Bush and Harper share roots in neo-conservative philosophy

Harper's Conservatives and the Bush Republicans have deep organizational and social networks.

Stephen Harper and George Bush have much in common. Both are from oil-producing western regions, and both have promoted policies based on shrinking government services, corporate tax cuts and aggressive military policy.

Stephen Harper's Conservatives and the Bush Republicans have deep organizational and social networks. A consistent theme of Harper's politics has been express desire for Canada to be closer to the US in policy. Therefore it was in character for Harper, in opposition, to declare support for sending Canadian troops to Iraq, something he is now equivocal about despite the Canadian Alliance Party's formal support in 2003 of Canadian military involvement in Iraq.

Like Bush, Harper has made common cause with the religious right. Also like Bush, he has practiced a targeted and strategic form of communications intended to reach particular voters with politically appealing messages without the filter of media. Bush's strategic advisor Frank Luntz, has offered advice to the Canadian Right since Reform Party days and came to Ottawa in May 2006, to work with the Harper Conservatives sponsored by the right-wing Civitas Society.

Stephen Harper and George W Bush reflect the disturbing teachings of Leo Strauss, the German émigré who spawned the neoconservative movement. "Strauss, who died in 1973, believed in the inherent inequality of humanity," writes Donald Gutstein in the online publication The Tyee. "Most people, he famously taught, are too stupid to make informed decisions about their political affairs. Elite philosophers must decide on affairs of state for us. In Washington, Straussians exert powerful influence from within the inner circle of the White House. In Canada, they roost, for now, in the so-called Calgary School, guiding Harper in framing his election strategies. What preoccupies Straussians in both places is the question of 'regime change.'"

Harper spoke 37 times in the House of Commons between October, 2002 and May 2003 in support of Bush's Iraq invasion. On March 20, 2003 he said "It is inherently dangerous to allow a country such as Iraq to retain weapons of mass destruction, particularly in light of its past aggressive behaviour. If the world community fails to disarm Iraq, we fear that other rogue states will be encouraged to believe that they too can have these most deadly of weapons to systematically defy international resolutions and that the world will do nothing to stop them."

Harper Conservative vs. Public Values Frame
  weapons of mass destruction / fraud
  rogue states / international law
  tax relief, tax burden / secure retirement and health care
  choice / quality services, security

Links and sources
  The Tyee
  Stephen Harper on Canada/US relations

Posted: May 10, 2007

Harper Index (HarperIndex.ca) is a project of the Golden Lake Institute and the online publication StraightGoods.ca