PHOTO JASON FRANSON, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Danielle Smith, the new Premier of Alberta
There are a lot of crazy ideas in the big buffet of conspiracy theories. And Danielle Smith, the new Premier of Alberta, regularly frequents this buffet1.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Russian propaganda on Ukraine? Mme Smith drinks it like whey. The myths propagated by the American far right about the pandemic and its origins? Mme Smith amplifies them. The fixation on the supposed influence of the Davos Economic Forum? Mme Smith embarks at full speed.
Singing the worn refrain of conspirators, Danielle Smith divides the pandemic world into two camps: those who believed “ the narrative2 “and those who bravely challenged” the narrative “. To put you in perspective, the expression “the narrative” is to the pandemic conspirators of 2022 what “the official version” was to the conspirators of September 11, 2001.
At his first press conference as PM, Mme Smith also said that in his lifetime, no other group experienced more discrimination than the unvaccinated.3…
Not blacks, not aboriginals, not AIDS patients of the 1980s, not the Jews and Muslims targeted by the extreme right, no, the people who in the midst of a pandemic chose to refuse an effective and safe vaccine, in the name of false beliefs that do not hold water.
It’s not surprising. The sources of information deemed credible by the new PM of Alberta are a real who’s who misinformation. The more it’s flipped over, the more Danielle Smith seems to give them credibility.
The discredited doctors who “doubt” vaccines in defiance of scientific consensus? Mme Smith gives them the floor and relays their delusions. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vax movement (who raved pre-COVID-19 about the “dangers” of vaccines): Mme Smith marries her. Frenchman Thierry Meyssan, push September 2001 conspiracy theories? Mme Smith introduces him to his fans as a credible source on Russian aggression in Ukraine and the global financial system…
Revolver News, Algoa, ZeroHedge and company: these well-known vectors of disinformation are also feverishly obsessed with figures like George Soros (the financier) and Karl Schwab (founder of the Davos Economic Forum). In the century-old tradition of pushers of conspiracy theories, these sites indeed fixate on Jews as sinister puppeteers controlling the world4. This stinking anti-Semitism isn’t enough to push Mr.me Smith, who relays their canards to his fans.
Repeat after me: Alberta’s new PM is a conspirator. And that’s a perfectly frightening sign of the times.
I have written extensively on conspiratorial movements during the pandemic. But I wrote a lot about these movements even before the pandemic, conspiracy has interested me since the mid-2000s, since the conspiracy theories on September 11. I am frightened by conspiracy because beyond its stupidity, it embodies the slow erosion of a shared reality, something like the possible end of the facts.
The disinformation propelled by digital tools can create alternative realities that will shake up the real, the true. These alternative realities fueled by falsehoods can defeat political candidates and convince people that vaccines against COVID-19 are more dangerous than the pandemic itself… Which is itself, in these universes, a “plandemic”.
It is not without consequences. It was conspiracy theories that prompted thousands of Americans on January 6, 2021, to violently storm the Capitol in the hope of stopping the peaceful transition of power, an unprecedented event in modern American politics.
Disinformation creates echo chambers where all the unpleasant facts can be replaced by reassuring inventions: look at those 70% of Republican voters who are convinced that Joe Biden is not the rightful president5that he stole the election which would have been – they mistakenly believe – won by Donald Trump…
Mirror effect of this divorce from reality among Republicans: nearly half6 Republican candidates in the midterm elections that will take place in two weeks have one form or another of doubt about this fact: Donald Trump has indeed lost the presidential election of 2020.
In a country whose political system is designed for bipartisanship, that’s a hell of a problem. And if you think it’s just an American problem, see how the myths made in USA inspired Canadians who went to demonstrate against the so-called tyranny of Justin Trudeau, at the beginning of 2022, in Ottawa…
Which brings us back to M.me Smith, the new Premier of Alberta. She rose to the post in a leadership race by the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) after Jason Kenney was ousted. We will see if a candidate who lives in an alternative factual universe can win a plurality of votes in the Alberta general election of May 29, 2023.
But until then, Danielle Smith is living proof that believing in discredited follies is no longer a barrier to the highest offices in this country.