Danielle Smith isn’t trying to be a MAGA leader. She’s trying to be the Wildrose one she once was

A superficial reading of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s policybook is that she’s simply following the blueprint laid out for her by her MAGA cousins down south. It indeed has many of the Republican highlights: enduring grievance politics, legislation on trans youth, a tinge of vaccine skepticism, and most recently, an initiative to effectively ban certain books from school libraries. On Thursday, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides announced a new provincial standard to “ensure school library materials are age-appropriate and free of sexually explicit content.”

Each agenda item could be defended on its own merits; for example, if you actually look at the library material the United Conservative Party (UCP) cites as inappropriate for certain ages in public school libraries, including a graphic novel that shows scenes of oral sex that is available in K-9 and high schools in Calgary, one could make a reasonable case for intervention (though one could make a better case for the government staying out of it and letting schools and boards handle the issue).