OTTAWA – A smug man from Canada wasted no time this morning chastising Americans for re-electing terrifying liar and felon Donald Trump, despite the fact that he plans to vote for terrifying liar and asshole Pierre Poilievre in the next Canadian election.
Matt Hunter, a 36-year-old barista, took time away from attending a Poilievre rally to rant about how stupid Americans were for falling for Trump’s fascist bullshit.
“I just can’t believe that someone could look at a petty asshole running on slogans, lies, and faux outrage and think, ‘Yeah, this guy will be good for the country,’” Hunter laughed, taking a quick second to repost an “Axe the Tax, Build the Homes, Fix the Budget, Stop the Crime” tweet on X. “It makes no sense. Luckily we up here in Canada have more common sense. Pierre says so.”
“When Poilievre becomes Prime Minister next year, he’s gonna stand up to Trump. They’re so different in ways that I can’t even describe. Don’t even ask me what those ways are. Just trust me, bro. He’ll bring Canada home again.”
Spot on.
This is Canada’s largest weakness: we put the bar at American stupidity, and anything marginally better gives us insufferable smugness.
I haven’t met anyone yet who was pro Trump and didn’t have a “fuck Trudeau” bumper sticker or flag or whatever.
But I do live in Alberta where there are just straight up genuinely people, in droves, that are pro trump antivax idiots.
The other day several people all in a group tried to convince me that electronic voting was unreliable and only hand counting votes could be relied on…
I love my province, but I feel an incredible sadness for most of the people that live here.
Electronic voting is an absolute security nightmare. As a software engineer, the relevant XKCD sums up my position nicely: https://xkcd.com/2030
As an engineer, you should know that no system is perfect and there are several trade-offs and threat models to consider. And electronic voting can’t be discussed in a vacuum, but measured against existing voting systems which are also full of their own kinds of issues and risks.
Trust the engineers.in the actual software domain then, electronic voting is a terrible idea. Not because it cant be done well, but because it wont be done well.
The counting machines are more than sufficient.
There’s no shortage of those kinds here in Ontario. I’m sure it’s not nearly as many, but I’m only trying to point out that, it’s not a uniquely Alberta phenomenon.
It genuinely confuses me that people can have their whole identity be defined by “Trump good, Trudeau bad”
Are people really this uninteresting? I mean, I have opinions on politics, even US politics. I don’t feel strongly enough about any of them to put a bumper sticker about it on my car, nevermind buy or fly a flag about any of it. I don’t even put political signs on my lawn (nor do I allow anyone else to). I just have so much going on that I can’t be arsed to advertise that I even have an opinion on what’s going on in politics.
I try to always vote, and show up for every election, unless there’s a very good reason why I can’t (like being very ill, injured, hospitalized, etc). But I am not my political views, and I can’t understand people that build their identity around a politician. Surely something else you do is important? No? Okay then.
Pierre Pollievres inevitable upcoming victory is just depressing as shit. I hope Quebec votes bloc just for the middle finger factor, but the sad truth is they will probably break conservative too.
I normally vote NDP even though where I live is usually a Liberal stronghold, but this time I’m tempted to vote Bloc.
As much as the public sentiment is against Trudeau, voting for whoever can best prevent a Conservative majority is my pragmatic protest vote.
ABC is always my vote (that means green for me). This could actually be quite the opportunity for NDP/green to pick up seats. If Mr.PP really steps in it andloses support and NDP gets off their ass and gains support it wouldn’t be totally impossible to have some freaky 5-way power struggle. Probably wishful thinking, but I think with a lot of coordination and luck it could happen
If there was a Bloc rep in my Ontario riding I would be carefully considering them vs my own NDP rep.
It’s surprising that no other province or group of provinces ever created their own version of the Bloc…
If you’re in a region where it might go either way, vote strategically to get anyone but conservatives in, if that’s the Bloc then so be it. I personally have always voted for them since I live somewhere where it’s either them or the Liberals and I believe in what the Bloc stands for, but remember, in the end they’re there to defend Quebec’s interests first and foremost and provincial policies impact you much more than federal ones and even if there’s a referendum at some point you can just vote against it if you’re not a separatist.
It’s fucking ridiculous that the only party with significant seats that doesn’t want to expand the tarsands also want to break up the country. Maybe Canada is too stupid to exist.
Canada is very much a collection of separate interests that banded together for pragmatic reasons. All this nationalist nonsense people espouse is entirely manufactured. The idea that there even SHOULD be a national identity is bullshit. There should absolutely be a way for groups to leave again when it is no longer in their pragmatic interest to stay.
I’ve learned from previous elections (and possibly too late) that I shouldn’t be voting “strategically”. If does the same as I do then we’ll keep sliding right l,like the US.
Vote for what you believe in and let the party politics follow. Anything is a betrayal to yourself. Don’t feel bad for voting for the unlikely candidate - especially if you’ve already voted for election reform.
The only thing I can hope is that after seeing Trump’s disaster south of the border people steer away from Poilievre.
However at this point I’m terrified they’ll actually embrace it and prove we’re no better than they are.
Don’t worry we in Germany have the same Problem. According to the polls trump would have gotten like 15% here, but our conservatives and straight up fascists are at about 50%.
