Category: Blog Entries

By Liam McCrorie

Euroscepticism has been on the rise in Europe, especially this past decade. Many countries in the EU are beginning to become more Eurosceptic and have more supporters who might be looking for change in the EU or to leave it all together. The UK was probably the most Eurosceptic as they left the EU in 2020, due to concerns over the power of the Euro. And it seems that more and more countries are feeling the same way, even if Brexit didn’t turn out too well for the British.

Many countries in Europe nowadays have a large Eurosceptic party. Hungary has the Fidesz Party run by Viktor Orban, in Italy Giorgia Meloni, an extremely far right Eurosceptic, was recently elected in Italy. But what can the EU really do to combat this rise in far right nationalism and Euroscepticism? They can’t really do much since the EU can’t tell countries how to govern themselves, really all they could do would be impose economic sanctions, but would this even be enough to stop this wave of Euroscepticism.

By Liam McCrorie

The political spectrum has always been made up of the left and the right, with conservatives leaning to the right and liberals to the left, but lately it seems both sides of the spectrum are trying to go as far to their extremes as they can, with neither side really seeming to represent the people, and leaving ordinary people left with nobody to really turn to.

The right has very clearly been turning into the far right for a while now with people like Donald Trump, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orban, and others being elected and leading their countries right leaning parties. None of these leaders are moderate conservatives they all lean very heavily into nationalist and sometimes borderline fascist rhetoric. They all talk about wanting to seal the borders to keep the enemies of the state out, and always portray migrants and foreigners as others, and sometimes as the enemy. These far right leaders also usually use Christianity and Christian ideals as a backing for many of their platforms such as banning gay marriage and abortions.

And the left has many issues as well. While the left usually, at least in my opinion, generally is much better than the right in terms of social issues and being progressive, can at times be over sensitive in some areas, which gets us nowhere, and wastes time and resources. Just as a quick example and something I have thought a lot about, gun laws in Canada. Trudeau is trying to pass Bill C-21 which would heavily restrict access to handguns, as well as ban many semi-automatic style rifles. Now this sounds like it would be a good bill except if you look at handgun crime it is nearly always with illegally smuggles handguns so this ban would do nothing other than affect the ability for hunters of target shooters to access what they need. And as for the rifles they would be banning many semi-automatic style rifles such as the Simonov SKS, a semi-automatic rifle she says is commonly used by Indigenous hunters. Now this is a smaller issue but it still shows how the left is trying to ban something because it sounds dangerous, when in reality they aren’t even dealing with the problem. And I do believe hunters should have access to the tools they need for a proper hunt.

By Liam McCrorie

I’m sure many of you like me have seen recently the increase in the use of hate speech by people with big followings on the internet, and not just a rise in the use of hate speech but a rise in the tolerance of hate speech. Not even a decade ago it would be crazy and pretty much career suicide for anyone of note to go out and openly spew hate speech about a certain group, and you’d think today with cancel culture it would be even more crazy to spew hateful rhetoric in an open forum, but sadly the opposite is happening.

More and more people with large audiences have seemed to have almost gone off the deep end with some of the stuff they say. Probably most noteworthy and very recent in the news is Ye’s (formerly Kanye West) constant hate speech towards people of the Jewish faith. He has gone on and on spewing his hatred toward Jewish people and the Jewish faith. This has caused him to loose his deals with brands such as Adidas and Balenciaga, and more recently he was recently on the far right conspiracy podcast, Info Wars hosted by Alex Jones, where he admitted he “likes Hitler” and went on to defend the leader of the Third Reich saying everyone has value and he did valuable things as well. This most recent outburst has cost him many fans, but on the other hand, some of Ye’s other followers have decided to agree what he has said and more and more people are spewing hate about Jewish people. It just starts with one hateful person spreading a message and it can spread like wildfire.

By: Adam Paquin

When looking at these weeks readings we see various definitions for populism. Both from the far-right perspective as well as the far left. March’s article shows us the multitude of answers when asking has the world fallen into a populist world, and at what point do we call all politicians populists. And do we need to re-examine the world populist so as to not classify and far left or far right activist as populist. We also need to come to terms with the fact that populism no matter what side it is on is still populism. Not just far right but far left as well, either extreme can cause larger problems down the road. So, what we spoke about earlier in the semester about a happy medium, or a “third” option. And so, what we end up seeing this week is the different but similar factors between the right and the left. Mudde and March show us that both are two sides of the same coin. Both have the possibility to spread populist views, and so who is bad or good? Well obviously, that depends on one’s own values in life, and what each side can do for you and your future. In similar cases this this we find it very difficult to explain the words good versus bad, as in all politics. When is populism not such a bad thing, and when is it evil? Again, that all depends on who is telling the story, but this of course is a common problem for the average historian so nothing new here.

By: Adam Paquin

When looking at these weeks readings we see various definitions for populism. Both from the far-right perspective as well as the far left. March’s article shows us the multitude of answers when asking has the world fallen into a populist world, and at what point do we call all politicians populists. And do we need to re-examine the world populist so as to not classify and far left or far right activist as populist. We also need to come to terms with the fact that populism no matter what side it is on is still populism. Not just far right but far left as well, either extreme can cause larger problems down the road. So, what we spoke about earlier in the semester about a happy medium, or a “third” option. And so, what we end up seeing this week is the different but similar factors between the right and the left. Mudde and March show us that both are two sides of the same coin. Both have the possibility to spread populist views, and so who is bad or good? Well obviously, that depends on one’s own values in life, and what each side can do for you and your future. In similar cases this this we find it very difficult to explain the words good versus bad, as in all politics. When is populism not such a bad thing, and when is it evil? Again, that all depends on who is telling the story, but this of course is a common problem for the average historian so nothing new here.

By Blaise Rego

The article by Catherine Fieschi defines three types of populist from the most salient “the strictly populists”, these populists use dog whistle words to spark xenophobia without being overt in their othering of groups. The other side of her definitions were “the democratic activists”, they are populists who focus their emotions towards a particular law or political figure.

I feel though that she has missed a new type of populist that is more dingoes politically and socially than any of the other groups. I would call this group “the quiet part loud”, these populist forgo social and political norms and quite simply say the quiet part out loud on most things. This has been clearly seen with two recent political lighting rods, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. Donald Trump is a particularly important example of this group as he maybe be the original member. During his 2016 presidential campaign Trump’s openly racist vitriol endeared him to constituents who say him as a man who would say what they were thinking. His statements about immigrants from Latin America, demonizing them and demanding that they stop coming to the USA galvanized a part of the population that had felt othered.

I believe that to define this group it would look something like this; this group are figures that play on openly racist or xenophobic tropes or ideas to grow their base. Not only do they other an ethnic/ ideological group but they also other their opponents. These figures state that their opponents are willfully killing their nation and that the leader is the only way to save the state.

By Felix Nicol

I’m sure we are all used to hearing and talking about this theme, but time and time again, the problems of defining terminology comes back up. March’s article identifies a core three, including “people-centrism, anti-elitism and popular sovereignty.” On the other hand, Fieschi identifies a core refusal of the democratic process. This was something that different articles this week tackled, with a few drawing the conclusion that populism was not present in the centre. Perhaps most interesting in their analysis was Fieschi, who outlines xenophobia not only in the far-right, but also in the left. While I certainly understand her point, I feel that the shifting of our understanding of terms is often problematic in the process of better understanding populism. Should we consider the pliability of xenophobia, or reassess our understanding of populism? This is especially relevant in the discourse around identifying populist parties, which often seems closely tied to constant redefinition of the concept. Perhaps, in this regard, if we need to contort the core foundations we understand in order to place these parties in the same groups, considering their fundamental difference could be useful.

Apart from this recurring theme, I felt a bit conflicted reading Fieschi’s statement that left wing populism explains “why populism is attracting the favours of otherwise reasonable people.” I felt there was some bias that needed to be underlined here, because certainly this looks to paint the right in a demeaning light. In this regard, I feel something that needs to be considered in understanding the growth of far-right populism is the societal perceptions placed on them. If general conservative ideology is pinned as “non-reasonable,” are we not pushing these people further towards the extreme? I feel like this kind of statement over-glorifies the left, implying a clear moral and intellectual superiority over those who identify with the right. In this sense, while I somewhat understand where the author is coming from (certainly, liberal ideas on women’s and LGBT rights should be recognized as AT LEAST “reasonable”), I can’t help but feel she left her bias at the door. What do you guys think?

By: Cyrus Hutnyk

This week’s readings focus largely on comparing the intersections between left-leaning and right-leaning cases of populism. The two ends of the populism spectrum are actually more aligned with one another than one might expect given our preconceived understanding of what it means to separate things politically by the left or right-leaning ideologies. In the Rooduijn/Akkerman as well as Rieschi works that were assigned for this week, we can see that the right and left of populism aren’t that far apart. Rooduijn and Akkerman create the basis of an argument through a study that looks at the use of populist strategy and tactics historically, and how they are essentially utilized equally in the scope of both right and left-leaning populism. I find that while the arguments in the Mudde/Kaltwasser and other articles are able to outline the ways in which the different populisms are distinguishable from one another using terms like inclusionary and exclusionary, that presenting the practices and behaviours within the ideology in terms of their intersections creates a fuller picture Even if you distinguish right populism as exclusionary and right populism as inclusionary, boiling things down to the literal actions and behaviours driven and inspired by or done for populism make more sense in trying to define populism.

The argument that Firschi makes especially that has to do with the multiple different “styles” of xenophobia that can exist and are attributed to both the right and left is an excellent microcosm representing the similarities and intersections of differently leaning populisms. By and large while there are differing arguments put into perspective on whether these two ideologies are close or far to one another, it can boil down to a persuasive argument or fascinating evidence that can end up swaying an opinion on a subject where I don’t believe there is an objective truth or answer.

Liam McCrorie

Though the right has been on the rise for a while now the Covid-19 pandemic really sped things along. The Covid-19 pandemic opened a lot of people’s eyes to the faults in our system of government in society, it was a major shift in the way things were run and how things operate, but it also opened up the governments of all nations to criticism over how things were being run. This pandemic damaged a lot of people’s relationship with the government, because of a number of reasons, such as lack of transparency, many people started to begin to believe their government was lying to them which pushed people to seek out groups which agreed and validated them. With waves of misinformation, it was hard what to believe on one hand the government was trying to vaccinate people, but a number of notable people spoke out against vaccines, and pushed alternatives. From celebrities like Joe Rogan spreading tons of misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines, to Donald Trump suggesting that people should inject a disinfectant as a cure people really didn’t know what to believe.

            But all this led to large groups of people abandoning their trust in the government and seeking groups which spoke out against the government and spoke to people who wanted a change in leadership. I’m sure everyone in Ottawa remembers the Freedom Convoy which was a far right led protest against Covid mandates and travel restrictions. Many people who might not typically be far right were supporting this far right movement because they masqueraded as a workers movement. I personally knew a lot of people who supported this movement which came to Ottawa and held up downtown Ottawa for what seemed like forever. This movement led to similar organizations trying todo the same thing all over the world. But this is just one far right group which gained traction.

Many other far right political parties gained traction over the pandemic promising to fix economies and the countries that have been ruined by the liberal governments in charge, when in reality the whole world is going through hard times because we just went through and are still somewhat going through a global pandemic