Canada is voting today. The demented authoritarian gasbag that 49.81% of U.S. voters installed as our president has “thoughts” about that, as expressed on his cheap knock-off Twitter platform this morning:
Wish I could have been a fly on the wall when Conservative candidate Pierre Poilievre’s staff showed him that. I confess I don’t follow Canadian politics closely, but my understanding is that the Liberals were in serious trouble due to former PM Trudeau’s unpopularity.
But thanks to the orange shitgoblin’s hostile actions and rhetoric and current PM Mark Carney’s strong response, the Liberals are expected to win handily. Is that about right? Are there are issues as salient as the tariffs and Trump’s threats to Canadian sovereignty?
Always hesitant to make assumptions about politics in other countries. I’m more comfortable babbling incoherently about U.S. politics, but it’s an important election.
My mom used to say, “You can be a good example or a horrible warning.” The U.S. wasn’t a good example last fall, but maybe we can serve as a cautionary tale.
Open thread.
PS: I generally alter the avatar on screenshots of Trump’s idiotic social media rants so you don’t have to look at his stupid face. You’re welcome!
Is It the 60s Again? Cory Booker and Hakeem Jeffries Sit-In at the Capital
bbleh
He settled on “cherished” a while ago. I guess it’s his usual nickname-type thing but … it’s kinda weird?
Dorothy A. Winsor
Reading Trump’s comments on Canada breaks my brain.
I see Gerald Connolly is not running again and is stepping down from the Oversight Committee now. His cancer has come back.
frosty
Thank you! I showed it to Ms F and she laughed. Your art is just as snarky as your words, BC!
Mustang Bobby
The Canadians can call and run an election in 37 days. Here it takes 37 months. That alone is reason enough to like Westminster-style parliamentary government.
RandomMonster
I wish I could discern some kind of end goal in all these lunatic ravings. It’s like being tortured for no reason other than that the torturer is a sadist.
Asparagus Aspersions
I’m married to a Canadian. He’s a bit nervous but is feeling far, far better about the good guys winning than he was about seven weeks ago.
TS
It sounds as if the US President wants Lebensraum (living space). Wonder where he read about these ideals?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@RandomMonster: Yes! I keep thinking why? What do they get out of this craziness?
Belafon
@Mustang Bobby: As long as the party in charge is willing to call elections. See England and Israel.
Bazza
The Conservatives were coasting to a crushing victory. The main issues fuelling this was a mixture of cost of living concerns, particularly in housing, and Trudeau having generally overstayed his welcome and everyone being tired of him.
Trump coming for Canada – the tariffs, but even more so, the threats to our sovereignty – and Carney entering the race flipped the whole thing upside down. Trudeau is off the table as an issue; cost of living is still important, but clearly #2 next to the whole thing where the US wants to destroy our country and our way of life and we’ll be damned if that’s going to happen. Most recent polling is showing an 85% chance of a Liberal win and ~65-70% for a majority.
Pollievre, the Conservative leader, is seeing news stories that he might lose his own seat. The Liberals here (it’s my riding) are playing like they think they can beat him here. Fingers crossed.
trollhattan
“Cherished 51st State” will look pretty kewhl on their commemorative quarter.
rikyrah
Go Canada!!
Do they get the day off to vote?
Fair Economist
@rikyrah:
They get 3 hours to vote. If their job would interfere, they get 3 hours PTO.
clay
Sorry BC, but you can’t put lipstick on that pig.
brendancalling
I follow Canadian politics more closely than most, and it looks like the conservatives are heading for a drubbing (knock on wood).
Suzanne
I am cheering them on.
In related news, apparently Maryland is about to get a bunch more Tim Horton’s.
MattF
I’ve thought the MAGATs took the South Park tune ‘Blame Canada’ too seriously. And yeah, they really are that stupid, so it’s a non-trivial possibility.
Joy in FL
The way you always alter that avatar thrills my heart and makes me laugh. Thank you for that.
I just re-read that non-truth post. Does he even know the name of one of the candidates on the ballot? Is he telling Canadians to vote for him? It kind of sounds like that to me. He can’t think he is on the Canadian ballot, but maybe he thinks a vote the conservative is the same as voting to be a 51st state? good grief.
Betty Cracker
@Bazza: Wow, that would be something if Pollievre loses his own seat! I read an article on the election recently where some pundit speculated that Trump was strategically talking less about Canada lately. My first thought was Trump doesn’t do strategy and that he would definitely open his big fat yap and utter more insulting and stupid threats before the election
ETA: I also assume Trump is lying when he implies Pollievre supports Trump’s ridiculous takeover fantasy. Or maybe the slobbering old fool thinks his own name is on the ballot in Canada? Nothing would surprise me.
prostratedragon
More on foreign trade from Mr. Subdeals:
CHETAN MURTHY
@clay: but on the other hand I do appreciate that she replaced the image.
Geminid
@Belafon: Yes, the Tories were very unpopular their last year but held off on calling new elections until their mandate was down (I think) to its last six months.
It’s a similar situation in Israel. Netanyahu’s coalition would have been creamed if there’d been elections anytime in the past year and a half, but the four parties have managed to hang together even though they barely get along with each other. Their mandate runs out next year.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@prostratedragon: Bespoke? Sweet cartwheeling Jesus
CHETAN MURTHY
In 2021 I removed my ” make America kittens again” extension; I just now reinstalled it.
Medicine Man
@bbleh: It is the language of the a wife beater.
He alternates between that “why do you gotta make me hit you” language and sounding like a particularly dumb gangster engaged in racketeering.
scav
@clay: Think of it as a lipstick logo on the massive cork stuffed in his gob?
Booger
@Suzanne: In grad school I presented a not-entirely-tongue-in-cheek proposal to open a series of Tim Hortons along U.S. 17 from Winchester (VA) to Fredericksburg (VA). You see a huge number of Canadian travelers on that otherwise rather obscure road, as it is one of the easiest connections between I-81 (fast road to central Canada) to I-95 (fast road to Florida). At the time, the nearest Tim’s was in Morgantown, WV. But the franchise costs were prohibitive.
Steve LaBonne
@TS: Like all the other Nazi shit such as genocide and Jim Crow, they actually learned that from us (“Manifest Destiny”).
prostratedragon
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Jackie
I’m actually looking forward to FFOTUS’s BS rant claiming Canada’s election was rigged/stolen when (knock on wood) Carney wins in a landslide. Rebuffing Poilievre is rebuffing FFOTUS. Canada has NO desire to be the USA’s 51st state; I hope the election results state that loudly and clearly enough to get through FFOTUS’s thick skull and empty brain matter.
mali muso
@Booger: I have traveled that route many a time when heading south and would welcome our new Canadian overlords!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@prostratedragon: That’s guy’s physical demeanor makes me want to dump green slime all over him
eclare
@Jackie:
Elbows up, Canada.
Jeffro
I am feeling the urge to fly the Canadian and Ukrainian flags…my own personal “appeal to heaven” (or the FSM)
In other news…our bluebird eggs have hatched! The new birdies are SO LITTLE!!! ❤️🐦
JoyceH
@Medicine Man: No, this is the language and behavior of a stalker – some nutbar completely obsessed with a woman who doesn’t even know he’s alive. “Don’t make me be mean to you! I only want to cherish you!”
prostratedragon
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Sorry to bother you, but
🎼🎶Tiptoe through the tulips with me.
(Yeah, I’m yelling along myself.)
Baud
I believe their anthem is Oh Canada, not Go Canada.
Medicine Man
Regarding Canadian politics:
Cost of living and the wretched un-affordability of housing are huge issues in Canada. The Liberals were scoleric and unmotivated when dealing with any of it. Trudeau was the front man for this attitude, focusing on shallow moral messaging rather than taking these problems seriously.
The effects of the ongoing US constitutional crisis, the belligerence of trump and his enablers, and Trudeau’s belated exit from office all combined to flip the table over up here. Like more national trends, there isn’t just one reason.
Pierre Poilierve deserves a special mention as being particularly vulnerable to all three of these major events. He was never popular outside partisan circles, being propped up by public dislike of his likely opponent, and PP’s years long embrace of a northern version of US populism make the comparisons punishing for him. Lots of problems of his own making.
I personally find PiePol insufferable and can see no reason to trust him. But this election is legit one where the right people and policies could have overridden my partisan biases. In fact, if the Conservatives pivot away from culture war towards their Progressive Conservative wing, and enthrone leadership with a track record of working on housing affordability, my vote is up for grabs next election. Especially if the Lib party doesn’t take cost/quality of living issues seriously.
Suzanne
@Booger: There’s a lot of Tim’s in the NE…. Feel like your idea could be feasible now!
...now I try to be amused
It looks like it isn’t just in Canada that saying “Fuck You” to Trump is a winning position, and being squishy about Trump is a losing one. Trump is a uniter, not a divider! Just not here, alas.
Medicine Man
@JoyceH: Fair enough.
Honestly, could be first one and then the other. President Dunning-Kruger’s reaction to trading partners making deals with other parties was very stalkerish I’ll grant.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: How will tariffs affect TimBit pricing?
Fair Economist
@MattF:
There is a lizard people posing as people conspiracy theory – to which my son subscribed at least for a while – which seems to derive from the “V” movie and tv series from the 80’s.
They really are that stupid. They treat nonsense on TV as established fact.
persistentillusion
@Jeffro:
I’m currently flying both. Come on in, the protest is fine.
Bazza
@Betty Cracker: Typically PP has this riding sewn up, but he has been everywhere but here this campaign, and he hurt himself with all the suburban types with his support for the convoy truckers (way more than I think he realized). And the amount of GOTV at the door coming from the Liberals is like nothing I ever thought I’d see in a riding like this. They’re spending money and getting volunteer time like they think they can win it.
He’s basically a grievance muppet and we just got a real good look at what happens when you elect a grievance muppet. He’s spent all the campaign trying to get past that.
Re: Trump’s post, I think he felt like posting about Canada and he assumed that there had to be someone in the race who was in favour of the 51st state stuff, but couldn’t be bothered to find out and didn’t care anyway, so posted something generic. But he’s pretty far gone at this point so anything is possible.
Geminid
@prostratedragon: Bessent is more like “Whistle, Past the Graveyard, With Me.”
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know, but I’m so glad you’re asking the tough questions!
mrmoshpotato
Thanks for bringing back the pig face!
JoyceH
@Geminid: I’m finding Bessent rather entertaining. He looks and sounds like a Treasury Secretary, that magisterial calm and lofty measured speech- so long as you don’t pay attention to what he’s actually saying.
kwAwk
My thoughts today are that I know we’ve gotten a lot from the guy over the years, but if Trump talks more about a third term, it would be cool if Obama started doing some shadow campaigning.
Give a few speeches in Iowa. A town hall or two in South Carolina. Just wetting whistle you might say. See how Foxnews and company reacts.
Obvious Russian Troll
We voted this morning. The Liberal candidate is almost certainly going to win–our MP is Chrystia Freeland. She’s won in the last two elections by over 20.
Her resignation from Trudeau’s cabinet also arguably triggered the election in the first place.
Mr. Mack
@Medicine Man: I feel like both Parties here have largely ignored our own housing issues. I’m not sure what the Federal Govt could do, but I know I’d like to at least see a ban on corporations from owning single family homes and renting them out. I live in rural Tn and in my small town there are new developments going up everywhere and it’s mostly farmland that is being sold off
I’m curious what has been proposed there as possible answers?
CHETAN MURTHY
@kwAwk: i don’t think Obama wants to spend the rest of his life sleeping in the garage.
ETA: because I sure can see Michelle banishing him from the house for even pretending to hint about that.
Steve LaBonne
@JoyceH: Trump appoints people because they look good to him on TV. That’s all he understands.
Bupalos
@Bazza: Does Carney represent a different direction from Trudeau for Libs?
ArchTeryx
Redoing Trump’s avatar icons is the sort of juvenile thing only a grandma could get away with and make a total fool out of the one it’s being done to.
But since Trump is no more than a toddler in a demented adult’s body, I say, make it as juvenile as possible. I’ve got a couple of bird pics that would go well in his avatar, but I’m a whole lot ruder and a whole lot more earthy. (ex-field biologist).
Geminid
@JoyceH: Bessent can take comfort in the fact that while most the rest of us are fucked, he personally is not. Bessent might suffer some reputational damage, but he’ll get over it.
ArchTeryx
@Bupalos: I’m not sure, but he represents a different face. All politicians have sell-by dates, things are not going well economically for Canada, and like Biden here, Trudeau became the face of it.
But unlike here, substituting a fresh face made all the difference. It helps that Canada is mortally offended by our gangster president’s demented squawking about making it the 51st state, and that their conservabot decided to attach his lips firmly to T~~~p’s asshole. Boy, is his election day going to taste like shit.
eclare
@CHETAN MURTHY:
Same. Michelle is totally over political life. Not going to Jimmy Carter’s funeral was a huge sign.
prostratedragon
@Geminid: What is “graveyard?”
I found the first 20 min or so of the Capitol steps feed from yesterday to be a much-needed palate refresher.
Scout211
Rolling Stone (web archive version) today.
. . .
I actually thought that either his wall of protectors and ego strokers were keeping these polls from him or he really didn’t care about them since he already has all the EO powers.
But maybe he does care?
SAD!
Bupalos
@Steve LaBonne: I don’t think RFK Junior was chosen for looking or sounding good on TV. Trump does know how to play post-truth politics and he does have a good head for analyzing power relations and moves like that.
Skippy-san
God bless you, Betty.
Geminid
@Bupalos: We’ll find that out when the new Parliament meets and Carney lays out his agenda, and appoints his ministers.
prostratedragon
@JoyceH: That surrealism is what got to me also. People like him are good training in downgrading the surface.
HopefullyNotcassandra
Thank you for hiding the visage. This will be known as an era of truly odd makeup and cosmetic surgery choices I think.
Geminid
@prostratedragon: It’s just an old expression referring to a posture of optimism about a dire situation.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My heart goes out to representative Connelly.
4D*hiker
Regarding trump calling Canada a “cherished” 51st state in the context of his post:
To me, the vibe is a pedophile justifying the rape of a child by saying it was done out of love.
Just creepy, inappropriate, and very telling about his psyche.
gene108
@Fair Economist:
Spouting nonsense on TV is what Republicans do. It’s how they win elections. It’s what far too many Americans think of as reality.
Sure Lurkalot
One of my senators voted “aye” for Bessent, one of (fucking) FIFTEEN democrats that crossed the aisle for this seemingly clueless and shamelessly lying buffoon.
CHETAN MURTHY
@4D*hiker: “Canada is an old soul”
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Ego, don’t you think? This president probably had his aides do a presentation on the “best presidents.” Since that are proto-joker no doubt both Roosevelt were nowhere to be found. So, this president needs to increase the country’s size more than the Louisiana Purchase. It seems unlikely this president understands how a regular American globe distorts the size of Greenland. Voila! This president must take Canada and Greenland to secure his legacy.
I could be wrong. I rather doubt it though.
Anonymous At Work
One thing on the Westminster-style parliamentary democracy is that they are technocratic on the districts, get rid of rotten boroughs, and the typical seat has as many people as a State Senator does. No one replicates our insane Senate, and that’d be the major impediment.
Also, there are no federal elections in the US. Every 4 years, there are 51 state/territorial elections that coincide with tens of thousands of local district elections. Cuz, you know, “states’ rights”.
prostratedragon
@Geminid: Sorry, that was my line for Bessent’s frame of mind; if he doesn’t acknowledge it, then it’s not even there, so he can’t be accused of whistling past it, right? Right?
Meanwhile, party at David Graham’s of The Atlantic:
Geminid
@prostratedragon: I’m a big fan of both Hakeem Jeffries and Cory Booker, and can imagine how their sit-in was a good morale booster. Low morale is a problem for a lot of Democrats right now.
...now I try to be amused
@Anonymous At Work:
The UK has the House of Lords, but its power was drastically reduced in the early 1900s.
Bazza
@Bupalos: What the others said, but also, I think so, definitely. For as long as I’ve been alive, PMs have been progressively centralizing more and more power and decision making authority in the PMO and leaving MPs to toe the line, so Carney vs Trudeau’s styles and focuses are going to matter a lot. Trudeau was very focused on messaging and optics. Not to say he didn’t have policy objectives, but messaging was clearly the thing he cared about first and foremost. Carney is not a politician, he’s a wonk. He knows and cares about the details, has firm ideas about what he needs to accomplish, and doesn’t tolerate fools.
I expect the Carney era (assuming we get one, fingers crossed) to see a massive shift in focus. Trudeau spent a lot of time talking about the world needing more Canada and being at least as performative as he was substantial, and he never spent enough time on foreign affairs (Freeland was constantly pushing him to go faster on Ukraine, for example). Carney needs to make us essential to the Europeans, manage us out of dependence on the US, rebuild the military, and fix a lot of domestic economic problems. He knows how to do it but we don’t have a lot of time.
Sandia Blanca
Ha ha, Pierre Poilievre didn’t appreciate t___p’s help!
https://bsky.app/profile/ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3lnvdhe4kuc2q
Geminid
@prostratedragon: Being a politician and not a pundit, Bessent is not acknowledging the problem publically. But I think he knows the oncoming economic problems are real, and at this point are likely inescapable.
karen gail
Shame about that drawn line; just think those of us who live, lived or grew up in Midwest would be Canadians rather than US citizens. When my great grandmother was child she was born in Canada which became Wisconsin by the time she had children; she never said how she felt about being part of changing landscape without moving.
karen gail
Shame about that drawn line; just think those of us who live, lived or grew up in Midwest would be Canadians rather than US citizens. When my great grandmother was child she was born in Canada which became Wisconsin by the time she had children; she never said how she felt about being part of changing landscape without moving.
...now I try to be amused
@Geminid:
I’ll bet he’s calling Trump a “fucking moron” in private like all his other cabinet secretaries did.
MagdaInBlack
@prostratedragon: Holy cow is he getting dragged in comments, as he should. He read Project 2025 AFTER ?????
eclare
Great photo today, WaterGirl.
BigJimSlade
Maybe Canada could be states 51-61 and help us tilt Congress in our favor? ;-)
Citizen Alan
@prostratedragon: The Atlantic is such utter trash and always has been. All you need to know about that rag is that they were the ones to first give Megan McArdle a national platform.
prostratedragon
@MagdaInBlack:
Also second order through reposts:
Delightful!
CHETAN MURTHY
@Citizen Alan: also Young Conor Friedsdorf
Professor Bigfoot
@frosty: Same here, I read that line to Mrs. B and showed her the avatar and she too flat guffawed.
WELL DONE, BETTY CRACKER! 😂
eclare
@Geminid:
I’m sure Bessent knows. I will never understand how so many people consent to being dignity wraiths to FFOTUS. His reputation will be trash once goods disappear from shelves, and FFOTUS will happily throw him under the bus.
Geminid
@karen gail: George Rodgers Clark made what is now Wisconsin part of Virginia in 1780. Wisconsin and the rest of the Northwest Territories were ceded to the U.S. government under the old Articles of Confederation Congress in 1787, with the Northwest Ordinance.
A key provisiin of the Northwest Ordinance was the prohibition of slavery in the new territories. That likely decided the outcome of the Civil War 70-some years before it was fought.
Socolofi
TL;DR: Trump has decided to go after Canada, the US’ staunchest ally. This is an existential threat to Canada and something that will take decades to repair. The Liberals were able to see what was up and had a leader smart enough to step away and remove the personal animosity, and they selected a finance guy who managed a country’s books during crisis – Governor of Bank of Canada during 2008, and Governor of Bank of England during Brexit. Conservatives, meanwhile, decided to go with “Trump will listen to us because we share his values, except for the ones where he wants to rape us.” It’s not a winning slogan.
Longer:
I voted Liberal for my riding – Edmonton Riverbend, which has been Conservative for years. Could well flip. And for context, Edmonton is basically the Houston of Canada. In the city’s core, there’s mostly NDP – New Democratic Party – which you can think of as Diet Liberal – same great policies, 100% less Trudeau, and then things get pretty Conservative pretty quickly as things are dominated by Oil & Gas and then farming & ranching.
FWIW… Canada has a bunch of significant issues – price of housing, lack of great jobs, quality of healthcare, taxes. Conservatives were all set to storm back into power, and TBH if Trump was acting like Trump 1.0, this may not have been a horrible thing, as a Conservative PM would be buddies with Trump, CUSMA (Trump’s “best deal ever” – NAFTA 2.0) would be updated without much drama nor changes, life goes on.
But Trump decided to go after Trudeau (who was already going to step down when his term was up this Oct) hard, and Canada with him. Trudeau did the honorable thing and stepped down, giving Trump a personal scalp but letting somebody else without a history represent Canada, reasonably thinking this would end the 51st state and tariffs BS. Yeah, nope. Someone clearly got to Trump to try and STFU because that caused the Conservatives to lose about a 20-point margin (as well as the NDP’s to lose about 10 points), all to Liberals. He’s been better, but he just can’t help himself, and in the process he’s cementing a Liberal “Stand Up to Trump” mandate.
Also, not lost on Canadians – the Republicans in Congress could, at any moment, rein him in on this. The Senate actually did pass something to end the emergency that Trump made up to give himself the power to set tariffs and ignore his own treaty. The House clearly hasn’t. So Canada will be a lot more defensive and set things up to be more independent. It’ll also take a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress passing a lot of legislation removing power from the President before there’s trust again.
Also, #GoOilers
artem1s
@BigJimSlade: I think it’s more likely the northern half of the great lakes states will become Canada’s 11th province.
karen gail
@Geminid:
Guess great grandma didn’t consider their family anything but Canadian for years; as long as it was still wilderness no one really cared who was government. She always believed that the personal relationship her grandfather had with Native tribe was more important than what someone miles away said.
Socolofi
@Bupalos: Just my POV –
Carney is a finance crisis manager. And with tariffs, we’re in a financial crisis. So a lot of traditional Liberal views are going to get softened / ended. He already stopped the Carbon Tax, and he’s got the equivalent of free trade between provinces, which has been a white whale for many a PM (unlike the States, Provinces have a lot of power over what crosses their border, and most of the trading routes between say BC and Ontario cross a bunch of Provinces… which is why you can easily get BC wine in the States but not anywhere in Canada outside of BC).
There will be talk about more pipelines, especially the east-west pipeline connecting the tar sands in Alberta to BC ports and Atlantic ports. Liberals have always been unwilling to do that for mostly environmental reasons, but lots of the indigineous tribes & folks in Quebec also didn’t fancy a huge pipeline going through their backyard. When everyone was making money by shipping thick oil south to Texas and cheap gas north from wherever, wasn’t really a huge reason, but that’s all changed now.
So I expect that the Carney government will be very different from your typical Canadian Liberal administration – and probably a very good thing given the new tenor of Trump.
catclub
@TS:
IF Canada became the 51st state. If,
then there would be a lot immigrants to Canada that Trump would excise from US citizenship, starting with Filipinos, and Caribbean immigrants.
karen gail
Caught headline; Trump, “I run the country, I run the world.”
Harrison Wesley
I’ll have an iced covfefe with a cherish on top, please.
bbleh
@Medicine Man: it’s definitely patronizing — how could any self-respecting Canadian NOT be put off? — and it strikes me as both creepy and insincere. Certainly the kind of language a bully or a mobster or, yeah, an abuser would use.
Quite apart from his borderline-demented flip-flopping and his extensively documented history of lying, this kind of language alone would make me distrust him from the start.
The world shakes its collective head …
Cathie from Canada
Whenever the United States remarks on a Canadian event, I feel like Eeyor “Thanks for noticing”.
That said, we are usually happy to fly under your radar and it makes us uncomfortable to be a point of discussion.
There will be books written about what has happened in Canada in just the last five months, since Trudeau’s dinner at Mar Lardo the end of November. I can’t even describe it all, much less explain it, but in the end I am very hopeful the Liberals will actually achieve a majority government. And Trump’s blather again today might contribute to that!
Jackie
@karen gail:
I read that. I think it was a snippet from the interview FFOTUS did with The Atlantic reporters?
Jay
I have only two concerns about this election.
#1 The NDP is going to get decimated, and sadly, they are the Conscience of Canada.
#2 Wexit, the nutjobs in Alberta and Saskatchewan are going to get even nuttier going forward.
Not surprisingly, the Quebecois are becoming more Canadian.
dnfree
@Citizen Alan: I’ve read The Atlantic since the later 1960s. It’s had some excellent writers and articles and some less so. They were founded in the Civil War era. What is your generalization about the magazine based on?
dnfree
@prostratedragon: I didn’t feel a need to read Project 2025 until after the election. If Trump had lost, what would have been the point?
sab
@RandomMonster: Attention is what he wants
Jay
@dnfree:
Maybe because Project 2025 is the ReThug “playbook” and wish list, and will last much longer than 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029 and will be the foundation of the next bout of ReThug extremism?
But then again, you are not a highly paid Atlantic pundit who’s job is to report on elections and their consequences.
So, you at least, get a pass.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Citizen Alan:
The Atlantic exists, particularly since it was bought by Jobs’s billionaire widow in 2017, to launder a variety of glibertarian policies into Totebagger Radio friendly “think” pieces. It’s full of hacks who were never hired for their intellectual integrity. Not saying all of them, but way too many to give them clicks or a subscription. Much of what they write is lapped up by a white “New Dem/New Liberalism” brand of “progressive”.
Anne Laurie’s quote from the last year remains one of the better ones:
Miss Bianca
*Now* I remember! The only time I ever looked forward to seeing a DJT xhit/tweet/whatever was when Betty C posted it and I could see his ugly mug transmogrified into the Pig Person he so truly is, (With all due apologies to pigs).
ETA: And now I’m reading the deranged rant that accompanies it and thinking, “America voted for THIS?”
Jesus wept.
Bupalos
@Citizen Alan: I’ll tell the estates of Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass you think that rag was always total shit.
Doug R
Full disclosure: I am working for the Liberal candidate in Calgary East.
Just a gentle reminder that except for energy, the USA has a trade surplus with Canada so I guess Doug Ford is right to charge an export tax on electricity.
Bupalos
@artem1s: Oh my god I think I just had an orgasm on behalf of Northeast Ohio.
Jay
@Doug R:
How is your Philippine community doing there regarding the tragedy?
Does it look like you guys can trash the Con?
Bupalos
@Socolofi: Yikes.
See, this is the thing. The politics of every country are always more particular than you are thinking when you naturally frame it from the point of view of your own politics. I’m a U of T grad and yet I didn’t really think about the internal fossil-fuel economy angle which is obvious.
I mean, honestly, to me that sounds long-term disastrous. Like “Canadians are about to become structurally less liberal even as they elect the Liberal party.”
I feel like this is the kind of thing that Trump knows and sees, because he has a really weird sociopathically ‘realist’ way of looking at the world. Canada is kinda-sorta a petrostate. It’s liberalism has a very soft and sticky black underbelly.
Just me
@eclare: She didn’t want to sit next to FFOTUS. Look where the wives were. Barack had to.
dnfree
@Jay: I’m old and I’m well aware that I have limited reading time left. But even if I were a pundit, I would probably have been satisfied with the numerous summaries created by people who did read Project 2025 until the election results made it more salient.
Alce _e_ardillo
@bbleh: It’s stuck in his brain like a scratched record (does that date me or what). This is perseveration, the brain is locked in, and the neurons that would tell inhibit him from saying anything are long gone….
sab
@artem1s: I seriously doubt that Canada wants us. I am old, but my grandmother’s mother was Canadian, and Grandma and Mom kept in touch with Canadian cousins in Ontario. They don’t much like Americans. They tolerate us, but they do not want any of us moving North. They think our culture is toxic
ETA I think this last year we have pretty much proved their point.
sab
@Bupalos: Atlantic has always been weirdly binary in politics. One month left, next month right. They seem to prefer idiotic women, but they also had Molly Bloom for a while.
They have had James Fallows since forever.
I really think they are trying to be both sides (or multisides) with everyone getting a say if they do good journalism.
Isn’t that what journalists are supposed to do?
I always thought their editor was sort of rightish but a solid reporter. And sure enough, he is the one who broke the Signal at Defense story.
Socolofi
@Bupalos: don’t know if I agree with what you’re saying.
I don’t see a Liberal victory as meaning Canada becomes structurally less liberal. But perhaps the difference is your and my definition of liberal.
I do think as a country we become more federal and less provincial, and TBH that’s a good thing. Largely due to Bloc Quebécois, we’ve given provinces a lot of power – and in the case of Quebec, it’s meant that the people there no longer want to be their own country and have actually embraced being Canadian. But it’s let folks like Danielle Smith and Doug Ford (Premieres of Alberta & Ontario) get away with all sorts of shenanigans. When times are generally fine to good, this isn’t a huge deal, but when the game is on the line, there’s no time to put up with this.
And for everyone worrying about Canada turning its back on the environment – I don’t see that. I do see that there’s a lot of pushback against things like Carbon Taxes – e.g. fuel surcharges. But I don’t see us spinning up any new oil powered power plants anytime soon – aside from some nuclear plants back east, the majority of power is hydro, and I can see wind becoming a big thing in the prairies.
Jay
@Bupalos:
We have always been “hewers of wood and drawers of water”. The foundation of our economy has always been resource extraction.
Our oil and gas has long headed south, since the 1920’s, because that is where the demand was, and the pipelines ran, but it was always sold at a discount. There has long been a “demand” for pipelines to the East Coast, because of Europe’s energy needs, but pipelines are capital expensive, return on costs take decades, (Trans Mountain Pipeline will never make a profit and will never cover it’s costs).
But with the US showing it’s true nature, and Europe willing to pay more, a pipeline to the east has a bit more legs now, (and is a good way for the Federal Government to cut Wexit off at the knees).
BTW, the Federal Liberal Party, is not “liberal”, they are Centrist, our Federal “liberal” Party is the NDP. A Liberal election win, (and hopefully a majority) is not Canada shifting to the right, it’s Canada, (other than Alberta and Saskatchewan) moving away from the right.
I hope we get the New Brunswick experience, where the Con’s there brought in all the “culture war” BS, only to get curb stomped by the electorate.
munira
I sent my ballot for the Liberals in a couple of weeks ago. Feeling much better about the election than I was before Trump went on his Canada rampage. This may be Trump’s one positive accomplishment.
Jay
@munira:
Voting ABC tonight, as the Liberal candidate is out polling our NDP MP, with the Con polling second.
So I will plug my nose and vote Liberal.
(Anybody But the Conservative)
So far, Germany, and Australia are in the mix.
different-church-lady
That’s not his face?
Doug R
@Jay:
It’s tightening up but I think it would take a disaster for the cons to win
frosty
@eclare:
The photo is at Channel Islands National Park of an eagle snatching a gull out of the water then taking it to the nearby cliff for dinner. I watched it through binoculars. My friend next to me watched it through his camera. This was the best of a couple hundred shots.
Medicine Man
@Jay:
From your keys to God’s eyeballs, friend.