Elon Musk posts, then deletes conspiracy theory that Nancy Pelosi's husband was fighting with gay prostitute

Fascism has always been global… :woman_shrugging: I just hope you lot up there are better at containing them than we have been… If things go bad here, we need someone nearby to hold the line.

No Pressure Barry GIF by HBO

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I know that there’s a lot of hate for Justin Trudeau on their part, but I doubt that it gets anywhere the same level of traction in Canada that the Biden hate does in the U.S. The same goes for the conspiricism.

After a while of being met with indifference or mockery from the vast majority of Canadians, perhaps they just shifted their focus to a political scene where they won’t be treated as fringies and cranks but instead as part of a large movement.

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My hypothesis on this is that the amount of movement towards fascism has been similar, but the starting point was way further left, so it’s not as noticeable yet. Plus we’re a lot smaller population and less dense so it’s hard to form large concentrations of these beliefs.

It’s extra nuts that DePape is from BC, which is the most lefty province of a lefty country. The interior of BC is notably conservative (that is where the Trucker Convoy started) but this is all still by Canadian standards. Our entire political system is basically left of Obama, so “conservative” here usually just means “doesn’t like all the new brown people around and thinks taxes are too high”.

Trudeau got latched on to as something to target their anger at, mainly because he invoked the Emergencies Act to clear the trucker roadblocks in Ottawa and at the border crossings. That was a slightly controversial thing to do, though I think the majority of the country supported the action. Hearings are underway now about that use of the act. A hearing is automatically required every time the act is used because it grants pretty broad powers.

So far the results are what you expect- a lot of bureaucratic confusion in the moment and not everything was handled great, but nothing too untoward, and the end result was fine. Ottawans got their city back, the leaders of the uprising were arrested, the bank accounts of a terrorist group were frozen, and the truckers went home. However, the other side of the fence has a very different version of that story that comes from Facebook memes and is why they hate Trudeau.

I agree the hate is much less than for Biden. It’s mostly limited to Fuck Trudeau T-shirts and bumper stickers, as far as I can tell. Mostly those people just grumble about him in cafés. Nobody is forming militias or plotting assassinations as far as we can tell.

So far containment has been good (I think the use of the Emergencies Act was partly intended as drawing a strong line in the sand here). The real risk to Canada is simply America getting worse. We are joined at the hip economically and security-wise. If America falls into chaos (whatever that looks like) it’ll be very very bad for us as well for all kinds of reasons. We’re in this together, like it or not.

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Also, the Liberal government – imperfect and beholden to resource extraction companies as it is – still gives more than lip service to some small-l liberal values. I just read this article the other day re: immigration.

[archive]

Can anyone here imagine a Dem cabinet official in the U.S. doing the following?

“Look, folks, it’s simple to me: Canada needs more people,” [Sean Fraser, Canada’s immigration minister] said during a news conference near Toronto on Tuesday. “Canadians understand the need to continue to grow our population if we’re going to meet the needs of the labor force, if we’re going to rebalance a worrying demographic trend, and if we’re going to continue to reunite families.”

Still, as @anon61221983 notes, every Western country must be vigilant toward the fascists and identitarians in their own midst.

As a side note, the current season of the Handmaid’s Tale makes explicit reference to the Flu Trux Klan trucker convoy. In one episode, you see a bunch of yahoos in trucks festooned with the Canadian flag honking and screaming through a Toronto neighbourhood in protest of American refugees from Gilead settling in the city. One of the main characters says something like “Oh, it’s these f*ckers again.”

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Agreed. It’s also the real risk to most Americans! But as kind and friendly as our northern neighbors tend to be, I’m sure you guys don’t want a refugee crisis on your southern border… That will probably destabilize things for you, giving the far right a better beachhead into mainstream politics.

Kenan Thompson Snl GIF by Saturday Night Live

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Honestly, that would actually be okay. :grin: As @gracchus points out above, Canada is in pretty desperate need of more people. Especially in tech, healthcare, construction, home care, building trades… well, everything really. Please come! All are welcome! :grin:

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Adventure Time Hug GIF

I hope that that does not become necessary, but it’s good to know what at least some of our northern neighbors would welcome us!

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I’d love to, but last time I tried they said I couldn’t because my spouse did not offer any skills to canada despite me offering skills, and so I’d have to leave her in the states. Now, if it gets much worse down here, there’s a chance we can get in on refugee statuses.

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