Claypool: The Media Painting Poilievre As ‘Unpopular’ Is Desperate and Pathetic

I’m not sure about anyone else, but one of the most amusing ongoing tropes in the legacy media is the assertion by their regular commentators that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is unpopular or somehow a “liability.”

This is an assertion being made at a time when the Conservatives are smashing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party in fundraising and beating them from anywhere from 3-8 points in the last several months of polling. 

The media’s sudden fascination with scrutinizing Poilievre’s personal appeal to voters has little to do with believing it’s actually worth analyzing. The “neutral” commentators in the legacy media just don’t want to have to focus on the real popularity issue, that being the failing agenda and public trust in Trudeau and the Liberal government. 

This is how we end up with headlines from the Toronto Star like, “Pierre Poilievre has a likability challenge. Here’s what Conservative insiders say he should do about it — and where he’s going wrong” or the endless cavalcade of anti-Polievre pieces by Chantal Hébert like her recent article titled “Pierre Poilievre is becoming a liability to Conservatives.” 

Again this is all happening at a time when the Conservatives are decisively ahead of the Liberals in polling, and are pushing to try and get into a position to win a majority. But this fact won’t get in the media commentariat’s way. Every since Poilievre was first elected as the Conservative Party leader the media has been jumping all over him for low popularity numbers, despite it being an established fact new Canadian party leaders take a long time to build up enough name recognition for their popularity ratings to mean anything. 

Poilievre is currently more popular than Justin Trudeau but that still hasn’t fazed the media from playing him up as the real leader with popularity issues. 

Obviously, the very Liberal-leaning legacy media are not trying to report on or analyze Canadian politics from a neutral perspective, they are trying to launder a narrative in the public.

They hope if they say “Pierre Poilievre is unpopular” over and over again, and pretend to be interested in the “answers” behind why he is unpopular (a proposition they cannot prove to be remotely true) then maybe Canadians will assume he is unpopular and unworthy of their votes. 

This propagandistic tactic being used by the media is desperate and pathetic. 

While I am obviously Conservative and predisposed to criticizing Justin Trudeau, I was very critical of former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole’s lack of appeal to Canadian voters, which was proven right by the 2021 federal election vote. The media tended to ignore the popularity issues of O’Toole until after he had lost. 

Now the media is treating Poilievre as if he was O’Toole, cherrypicking a couple of ho-hum byelection results to claim Poilievre has issues while ignoring the localized issues that lead to ridings like Oxford to be a far tighter victory for the Conservatives that it had historically been. 

But according to left-wing media commentators like Max Fawcett, O’Toole would totally have the Conservatives up 10 points on the Liberals if he were still the leader. 

Apparently, O’Toole’s innate ability to speak to none of the issues people were passionate about was suddenly going to have Canadians rallying around him after COVID passed. 

Fawcett also thinks if Poilievre wants to soften his image he should ditch his pro-oil and gas positions and adopt the climate alarmism of the Liberals.

It’s no surprise many legacy media commentators prefer O’Toole to Poilievre. Erin O’Toole wasn’t a threat to Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre is, and this smear campaign against Poilievre is nothing more than an attempt to protect Trudeau.

The good thing is I think the vast majority of Canadians aren’t fooled by these cheap tactics, and care far more about the failures of Trudeau than if the legacy media thinks Poilievre removing his glasses are a sign his popularity is waning.