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“Living Within a Lie”: Canada’s Reconfiguration of Middle Power Rhetoric

Mark Carney’s 2026 Davos speech unsettled established expectations about Canada’s place in the international system, abandoning the language of rules-based international order and reframing how the country positions itself on a global scale. However, this event brings about a familiar question in Canadian foreign policy: can rhetorical honesty produce genuine change, or will it simply renew the practice of performative sovereignty?

Posted On : Published By : Arianne Fouse
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The Politics of Distrust: Anti-Intellectualism as Laying the Groundwork for Populist Revolution

The ever-expanding tide of populist discourse and behaviour casts a shadow over the political landscape of the 21st century. This unquestionable swell of populist sentiment among national leaders has increasingly converged with another ideological weapon: anti-intellectualism. Defined loosely as an “opposition or hostility to intellectual reasoning,” this ethos has rapidly spread across the west, and has been purposefully cultivated within the American electorate. Specifically, issues such as government response to Covid-19, global climate change, and immigration reform have been brought to the forefront of political debate, only to be engaged with in bad faith for political triumph in the country’s ongoing “culture war.” This article will examine the campaign and general approach of populist leader President Donald J. Trump. This will be done through the lens of this dual-weapon strategy and the use of concepts issued from the works of Hannah Arendt.

Posted On : Published By : John Bollinger