Poilievre speaks in slogans and catchphrases

Increasingly, as the prospect of an early federal election looms ever larger, Pierre Polievre talks in slogans, soundbites, and reductive catchphrases. He manages to work them into pretty much every sentence he utters, often several in one sentence.

"Axe the tax", "spike the hike", "build the homes", "fix the budget", "stop the crime", "bring it home", "Canada is broken", "carbon tax election",  "common sense Conservatives". On and on it goes. He never says "election" without saying "carbon tax election". He never says "Conservatives" without qualifying it as "common sense Conservatives". He never says ANYTHING without adding "axe the tax", usually accompanied by " build the homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime", like some kind of crazy nursery rhyme. Dum-de-dum-de-dum...

Three-word phrases are his bread and butter. This is politics for five-year olds. But this is how he has somehow managed to hoodwink a goodly proportion of the Canadian electorate, and to achieve a twenty-point lead in the polls. 

Essentially, it's Marketing 101: keep it simple and repeat it often. But it's also Politics for Dummies. Much like Donald Trump, Poilievre seems to be aiming at the lowest common denominator: the less-educated, less-discerning, resentful underclass.

But it's very much marketing, not politics. He has managed to get to this position without having to really explain his own policies - if indeed he has any - in any detail. It's one thing to bluster and rage and oppose, and entirely another to have coherent and practical replacement policies. Ask any Democrat in America; they have seen the effects of simplistic populism at first hand.

Unfortunately, simplistic populism works pretty well, particularly on the right of the political spectrum.