KINSELLA: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith successfully using Donald Trump's playbook
What happens when voters can’t be shocked anymore? Observing the 2023 Alberta election, it’s a fair question. The province’s premier, Danielle Smith, is competitive in every poll, and even ahead by a bit in a few. And, when you consider what she’s said and done, that’s kind of remarkable. Here’s a summary: • She’s said cancer patients are to blame for getting sicker — “that’s completely within your control,” she’s said. • She’s similarly said that smoking “reduces the risk of disease.” • She’s said people who decline to get vaccinated for COVID are “the most discriminated group” — which was probably news to Jews, gays and people of colour. • She’s said that a malaria treatment is a “100% cure of coronavirus,” even though it isn’t, at all, ever. • She’s shrugged about Putin’s war on Ukraine, saying “why should we be surprised if Russia is upset that Ukraine has nuclear weapons” — even though Ukraine doesn’t, and hasn’t, for 30 years. • She’s tweeted that she favors redrawing Canada’s map to erase British Columbia, and to give Alberta some waterfront. • She’s violated conflict of interest rules by telling her Minister of Justice what to do in a prosecution of a street preacher who was later found guilty of committing crimes. That last one happened just this week. Smith essentially called the conflict of interest judgment a vindication, and moved on with her campaign. Which, as noted, could still result in her winning the Alberta election. How can that be? How can someone as dumb as Danielle Smith be considered to be fit to be a small-town dog catcher, let alone a provincial premier? How can someone that ignorant of the law and ethics be in the running, still? The answer lies elsewhere. In a gilded suite atop a tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City, believe it or not. At 721 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, 10022, to be precise. It was there, not so long ago, that Donald J. Trump concocted, and then executed, his plan to become president of the United States. Which he did. Was in all the papers. Those of us who put together those newspapers — and, critically, the Twittersphere — were played expertly by Donald Trump. We are, in fact, how he won the White House in 2016. We put him there. What did Trump do? Here’s the answer, in all-caps: SIMPLICITY, REPETITION, VOLUME. That’s it. That’s how he won, and we ink-stained wretches — and his free wire service, Twitter — helped him do it. Donald Trump didn’t have political experience. He’d never held high political office. He’d never done or said any of the things that historically help candidates win elections, in fact.
