But for the left, there’s a lot to be gotten from pointing out that Poilievre isn’t some outsider, because impressions of a new Opposition Leader are much shakier than they are for a 10 year leader who’s been PM for 7.5 of those years. (Think about the Mulcair surge, and then complete collapse, of 2015, if you doubt that.)

At the end of the day, the Liberals are clearly starting to show their hands on what their message at the next election will be – Poilievre’s a career politician who doesn’t care about people like you. If they can’t find a better answer than Trudeau’s also an elite, they’re fucked.