A big splash in the Righteous-leaning media this week trumpeted a poll showing Justin Trudeau is the worst prime minister in 55 years. His father rated best.
Until you look at the numbers they quote.
In fact, only 30% of those polled rated Justin the worst. Most leaders in the Western World would be happy with a 30% disapproval rating. That’s what democracy is all about: the right of a minority to disagree. Trudeau Sr. won with only 20% approval. Statistically, these numbers are next to useless.
A quick glance at right-wing media and social media over the last decade reveals an ongoing propaganda campaign by a desperate Conservative party with:
- a chronic inability to find in their ranks a leader with any touch of charisma, and
- a political platform completely devoid of presentable ideas.
The fact that only 30% of responders to the survey named Trudeau, while a July 4 poll showed Conservatives at 37% approval ratings country-wide, would seem to question the effectiveness of the tactic.
If anyone remembers back that far, Trudeau Sr. was roundly detested by the Conservatives in his day, and I suspect that a similar poll in his time would have given him similar results to his son’s rating today.
If there was an election today, Justin Trudeau would be handed the minority government he richly deserves (he’s actually learned to make it work) and the Conservatives, with half the popular vote or more, would be relegated to the Opposition, where they belong, because they are great at opposing everything and they have nothing constructive to offer Canadian voters.
On might predict this situation to worsen in the future for the Financial Right, as apocalyptic weather patterns burn up half the country and blow and flood out the other half, while the Business as Usual party continues with its 19th century Industrial Revolutionary economic policies.
Propaganda
When verifiable facts are used in a news report but don’t reveal anything useful, you can be sure they’re being spun for propaganda reasons.
Taken all ‘round like a football, the supposed “news” of this poll doesn’t tell us anything new at all about the political situation. Our present first-past-the-post election system has produced a highly divided government dominated by the two major parties, and use of media to further the ends of one of those parties weakens the position of the Fifth Estate in the political spectrum.
Where Are We Going?
Unfortunately, the trend in Western nations is to see politicians shooting themselves in the foot by trashing each other so badly that public confidence in politicians is at an all-time low. At the same time, news media have diluted their product and contaminated it with propaganda until their credibility has suffered even more.
The Bottom Line
I can see Canada going one of two directions:
- We get smart and adapt to a proportional representation election system, thus producing a more balanced government that will concentrate on what at least half of the population wants, or
- The decline of the Conservatives leads to a Liberal minority or a Liberal-NDP coalition to govern the country, achieving the same effect.
Then, Finally
We can get politicians and media to focus on the real job: saving our narrow strip of human-habitable atmosphere between the hot magma inside the earth and the cold space outside.
1 comment for “When Propaganda Becomes News”