DeSantis is done, probably

I can’t see the post everyone is replying to due to flags, but sounds like that’s for the best. Certainly I agree with what @gracchus wrote.

Having spent nearly exactly half my life living in both countries, I feel weirdly qualified to make these comparisons. Neither country gets much news from the other, so neither knows much about how things are on the ground, in my humble experience.

Sadly this is true, but so far we’re holding the line a lot better.

The thing that my time in the US taught me as that constitutions don’t matter. On paper, the US has the best written one around, IMHO, and on paper the US government seems well structured (aside from the electoral college and some other pretty broken things). On paper, the Canadian system is much messier and less cleanly engineered to seemingly ensure justice. Yet Canada is decades ahead by nearly every measure of progress, because the paper doesn’t matter. What matters is the people interpreting the paper, and that’s down to culture. At the end of the day, America is a deeply conservative place and always has been.

Canada has constitutionally protected abortion and trans rights. We have aggressive accountability for police officers (just recently two RCMP were convicted of murder for a questionable shooting). We have aggressive immigration goals because we value diversity. We’re pursuing climate change action aggressively with a carbon tax, investing in nuclear power, and expanding our already 80% base of hydro. We’re ending coal power this year and scaling back gas. Every major city is pursuing evidence-based social programs like Housing First, decriminalized drugs, safe injection sites, and mental health support. Of course there’s also the socialized medicine, and the ketchup chips.

So while we do have the Freedom Convoyers and the Rob Fords (RIP) and Pierre Poilievres, and so on, for the most part their damage has been limited.

We can’t help but be influenced by the 800 pound cultural gorilla down south, but we’re at least starting a lot further behind and moving a lot slower down that bad road. If we’re all headed for another global wave of fascism, at least Canada will get there last. Hopefully after I’m dead.

What I suspect will happen is that this latest angry right wing backlash against social progress will fade away again, and when it does, Canada will be in a very good place because we limited the damage. We don’t have a Supreme Court ruined for 30 years. We protected our rights in the face of Pride flags being torn down and protests at drag shows. We have our share of antivax and conspiracy crazies, but we didn’t elect any of them to national office or spend all our time ripping up fifty years of social justice laws like America has done. Fingers crossed this all holds long enough to get through it. :canada:

We have our own problems, of course. Forest management is in dire straights. The healthcare system is understaffed at nearly crisis levels. School boards are under attack from crazies. Conspiracy nuts are on the rise everywhere, and their talking points have crept into the national dialog with people like Poilievre. Trudeau is unpopular to the point that people may overreact and elect someone like Poilievre or a Ford. No place is perfect, but I believe in my fellow canucks to do the right thing. So far we mostly have.

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