I can agree with that. Movements that have been long incubated in silos can't be suffocated, and these days they're just "big tenting" their way to legitimacy. Dismissal without correction withholds legitimacy about as well as shame affects the shameless.

Holy fuck is he ever bad at this. You'd better join us because we don't need you; Conservatives were winning but I don't know or care; Liberals are easier for me but I don't know or care; You should vote Conservative because that'll stop me -- but I don't know or care.

I'm paying very close attention and cannot resist saying things to change the course of events. But I don't know or care.

This is preteen social strategy. Stomp around for a bit. Yell "Whatever, it doesn't even matter" loudly enough to make sure everybody heard it, then slam your bedroom door. Don't worry Dumpster, we're all very convinced by your passionate apathy.

I don't understand how Israel gets to be so special. I also don't get how any other nation would accept anything less, especially once the deal with Israel proved it (politically) can be done. Technical feasibility shouldn't even be in question.

Well, I guess it's nice that militaries get to "own nothing and be happy" too.

It was way closer than it should have been. Over 41% of a highly engaged electorate at best saw no deal breakers in Poilievre's platform. That's got to be unsettling to anyone with any form of vulnerability or marginalized position. Nearly half of Canadians are ready to see you as an optional inconvenience under (unrelated, no less) pressured circumstances.

The battle for this nation's soul is far from concluded.

Man, he's really hitting the ground running, and every step is fire. A couple weeks ago I was begging for Canada's leadership to shut down U.S. negotiations until Dumpster acknowledged our sovereignty and repudiated his threats against it. And Trudeau was handling things pretty well, but no way he'd go that far.

Carney did it in on day 2. ✊

I think we might have found the only leader in the Western world that can outpace the orange clown.

Addendum: I first broached that "demand acknowledgement" move over a month ago.

It doesn't even need to be specifically targeting the U.S. Canada should require all media operating in Canada with a physical presence to have Canadian majority ownership/controlling interest. That is (I believe) enforceable as well as non-discriminatory and fully justifiable as a matter of national security.

This. Her priorities and values are transparent as baby oil. I'd use glass in the simile, but comparing her to anything that is neither oil nor gas would be quite a stretch.

The worst people on the planet are saving a nation by unambiguously showing Canadians what to reject. It's too early for me to feel relief, but the way things stand at the moment, national politics are mirroring my province's recent outcome in a way that I hadn't even dared to hope.

While there may be a nicer way to say it, I'm bothered by the downvotes you're getting. Fiscal conservatism is the motivated reasoning that bridges or abstracts values and logical steps people often cannot even consciously admit to themselves.

It's like how moralizing homelessness and feelings of disgust toward them protect oneself from the fear of becoming homeless, by manufacturing a distinction.

Nobody doesn't believe in spending money wisely and sustainably.

We're about one year into a constant deluge of off-season CPC-sponsored attack ads everywhere.

Well, apparently.

I need to go give the team behind uBlock Origin a hug, or a beer.

It's actually really handy when right-wing influencers tell Canadians not to listen to them.

You've got to be pretty deeply indoctrinated not to think that's an order of magnitude past shady.

It's dangerous to like a leader as much as I like this guy. There's much in his world view that inspires ambivalence. But then every actual move is just so on point that it's hard to ignore this nagging doubt -- because it's just too good to be true.

Like what's the absolute worst thing he's done so far? In my book it was scrapping the carbon tax; it was defusing something that could cost the election, in a way that can even be easily reverted, at a time when it's about the least important short-term concern.

I heard arguments about it in other spaces that made a lot of sense to me. Like a judge who ought to be able to visibly set their religion aside while exercising their authority, rather than signaling possible conflicts of interest in the very office such would compromise. I think I'm even on board with that reasoning. By that same reasoning, maybe it's appropriate to also restrict displays of religious affiliation by school staff.

But why students?

That's blatant cultural suppression and I cannot conceive a remotely coherent justification for it. And why the focus specifically on people showing their faces? Can you imagine if we mandated a certain amount of cleavage? How the fuck is this anybody's business?

This just has me re-evaluating the cultural protectionism/outgroup suppression I'd previously deemed adequately justified.

Long before Musk's true character became widely known, this was my primary reason not to get a Tesla. In fact, Tesla's focus on proprietary software and post-purchase access to vehicles marked the sharp end to my favorable opinion of both him and the company.

Back when he was selling his EV vision and struggling to get the roadster into production, it hadn't even occurred to me that someone with such ambitions would build a closed platform. It would just be so out of line with the values supposedly driving him.

Nowadays I think my best shot at getting the sort of EV I want is either doing my own conversion or finding some small operation producing kit cars. But I need a truck or at least something that can haul heavy trailer loads up long hills.

It's just another example of Canada letting the U.S. dictate our IP laws to their media moguls' benefit, for the sake of trade. These are the things Dumpster does not count in the balance of a deal yet presumes is entrenched even after reneging on that deal.

If the deal is ripped up, it should be ripped up entirely.

We're being gifted more freedom to make sure our own laws are working for us.

Oh I'm so sorry Canada isn't even more dependent on U.S. business nor vulnerable to their monopsonistic* agendas. You know what is on the table? Leaving that sheet of paper blank.

All Canada needs is a good deal on sale of the resources they need. 25% tariffs just sweeten any deal with the rest of the free-trade-loving world despite higher transportation overhead. It seems the U.S. doesn't want to compete using their natural geographic advantage, but rather just find more ways to exploit and abuse its trading partners. And why? Because their oligarchs are getting too fat and hungry for even the most powerful nation in the world to feed. Their looming debt collapse is entirely a demise of their own making. The U.S. has always made helping to feed that beast a cost of doing business. But at some point the cost outweighs the benefit.

And I'm starting to think, with some amazement, that there isn't just a way to survive these dark times. There's actually a path forward that could see a brighter, fairer world in our own lifetimes. We just have to starve the beast back into submission. If the U.S. were to outright collapse into a failed, fractured state, the impact on world order would be utterly catastrophic. WW3 is what's on the table. But there is still a softer landing within reach. If we can manage the transition by limiting it to a manageable pace and building up other friendly military powers, America will have successfully surrendered all of its surplus power and influence to its allies.

As the entire free world pivots away from doing business with the U.S. and instead strengthens ties with each other, there will no longer be one oligarchy in a trench coat dictating the free world's relationship with capital. Americans still have time to start realizing how utterly fucked they will be in this new isolationist frontier, but good for us if they don't. Some day we may see free trade deals getting made that require the U.S. to compromise their economic values, and comply with other nations' standards for tax, IP, and labor law. We could see an end to nations competing via subsidy and tax break (to say nothing of labor exploitation) for private investments.

So let me be among the first to most warmly and joyously welcome Dumpster's team to take their ball and go home. They can keep their starving oligarchs too.

Is this crazy talk?

*(Oh the irony...my browser's American English spell check doesn't think monopsonistic is even a word.)

I'll hazard a guess. It's because male culture and masculine values are fucked. Older men are lonely because they either cannot find friends, or already reached the conclusion it was time to both stop looking and lose the ones they had, for various reasons. Younger men left in a cultural vacuum are reinventing masculinity as a toxic caricature guided by the only affirming male role models they can find outside the home: social media influencers.

Meanwhile, the predominant message from the left, as observed in generalities and absent nuance, is all the ways having a Y chromosome makes you evil. With an apparent choice between self-flagellation and asserting a sense of inherent superiority as both an emotional shield and path to an in-group with shared values, I really can't say I'd choose any better in my younger, immature form.

So here we are, in 2025 where the battle of the sexes is now a political movement and even one that's quite happy to pick your side for you if you dare present ambiguously. We're just a little fashion subtlety away from wearing arm bands, either to declare for the feminists or the anti-woke, or just to dodge social conscription.

It can be for both reasons, and it won't matter how the administration spins it for their base. Starving the beast weakens it regardless of any backlash.

I've been pretty tuned into U.S. depravity and rightward slide since Dumpster's 2016 candidacy. I even attribute to him the final push that cured me of a religious fundamentalist upbringing. That sparked a process of re-evaluating everything. I'm pretty familiar with the contents of Project 2025, and aware of rumors that there's an unpublished part. I find the claims of a plot to deliberately implode the nation to build post-national techno-feudal societies disturbingly plausible.

I'm still utterly amazed at the pace of events flowing out of the current administration. I wouldn't put anything past the key players driving this movement. But the truly amazing part is how quickly faithfuls are soaking up new marching orders, and how weak, disorganized, and noncommittal the resistance is at seeing their nation entirely restructured into a blatant fascist dictatorship. Who would have guessed that America has so little backbone and no fight in them?