Many have insisted on the importance of radicalization and even disinformation from the protesters and other political actors for understanding what happened.12 For a clear idea of the nature of the event, one has to look back prior to the pandemic to understand the ideological and political context in which the trucker convoy developed, which is part of a larger backdrop extending beyond the pand. [...] The populist wave of the 2010s must be understood in three major spheres: economic, cultural, and political.22 The first consists of the economic difficulties that began with the 2008 financial crisis and created fertile ground for the rise of movements like the Tea Party in the United States. [...] The protest form of populism involves discourse denouncing the elite who are believed to not listen to the people and to impose constraints on the them for the sole benefit of themselves, without taking the people’s will into consideration.24 In this type of discourse, political leaders are accused of implementing policies that run counter to the interests of ordinary people, as the elite think on. [...] This populism strongly opposes immigration, perceived to be flooding European societies, and translates to anti-migration policies and even a policy for immigrants to “go home.” In the case of the February 22 protests, the protest form of populism—criticizing the elite for not listening to the people, the populism of ordinary citizens and workers—appeared to be dominant. [...] From this perspective, the protests were a period of cultural and generational revolution, similar to Woodstock, as expressed by a resident of Valleyview in northern Alberta.28 It is also important to consider the many individuals and families who attended the protests not to reverse the constitutional order of Canada, as prescribed by the Memorandum of Understanding that called for the end of the.
Authors
- Pages
- 10
- Published in
- Canada
