I had an interesting conversation today that is making me think about how journalists seem to be using the word populism to avoid having to talk about white supremacy in relation to the convoy.
A thread...
The convoy is a social movement. Now, we're more used to hearing about social movements that are left wing. But why didn't BLM movements get labelled as "populist" ? They were more popular, they challenged elite power, they had wider spread ... but they were never populist.
The convoy isn't exactly populist in its demands. It's trying to make itself out to be that, but it's still a fringe that is a tiny minority when compared to other populist movements that might call for similar demands -- like action on wealth inequality.
With 1200 cops, 300 reinforcements, Ottawa police aren't outnumbered. But even if they were, just admit that this is the police refusing to do their jobs.
This professor is doing a lot of work to explain away white supremacy and policing.
"We have been watching and tracking public opinion around this pandemic..."
One of the things that I write about in my book is how polls were used to scare, confuse and distract everyone from the real issues: infection control at work, more testing etc.
"We felt a sense of inevitability related to Omicron"
Or, we could hear about air in shared residential spaces, the complete lack of supports for peoples' mental health etc rather than what people said to surveys.
Good Morning! We're going to listen to Osama Bin Laden death raid cake lady on @TheCurrentCBC because she is an expert in ... I'm not sure what.
I thought her racist cakes cancelled her but here she is telling us about how these organizers are white supremacists.
Sorry the trucker convoy and the border protests aren't connected?
Just because there's spontaneity doesn't mean that there isn't some level of planning. I haven't seen any other groups manage to pull something like this off before...
There 2 enormous questions that are facing politicians in every part of Canada right now; I've written extensively about both. Liberal journalists have focused on the convoy without thinking too hard about the broader questions, and they're getting lost in the noise.
They are:
1. What is to be done about the unvaccinated?
I wrote this in November asking this question, though Omicron upended a lot of what we knew about pandemic management readpassage.com/its-time-for-o…
We need to stop solely talking about vaccines and move onto far more pressing issues: direct supports for disabled people, especially those living alone, food support for anyone in isolation, rapid test centres on every corner etc.