PROBUS speaker examines populism

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman For the Lethbridge Herald on May 26, 2021.

During their meeting last week PROBUS Lethbridge invited Trevor Harrison to speak about the promise and peril of populism.
Harrison is a professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Lethbridge. He is a research affiliate of the Prentice Institute for Global Population and Economy, where he has also served as an associate director. He is currently the Director of the Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta. The Parkland Institute is a province-wide think tank dealing with issues of public policy.
Harrison stated that he wanted to talk about populism in the broadest sense to make sure those in attendance understood what populism is, and also what it isn’t. Harrison referred to two quotes from Donald Trump to introduce the subject.
“These quotes here, there’s a few things that stand out in terms of populist politics. These were from Donald Trump’s inaugural address on Jan. 20, 2021 and the day of the storming of the Congress on Jan. 6, 2021,” said Harrison.
“Today’s ceremony however has very special meaning, because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington DC and giving it back to you, the people,” from Donald Trump’s inaugural address.
“‘The people’ is a key term that we’re going to come back to and explore throughout this discussion,” added Harrison.
“We love our country. We have overwhelming pride in this great country, and we have it deep in our souls. Together, we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people and for the people. Our brightest days are before us, our greatest achievements still await… [But] something’s really wrong. [It] can’t have happened… So, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue… We’re going to try and give our weak Republicans the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So, let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. God bless you and God Bless America,” Trump, from the day of the storming of the Congress.
From there Harrison stated that some questions needed to be answered regarding populism. What is populism, why it has returned, why today’s populism is primarily a right-wing phenomenon, and if there is a link between populism and vaccine hesitancy?
So, what is populism? Harrison defined it as a coined term by a journalist in 1896 to describe supporters of the People’s Party in the United States which was mainly popular among agrarians. These people thought they were getting a raw deal from people who were in power and so they formed their own party in opposition to the dominant parties at the time.
Harrison explained that the idea here is that there are some people who should be represented. These are the legitimate and genuine people that need defending versus others who don’t fit within the category at all.
“Over the years Canada has also had any number of populists of various political persuasions as well,” said Harrison.
He mentioned Henry Wisewood, mentor to the UFA, William Aberthart, leader of the Social Credit Party and Tommy Douglas, leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and later Federal New Democrats.
“Ralph Klein also can be termed very much a populist, in the sense of an individual that regular people saw as a kind of a regular person as opposed to an elite politician,” said Harrison.
To answer the second question about why populism came back, Harrison believes that is due to economic uncertainty, political and social unrest, cultural stresses and polarization as well as existential threats like terrorism, climate change, automation and identity.
Harrison continued to answer the third question of why today’s populism is primarily a right-wing phenomenon by saying that one of the things about right wing populism is that it has always been based on the notion of direct democracy. These are ideas like referendums initiatives and recall. There is in fact a measure before the Alberta legislature right now to look at bringing recall legislation in Alberta. This has actually been done once before. William Aberhart and Social Credit did bring in recall as part of direct democracy, first in the 1930s.
And to answer the question about the possible link between populism and vaccine hesitancy, Harrison referenced a CBC commissioned survey of 1200 Albertans done between March 15 and April 10 by Janet Brown Opinion Research.
They had four criteria. Trusting down-to-earth people over experts, preferring strong leadership over debate and deliberation, support for increased use of referendums and plebiscites, and believing politicians soon lose touch with the people after they are elected.
Strongly agreeing on all four meant a 50 per cent chance of a person being vaccine hesitant. While strongly disagreeing with all four, meant an eight per cent chance of being vaccine hesitant.
There were also educational factors. People who had high school or less were more likely to be vaccine hesitant than people who had gone on to some level of higher education and there were also some political preference questions there, but the number one criterion was being populist, explained Harrison.

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