Mass Formations For The Masses

Crowd Psychology and the Canadian Electorate

Only a few months ago, the Canadian electorate was on the verge of handing the Conservative Party of Canada, led by Pierre Poilievre, a massive majority as opposition to the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau grew to the point where Trudeau was forced to resign. At the time, Liberal support had plummeted to historic lows. After his resignation, Trudeau suspended Parliament while the Liberal Party undertook a leadership contest which saw former central banker Mark Carney assume the mantle of leader and call an election for April 28^th. The election was called primarily because of a sudden surge in support among voters for the Liberal Party, a surge which was sparked, not by some event in Canada, but by an event in another country.

In January of 2025, Donald Trump became US President and, among many other policy initiatives, proposed that Canada become the 51^st state, an idea which has next to no support among Canadians and likely not much support among Americans either. Additionally, Trump directed a slew of insults at Justin Trudeau, referring repeatedly to him as “Governor” instead of Prime Minister.

Among Canadian voters, the reaction to Trump was nothing short of remarkable. His disdain for Trudeau managed to turn a figure who was viscerally disliked by many Canadians into somewhat of a sympathetic figure. The Liberal Party’s polling numbers soared, largely thanks to an abrupt shift in support from voters who would otherwise support the openly socialist New Democratic Party or the leftist Bloc Quebecois. The voting shift may be sufficient to reward the Liberals with a majority government, something considered inconceivable only a few months ago.

What is even more remarkable is that NDP voters appear willing to cast their ballot for a Liberal government whose campaign promises are largely an unabashed copy of those of the Conservatives. In a few short months, a government which had, for nine years, staked its reputation on the idea of carbon taxes has now rolled back those taxes. The “green economy”, which once formed the core of Liberal policy, has been relegated to the back seat, at least for the duration of the election. They have also walked back capital gains tax hikes which they had earlier claimed were crucial for equalizing wealth disparities.

What explains this abrupt shift in the attitude of voters? The answer is partly psychological and partly ideological. To understand the psychological component, we need to step back in time to 2020 when the world was in the grip of a pandemic and governments across the globe declared a public health emergency. This period resulted in what Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet termed a mass formation. It was a period of time in which people perceived a world descending into chaos as often deadly illness swept through huge swathes of the population while supply chains and entire economies were beset by massive economic dislocation.

The governmental response to the pandemic was unusual for its embrace of avowedly statist tactics: the division of the economy into essential versus non-essential businesses and the micromanagement of human affairs to a degree that was previously unimaginable. The micromanagement was an outgrowth of a philosophy of “rule by experts” in which the decrees of public health officials dominated the policy process. Those decrees included the shutdown of schools, businesses, masking rules, restrictions on public transportation, mandatory vaccinations, curfews, and limits on gatherings in private as well as public spaces, both indoor and outdoor. These were enforced by massive fines, possible termination of one’s employment along with arrests and jail terms if needed.

The premise behind these measures was simple: it is the government’s duty to prevent the citizenry, by whatever means, from coming in contact with an infectious disease. The fact that such a goal would be impossible to achieve in any event and could only be pursued with massive violations of individual rights, did not dissuade such measures from enjoying widespread popular support. That support included the open vilification of those who dared to question the wisdom of those policies, no matter how arbitrary or contradictory they might be. The general public, faced with widespread societal chaos, begged for measures to bring some sort of order to the chaos.

In the midst of the pandemic, Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet saw a pattern in the behaviour in populations which had adopted arguably draconian measures to deal with the pandemic. He terms this behaviour a mass formation, which has four preconditions [1] :

· Generalized loneliness, social isolation and a lack of social bonds among the population

· The lack of social bonding leading to the conclusion that life is meaningless, particularly regarding one’s career

· Widespread free floating anxiety and psychological unease

· Free floating frustration and aggression

These sentiments are common enough today. There is a vague sense in the West that our economies are not doing as well as they should be; that our standard of living, if not in decline, seems to be stuck in a holding pattern. Costs of consumer goods appear to be perpetually rising, particularly for the young. Wages are stagnant and society seems filled with people who are desperately unhappy with their jobs. This mindset is expressed in the common statement by workers that “they cannot wait for retirement”.

In Canada’s case, these feelings are undeniably present in an economy that has had sluggish growth for many years coupled with skyrocketing housing prices and mounting job losses. While current homeowners seem to have been blessed with near effortless capital gains on their dwellings, younger people are increasingly unable to afford a personal residence at all. In 2024, Canada’s per capita GDP was $55,895, while the same measure in the United States was $87,081. In 2014, the figure for Canada had been $51,025 and $55,264 for the U.S. Unemployment in the fall of 2024 was 6.6 percent versus 4.1 percent for the U.S.[2]

A former Canadian finance minister put it this way: “Since 2015, government spending has nearly doubled in Canada, while investment has fallen by a third, helping explain our insipid productivity. Federal debt reached 70 per cent of GDP last year, with a balanced budget nowhere in sight. We have a bloated bureaucracy and annual interest obligations of $47 billion and rising.”[3]

Desmet explains how, under the right circumstances, this widespread angst can turn into a mass formation: “If…a suggestive story is spread through the mass media that indicates an object of anxiety…and at the same time offers a strategy to deal the object of anxiety, this is a real chance that all the free-flowing anxiety will attach itself to that object and there will be broad social support for the implementation of that strategy to control that object of anxiety.[4]”

In the case of the pandemic, the object of anxiety became the unvaccinated and anyone who questioned the wisdom of pandemic measures or dared to flout the rules. As Desmet notes, “What one thinks does not matter; what counts is that people think it together. In this way, the masses come to accept that even the most absurd ideas as true, or at least act as if they are true”[5].

The latter statement was particularly obvious when it came to the pandemic rules. One must listen to the experts, we were repeatedly told. If an expert in Ontario decreed that the golf courses in that province must close to prevent the spread, it did not matter that experts in every other province let golf courses stay open. It did not matter that experts in Manitoba decreed that one could golf, but only with members of one’s immediate household. If the experts allowed restaurants to open, they mandated that patrons wear a mask when entering the venue until they sat down; at that point they could remove that mask, as if Covid could only circulate five feet and more above a floor. The fact that the plethora of decrees aimed at “flattening the curve” not only failed to achieve the desired result but collapsed into self-contradictory chaos did not dissuade the authorities from their mission; it was a citizen’s duty to obey them nonetheless, and most willingly suspended critical thought on such matters.

The current resurrection of the federal Liberal party’s fortunes bears some resemblance to a mass formation, particularly when one observes the significant shift in voting intentions among New Democratic Party and Bloc Quebecois voters. A sufficient number of these voters are switching their allegiance to the Liberal Party such that a majority government is a real possibility. The anxiety of those voters, previously directed at Justin Trudeau, has now found a new object on which to focus: Donald Trump. NDP and BQ voters are perhaps the most upset by Trump’s tariffs and his musing of Canada becoming a 51^st state. The thought process of these voters is simple enough to discern: they fear that the openly statist parties that they normally support would be ineffective in dealing with the new object of aggression. Better to switch allegiance, even if only temporarily, to a less statist political party like the Liberals who are perceived as being more effective in dealing with Trump. As a result, the chances of the Conservatives, the least statist party, from gaining power have dropped considerably.

This sudden political realignment has led to the spectacle of socialist voters potentially marking their ballot in favour of a party which has gone out of its way to sound conservative.

As Joe Oliver states: “Until running for Liberal leader, Carney had favoured raising the carbon tax. But then he happily axed it, saying it had become ‘divisive’ — even if Liberals had claimed civilization itself was at risk without it. In its place, he supports an ‘industrial’ carbon tax and a ‘carbon border adjustment mechanism,’ which will both be passed on to consumers though without a compensating rebate.”[6]

The policy contradictions continue to multiply: “Carney is also now making noises about building more energy infrastructure — which caused a reporter to inquire why is he is not running for the Conservative party. In fact, the ‘new’ Liberal party is stealing large parts of the Conservative platform, though it will surely drop them if they can finagle a fourth term.”[7]

It’s not that anyone, least of all Canadian voters, ought to be dismissive about Donald Trump’s erratic and destructive tariff policies. Far from it. The problem is that this focus of anxiety, this latest mass formation, has led to the psychological obliteration of the Liberal Party’s governance record of the last decade. The palpable disappointment and sense of betrayal among voters which previously led to Justin Trudeau’s own cabinet publicly demanding his resignation has seemingly vanished. The new object of anxiety, Donald Trump, demands every bit of the masses’ attention to the exclusion of all other considerations. What matters is not that Canadians think critically, but that they think together, even if that thinking embraces blatant contradictions.

It has been suggested by some that the Conservatives make Donald Trump the focus of their campaign. While superficially appealing, it is worth remembering that the role of the opposition is to hold the government accountable for its past actions. To switch the focus of a campaign away from this central role raises an obvious question: if the government’s record is not going to be the subject of a political campaign, why have an opposition party at all?

As with any movement rooted in crowd psychology, the psychological element inevitably merges with the ideological element. Just as much of the population believed it to be the government’s role to prevent the spread of an infectious disease during the pandemic, many believe it to be the government’s role to prevent anyone from ever suffering from the effects of another nation imposing higher taxes on itself.

One only has to look to some of the tariff counter-measures, either proposed or actually implemented, to see how statism has become a “go-to” solution when it comes to trade policy. The most popular ones, so-called “retaliatory tariffs”, amount to matching tax hikes on American citizens with tax hikes on one’s own citizens. In other words, matching the sacrifices imposed on one nation by meting out the equivalent sacrifices on your own. Such responses are based on the same premise as tariffs: that only nations trade, not individuals. Harm inflicted on an individual is consequently considered an acceptable form of “collateral damage” in a trade war, no matter which side of the trade equation you are unlucky enough to find yourself on. The adoption of such a premise inevitably leads to a culture characterized by aggressive indifference. A culture in which entrepreneurs whose supply chains have been shattered are told that the damage was their fault for trading with foreigners in the first place.

The grip of the mass formation is such that blatantly suicidal responses, such as turning off electricity and oil exports from Canada to the U.S. have been widely applauded as an example of a “Team Canada” approach. Tragically, few authority figures dared to point out the folly of shutting off electricity in a power grid that frequently flows both ways across the border. If anyone did point out the obvious hazard, they would quickly earn the label of traitor.

Despite the precarious debt burden presently carried by all levels of government in Canada, nearly every party, both provincial and federal, seems committed to a pandemic style spending spree whose purpose is allegedly to cover the losses of any businesses harmed by tariffs. But at who’s expense? Presumably, at the expense of anyone who has so far escaped such losses. In an economy already struggling with the burden of exponentially rising debt, this amounts to deliberate multiplication of those losses.

When it comes to breaking the mass formation, there are several possible outcomes. In the worst case scenario the mass formation never breaks. As outlined by Desmet in his book, an unchecked mass formation will inevitably lead to a totalitarian state as the list of enemies multiply and demands to annihilate them take over all public discourse. But this outcome is by no means inevitable. In the pandemic, public opposition to the mandates eventually grew to such an extent that they were ended within a matter of months and no government today seriously proposes every re-implementing them. With regards to the current election, every time Donald Trump backs off or postpones his tariff plans, which he has done on several occasions by now, anxiety levels among the Canadian electorate diminish. This could change the outcome of the election as the statist voters feel that they can safely return to supporting their respective parties. This creates opportunities for the least statist political party to gain power. It is anyone’s guess, however, what will happen once the election is over. The mass formation could accelerate, perhaps with the same target or perhaps with a different target. All of this depends on the state of the economy, which at this writing could fairly be characterized as precarious.

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[1] Desmet, Mattias; The Psychology of Totalitarianism; Pages 94-96

[2] Francis, Diane; The Liberals’ Lost Decade; Financial Post, March 31^st, 2025

[3] Oliver, Joe; The Authors of Canada’s Lost Decade Would Like Another Try; Financial Post, March 26^th, 2025

[4] The Psychology of Totalitarianism; Page 96

[5] Ibid.; page 97

[6] Financial Post, March 26^th, 2025

[7] Financial Post, March 26^th, 2025