Populists, misinformation & COVID-19

A little political science to help us understand our new Premier

With our new Premier sworn in, but without her Cabinet, Alberta politics watchers are enjoying a few days of relative quiet. This seems like a good time to dig a bit deeper to understand what makes Premier Smith and her base tick.

So today’s newsletter is going to delve into some political science research that helps make sense of the Premier’s unorthodox understanding of COVID-19 and the role of vaccines. (Y’all didn’t think this newsletter was going to be all ‘70s TV references and hot takes, did you?)

So let’s talk about populism.

At its simplest, populism is a belief that ordinary people are being kept down by an elite. Populist narratives in Alberta have long identified Ottawa/Central Canada as that elite. More recently, the elite has included scientists, climate activists and other “experts.”

My colleague Jared Wesley wrote a great Twitter thread yesterday about how populist leaders convince their followers that they are beleaguered victims, but also the dominant force in society. It tells us a lot about how Alberta politics has come to be dominated by a relatively small group.

Listening to Premier Smith on her first day in office, it was clear that she (and many of her supporters) believed some pretty problematic things about the pandemic. And Justin Ling’s look at her social media conversations around COVID and vaccines suggests problematic is an understatement.

What makes populists so susceptible to believing misinformation and conspiracy theories? Part of the answer is trust: according to one study, people who hold populist attitudes are less likely to trust either government institutions or scientists, and those low levels of trust in turn predict believing in COVID conspiracy theories.

A study of the American public found that the relationship between populism and believing COVID conspiracies was even greater among people who consumed conservative media.

Populism is a well-established element of Alberta’s political culture, and non-mainstream conservative media has a sizeable audience in the province. So it’s not surprising that a political leader has been able to craft a narrative that tells her followers they are victims of a political and medical establishment that only serves its own interests, at their expense.

And I suspect that this will be the narrative that drives health policy in the province in the coming months.