Planning the politics of division

OAKVILLE, ONT.—While campaigning in Gaul, one of Julius Caesar's favourite tactics was to divide and conquer. This strategy, which works in war, also works in politics. In fact, I’m sure Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre and his strategists are currently trying to figure out how they can divide the electorate in a way which will help them conquer the Liberals. Yes, I’m talking here about the much-maligned concept often referred to as the “politics of division.” A lot of people don’t like this approach to political strategy because they believe it fosters negativity and undermines our democratic civic spirit. Yet, the fact remains, all political parties of all ideological stripes and all partisan brands will seek to divide and conquer. Why? Well, to put it simply, it’s easier to win an election if you can split the voting population into a bipolar universe where there are basically only two sides, one side is for you, the other, against you. The idea is to make sure your side is bigger. To illustrate how this works in practice I like to use the example of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns back in the 1980s. Before those campaigns got started, Republican strategists realized Reagan couldn’t win if he ran a straightforward partisan contest pitting the Republican brand against the Democratic brand, since Democrats outnumber Republicans. They needed a new way to divide up American voters. So, the Republicans did a lot of polling and discovered that more Americans identified as conservatives than as liberals. This gave Reagan a path to victory. Essentially, the Republican plan was to engage the public as if there were only two political tribes: conservatives and liberals. Reagan then posed as the champion of the more numerous conservatives, while simultaneously castigating his Democratic opponents as liberals. In short, Reagan divided and conquered. Mind you, every time you divide up the electorate in this way, you also end up creating an enemy, i.e., the people on the other side of the political divide won’t like you. Reagan, for instance, became an anathema to American liberals. But that’s okay, because in politics the existence of an enemy helps to mobilize and energize your base. The more liberals attacked Reagan; the more conservatives would rally around him. To use a recent Canadian example of a politician dividing and conquering, one need only recall the last federal election in this country, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau basically divided the country up between those who favoured COVID-19 vaccine mandates and those who didn’t. Trudeau, of course, was firmly on the side of mandates and often accused his Conservative opponents as vacillating on the issue. Liberal polls must have suggested this “politics of division” was a winning electoral tactic. And just as Reagan’s pro-conservatism made him the arch-enemy of liberals, Trudeau’s stance made him public enemy number one for Canada’s anti-mandate crowd. Indeed, this anti-Trudeau sentiment helped to generate the trucker “Freedom Convoy” which earlier this year besieged Ottawa. But the Liberals probably believe this sort of reaction only helps to solidify Trudeau’s base. At any rate, this brings us back to Poilievre. How will he divide the electorate? Will he emulate Reagan and try to split Canada along ideological lines, perhaps by setting populists against elites? Or, like Trudeau, maybe he will focus on a particular divisive issue: crime, immigration, COVID. Alternatively, he could seek a less controversial division, such as splitting up Canadians between those who want change in government and those who favour keeping the status quo. We’ll have to wait and see how Poilievre’s pollsters come up with a way to divide and conquer. Gerry Nicholls is a communications strategist. The Hill Times