The trolls inside the Conservative tent

The Conservative Party of Canada has a troll problem. And it’s coming from inside the tent.

Once, trolls existed only in imagination. They were figures of mythical proportion, big and small. They lived solitary lives under bridges, in caves, or forests. They were considered dim- witted and mean. Best avoided.

Today, they are real, unavoidable, and ubiquitous on social media. They are anything but solitary. There are tribes of them out there and tribal is how they think and post. As for dim-witted and mean, others can opine but they are uniformly mean and dismissive.

Mean to anyone who disagrees with their views. Dismissive of any view but their own. They distribute questionable, at best, facts and opinions grounded in hostility towards anything or anyone deemed disagreeable or heretical to their world view.

Is that view a “conservative” one? Given that there is no one homogeneous conservative view across Canada today, they can and do claim as much. This gives them an outsized voice and influence in today’s federal Conservative party. And not for the good, if it comes to electing Conservatives.

Social media trolls, sorry, “influencers” are the most contemporary manifestation of politics today. The rise of social media gave rise to social media users who figured out how to monetize the digital marketplace through calculated outrage. By relentlessly posting opinion-driven content to generate clicks and views, they have built loyal audiences eager to engage by repeating and reposting their content.

The Conservatives recognize this. More than the other parties. At their January convention in Calgary, they had a special “content creator” access pass for influencers to attend, roam, and post, underlining their influence within the conservative movement. An influence begotten by a digital-savvy Pierre Poilievre, who has generated hundreds of social media videos of him speaking directly and pithily on his issues of the day. No wonder he was dubbed Canada’s first influencer politician by some. It fit nicely the populist image and policies he was presenting.

However, what began as a novel channel to rally conservatives in the age of Justin Trudeau wound up defining Poilievre and his party more than he realized. The “power of pith” in a social media post for some voters is always one step away from the “gift of glib” to others. When the voter vibe shifted to serious in the wake of Donald Trump, Poilievre’s determined use of the tool became a crutch hobbling his appeal to Canadians.

Meanwhile, self-styled “independent” influencers took up more and more of the online space surrounding the party, amplifying Poilievre’s populist messaging and ‘own the Libs’ mentality. Not entirely new, there’s a direct line from the original Rebel Media to the short-lived Sun News TV network (dubbed “Fox News North”), to the current crop of online podcasters and livestreamers, some of whom rack up millions of views and engagements. Their content is a consistent stream of culture war pronouncements, pro-America leanings, and anti-Liberal screeds. COVID and the trucker convoy were perfect accelerants for their type of outrage content over government overreach and personal freedoms.

Now, in a time of Conservative duress plagued by bad polls and dismal leadership ratings, those influencers are seeking not just to amplify their version of conservative messaging, but define who gets to call him or herself a “true” conservative in the first place. RINOs — Republicans in Name Only — is a well-known diminutive term in the U.S. In Canada, we have everything from Reformers to United Conservatives to Progressive Conservatives who generally, but not fully, subscribe to the federal version of Conservative.

But last year’s unforeseen election loss and subsequent leadership vacuum has now crystallized into a self-defeating rhythm of internal name-calling with all the characteristics of a circular firing squad. Into that vacuum has stepped the influencers, trolling views that run contrary to Poilievre’s leadership. They are branding anyone who disagrees with the current leadership as a Liberal, focusing on Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his team, in particular.

Needless to say, Poilievre will not cut ties or time with this conservative influencer network. Just weeks after his election loss, he was reaching out directly to them. At the time, with a leadership review to come, he understood their reach within his party. Arguably in a weaker polling position now, he can’t afford to separate himself.

Poilievre’s best argument for remaining as leader is that there is no obvious replacement. That’s code for the party descending into an internecine battle of factional conservative bloodletting that will leave the party worse off than it is now.

That may or may not be true. It’s not like a winning path to power exists now. What is true is that this breed of Conservative influencers is determined to choke off any dissent or divergence from their important and lucrative perches.

In myth, sunlight turned trolls into stone. They could threaten no more. Shining sunlight on the conservative movement’s troll brigade and what they are doing to the Conservative party might yet serve the same purpose.

David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.