My red line would be if Trump banned certain groups of American citizens from leaving the country or traveling within it, froze the bank accounts of peaceful protesters or demanded multi-year sentences for the same, or excluded a large and identifiable group of American citizens from employment, education, or unemployment Insurance.
Upon further consideration, a better answer is to reject your premise altogether. Sensible Canadian immigration, economic, criminal, and cultural policy would have far more impact on Canada than anything Trump is likely to do or not do.
The most material impact of Trump in Canada is that our elite - politicians, corporate leaders, officials, judges, media, academia - take all their cues from American discourse. If you people just spent less time consuming American media and more time thinking about your own country, we'd all be better off.
Haha! "The reason why we should obsess about Trump is that we obsess about Trump" isn't completely ridiculous, but it could also apply to pretty much anything.
But that's always true and thus isn't a Trump phenomenon. So then this should always apply and an article like this can be written every year. Or 6 months if you need to fill space.
A more serious answer would be that I will start to worry when Trump is impairing the constitutional rights of citizens. Claims that he is infringing on the powers of bureaucrats (who are supposed to be responsible to the President as head of the executive), governing Washington DC (the federal district), or enforcing immigration law by removing the millions lawlessly admitted by the previous administration, don't move me. Including them in the article weakens the author's case.
good lord you all gotta get over that deal in Ottawa. It happened, JT folded, most mandates were dropped soon after, the country got really unhappy about the Emergency Act. You all did gain a net victory. Going on ad naseum about it with any decision a liberal government makes, while defending massive over reach by Trump, just makes your movement look ridiculous.
I'm so sick of hearing / talking about the convoy, and I'm more or less pro-convoy.
Some people still rage and seethe at the very mention of the protest in Ottawa now over 3 years ago, twisting themselves into knots to nitpick and goalpost-move until a reasonably successful right-wing protest with no major injuries or non-superficial property damage becomes a traitorous and evil insurrection.
On the other hand there are those who are unwilling to acknowledge that getting arrested is part of the game when you do civil disobedience, and just because the government was too incompetent to do it for three weeks, means it's somehow wrong for the remaining protesters to be rounded up at the end or suffer any consequences for staying put for way, way too long. Invoking the EA was bullshit but ultimately it didn't do that much.
There are other nuances but fuck it, as stated I'm sick of this goddamn topic.
It was a major news event and will be remembered by future Canadian historians, to the extent there will be such a thing. But. Agree broadly with your comments above. Not entirely with how you've described it, but in how you've articulated how people are zoomed in on it. I don't want to say this rudely to anyone, but the convoy (and the pandemic more broadly) broke some brains in a pretty permanent way, it seems, and they can't stop litigating it. Over and over. It's not that far off from PTSD. A lot of people shy away from what traumatized them. Some become stuck in loops reliving it.
I would be happy to put it to bed. The government merely needs to acknowledge that the Emergencies Act, as applied, was unconstitutional and make reparations. But they wont, in spite of the ruling by the judicial branch of the LPC, and so it remains unfinished.
Lol, so throwing under the bus a large portion of your compatriots - to some of whom the consequences were real and long-lasting, not to say life-destroying - is OK, as long as things are back to "normal"?
Have you ever heard of the concept of accountability?
Wait until the roles are inevitably reversed and you're now the part of the "fringe minority with unacceptable views".
It’s a place to discuss the content of the article, which usually won’t be the convoy. And yet for some people it always turns into arguing about the convoy. Stop.
Buzz kill! Did you ever “Stop” to think it might be fun for some people to argue endlessly about the convoy? Kind of like Leafs fans ranting endlessly about Kerry Fraser’s infamous missed high sticking call? Seriously it was 1993! Stop it! Of course you don’t want to, you can’t - justice has never been served! And the Leafs have never come close again… (and never will)
I’ll take your point on it not being the point of the column. But I stand by my point.
Great column btw. The quality of the comment section right now is a testament to it.
I take issue with the entire premise of the column and here's how I would reframe it: both left and right have been in the last 50+ years increasingly implementing more liberticide policies, each taking their turn when they're in power.
So it's not a matter of whether the US is becoming fascist, but how authoritarian it's become, because let's be honest fascist and commies are cut from the same cloth, and let's not forget that the Nazi were a socialist party. Their means may differ slightly (in who owns the means of production), but the ends are largely the same.
So if we start from the premise of whether the US have become more authoritarian over the decades, then the answer is a resounding and unequivocal yes.
From W's patriot act's overreach, to Obama's drone bombing of innocent children and civilians, to Biden's lockdowns and vaccine mandates, to whatever Trump is currently doing, I don't think one can claim that Trump - as authoritarian as he may be - is any worse than any of his predecessors, and even likely better on many policies.
While no conspiracist, I've been paying attention for the last 25 years or so, living in France, the US and Canada in that period, to how much freedom we're losing on a daily basis, and it's pretty clear to me that we're being slow boiled, like the proverbial frog - into a techno-authoritarian-utopia that's being facilitated by the omnipresent ability (and our own willing acceptance) to spy on each of us through our means of communications.
Trump might be the latest incarnation of that authoritarian power, but he's not the first and won't be the last.
But then again, so were the Bushes, Clinton, Obama and Biden. As well as Trudeau, every French president since Pompidou, and many other leaders around the world, since WWII.
So take this as you may, but the only way out is to plan for a quick and painless escape, in case that is ever needed.
"Let's not forget that the Nazi were a socialist party." No. Hitler's National Socialists weren't socialists. They were a fascist, bllod and soil nationalist party that used the word 'socialist' to attract workers.
Perhaps they were socialists in name only, but fascists and commies are functionally the same, the point on the horseshoe where left and right are so close that they are virtually indistinguishable. As I wrote above, different means, same ends.
In today's terms, we see the same thing happening with the woke left and the woke right, they fight different enemies, but the result is that both are intolerant, reactionary, racist, brainwashed assholes.
Though the commies did kill a whole lot more people, so one could say that they were "better" at it.
Peace/violence aren't a binary where if it wasn't one, it must be the other. See e.g. R v AF-S, 2015 ONCJ 206 at para 24, where the judge found that although certain acts weren't violent, they were nonetheless belligerent: "completely inappropriate, disrespectful, disruptive and deserving of disciplinary sanction".
This routine convoy advocates do where they frame it as "there they were minding their own business not technically assaulting anybody..." has no persuasive value. These people inter alia held up several billion dollars in international trade flow. A few them having their bank accounts temporarily frozen was a remarkably low-impact "finding out" phase.
I'm not angry. Condemnation does not require anger, and I respectfully invite you to consider the consequences on one's political worldview of conflating the two.
While some problems may have been aggravated by the bozo down south, all of our problems are due to our own governments' inaction. 15,000 people dying from fentanyl overdoses per year. 25,000 dying while waiting for treatment per year. The economy was collapsing before the US election. Services are crap yet the deficit is going through the roof. Homelessness, housing, immigration.
The feds and provinces are just sitting, hoping our problems solve themselves or are actively making them worse.
But yes, it is important to blame outside forces for all of our problems because the Liberals will soon need to win another election.
Reduce immigration, freeing up employment and housing for those that can rejoin the workforce. Public funding for private mental health or substance care or for those who cannot, yet. (I know private care is controversial. I believe public care is beyond redemption. Your opinion may differ).
I could argue that Canada has slipped into fascism. Seven years for criticizing the government vs. 18 months for sexually assaulting a young boy. The Edmonton School Board banning Ayn Rand and Margaret Atwood.
Let’s dive down this rabbit hole? Please provide one specific point of reference? I can’t wait for the “book banning” garbage to be trotted out… I have elementary aged children in AB. I have had my grade 1 daughter bring home an extremely inappropriate book. The EPSB response here has been shameful. Get the activist garbage out of elementary schools. If thats your point - happy to have the argument as someone who has skin in the game.
If not - I’m genuinely curious. Maybe I’m missing something.
Jerry, you all look like fools going on about the maximum sentence possible that Lich could get. Its very rare anywhere in our system someone gets nailed with a maximum sentence. She will not get 7 years in prison. Either your movement seek "truth" or you don't because i keep seeing a lot of BS. And a school keeping books out of its library is not facism. It isnt the government banning a book from all of society (then you would have a point).
Fine Matt, but aren't you getting tired of comments comparing a phantom maximum sentence that hasn't been administered yet, and will never happen, to some vile pedophile that actually got sentenced? There is no intellectual honestly in that. Anyways, you win, ill move on with my day.
I find most comments equally tiring, but the ones that really tire me out are the ones where I’m forced to intervene because people keep mistaking the comment threads of The Line for Twitter, and want to spend all their time arguing with people here. That’s bad for my business, and I have to do something about that, and it’s exhausting.
I think it will come down to him willfully ignoring a supreme court ruling. Congress has already failed to check his overreach. The lower judges blocking him can rightly be called activist. But his hand picked supreme court denying him will anger him. And I still have faith that they will choose appropriately. I am pleasantly surprised Amy Coney Barrett takes her job much more seriously than I would have thought.
There was a similar case with President Andrew Jackson allegedly ignoring the Supreme Court in a decision involving Indian lands. A conclusion enunciated by a commentator was that the U.S. courts are always going to be limited in their authority because they're totally dependent on the political branches (that is, Congress and the executive) for enforcement. As Hamilton pointed out in Federalist 78, Congress controls the money, and the President controls the military and bureaucracy; the courts have no such intrinsic powers beyond their ability to persuade.
Canada has no such issues. The “notwithstanding clause” allows Canadian governments to do pretty much as they please.
Matt, I love The Line. But are you serious with this line re solid information from the White House/MSP about the health of the President- "(And yes, the Biden folks get some of that blame). Come on man! Some of the blame?? Not sure if you have seen Weekend at Bernie's but the "Biden folks" were ready to run Bernie for re-election of the President of the United States!!
Remember that Trump has already proven that he's not to be trusted regarding his health. In his first presidential campaign, he dictated a letter from his personal physician declaring himself to be "the healthiest person ever to run for president!"
His height and weight were misreported by White House physician (and now Republican Congressman) Ronny Jackson many times during that first term, giving him the BMI of a muscled athlete instead of what we can plainly see to be an obese man who doesn't exercise and binges on McDonald's.
In 2020, he hid the severity of his COVID despite being in severe respiratory distress that required him to be medevaced to critical care.
Since 2020, his language skills have been deteriorating in public, he's been moving slower, has unexplained bruises on his hands and has swollen ankles. Are those signs that he's dying? Who knows? However, it's evident that you probably shouldn't trust Trump or his people to tell you the truth.
So George, I guess where we are at is that you can't trust the Democrats to tell the truth (Bernie aka Biden), we can't trust Republican's to tell the truth and we can't trust the MSP to tell the truth. Which is pretty much where I thought we were before I read Matt's column. Tragically, I don't see much difference in Canada. Which is why trust in Government and institutions is at an all time low.
The blame really goes to Biden and his inner circle, and Trump and his inner circle. Those two men are far more alike in personality than most Democrats or Republicans are comfortable admitting: thin skinned, petty, chips in shoulders, arrogant, stubborn, and nowhere near as smart as they think.
The nearest solution to hand is start electing people of better character. It's not a high bar to surmount: Obama, George W Bush, George HW Bush, Reagan, Carter, and Ford all had better character than these last two. And quit blaming the institutions when it's voters who select morally unfit people to run them.
Did you guys not make it to the point where I wrote "The Line does not intend to turn itself into a journal documenting the ebbing and flowing of American democracy. That’s not what we do. We’ve got our own country to worry about, and it is indeed a country with a great many problems that require serious contemplation," or did you just not believe me?
I do believe you. However, this sentence " We’ve got our own country to worry about, and it is indeed a country with a great many problems that require serious contemplation ", and other sentences with a similar meaning need to be drummed and bagpiped out loudly and repeatedly into the public space, as a contrast to the current "Liberal" Pablum.
I did get to that point. But I've read far too much about Trump in the Line of late. And I will mention my exasperation every time. Maybe you'll get tired of my exasperation and stop writing about Trump. A girl can always hope, can't she?
In the three-month period of June, July and August, there was one (1) article that was focused specifically on Trump. And one (1) dispatch where he was the main item.
The substack app doesn't seem to support article search, but I suspect the word "Trump" appears in the majority of Line postings this year, and none of them are about bridge, whist, or euchre.
I suspect you’re right. But you’re more than smart enough to understand that a reference to a person does not make the article about a person. Any more than someone could infer that our conversation today is about euchre, or bridge.
B- you can’t help but talk about Trump to a large degree. He’s the elephant we’re sleeping with, and he’s kicking under the sheets. It’s hard not to address it. It impacts Canada immensely.
Good question. Mine would be drawn next year if he invokes yet another emergency that would interfere with the midterm elections. You would then know if you had hit the bottom of the slippery slope.
Mr. Graff lost all credibility when he referred to two incompetent Governors as being "clear eyed". California is a mess. How many Palisades houses have been built (none)? How is that high speed railway (no track laid after 17 years and 11.2 billion). Highest electricity prices in the US, with 60 percent of auto accidents being hit and runs, due to illegals. MediCal now rivils Canada. Onto Illinois, but you get my point. It is crazy the high crime in DC needed the National Guard but people are now enjoying the USA from the 60s and 70s, going out for supper and walking home safely. DC is a federal city and within his jurisdiction. People have to stop misplacing hyperbolic speech for intention. You know what fascism is? How about Democratic states taking Trump off the ballot, so that he could not even run again? How about 94 indictments in New York, changing limitation date laws for Trump, having a DA campaign to take him down? Dems getting a little payback eh? I will admit claiming the tariffs as national security was specious, but wow, to see a government move quickly was impressive and the US economy is rolling. My red line? Telling the population they cannot work, or play or attend their elderly parents' funeral unless they are vaccinated. As O'Brien told Winston (1984) , he who controls the present, controls the past. That is a red line, when Big Brother starts to rewrite the past, by ripping down statues, removing books, and the like, and over funds the state broadcaster to compete with, and put out of business, private industry (Corus hanging by a thread and Bell does not want CTV News either) ....
As David Frum said, on the authoritarian train, there are a lot of stops before it reaches Hitler Station. Many people view the start of authoritarian regimes as “Great! They’re getting things done and cleaning house!”
My red line is when the US military or any peace officer is asked to take an oath of allegiance to the President or anybody else instead of the constitution. Kind of like in Canada where the allegiance is to the king / governor general?. Not sure to whom or what members of parliament political parties swear allegiance to stay in caucus.
The excessive “sky is falling” rhetoric about the US is somewhere between a red herring and an excuse for “mañana” intellectual laziness.
While we chatter endlessly about the quantity and color of the lint in the President’s belly button, the people’s republic of China is spending billions acquiring control of Canada’s natural resources not to mention its documented impact on the political process.
For the record, *I've* been in an absolute tizzy over American fascism since the last election since it was established that A) despite pretty clear language in the 25th Amendment, there is clearly no mechanism in the US to prevent an insurrectionist from being removed from consideration as a legal candidate for office and B) since DJT had two active criminal cases before the courts pre-election, one of which was thrown out despite strong evidence, the other in which he was found *guilty* and given no punishment whatsoever. These were all VERY bad signs of things to come.
Rather than talk about the tipping point of the Southern Dumpster Fire, I am instead going to talk about Canada, and where I felt Justin Trudeau lost the plot. I was firmly pro-vaxx the entire pandemic and felt anti-vaxxers were worse than ignorant, they were a danger to public safety. That said, the moment JT invoked the modern incarnation of the War Measures Act and started freezing *bank accounts* of the misguided Trucker protest, that was the moment he crossed the line imho. It was a brutally ham-handed and fascist move against protestors he vocally disagreed with and it was at that point I knew he had to go.
In my opinion, the USA has had *dozens* of these red flag moments since Don's second term. My predictions of where the US is headed are sufficiently grim that even like-minded people believe I am comedically exaggerating. When the president started his talk about the "51st state" that is the closest I have been in my life to purchasing a gun. The fact that American invasion has gone from unthinkable to possible is a sure sign at how far the republic has fallen
You lasted longer than I did. I started questioning when all of else were told to avoid each other, but the politicians went to some climate conference. And when we still told to self-isolate but encouraged to participate in the BLM "gatherings," I just decided that my government and health authority was absolutely not to be trusted that my family and I would have to manage out pandemic response on our own (which is essentially what I was doing in early 2020 before the government was even started to take the pandemic seriously.) Oh, and the Portapique response and the JT's attempt to get carte blanche spending put in place didn't help.
Hey, if sacrificing Justin to a deadly illness is what it takes to end climate change, I will grudgingly accept his fate
Seriously though, there's a difference between being a fascist and being a dumbass, though I can see how he had enough of one to appear to be the other.
There was no shortage of voices during the lockdown claiming the whole thing was a government plot to "seize control of our lives". My argument is that is what the government had *before* the pandemic. The measures we saw were the government *losing* control, not gaining it. Your proof is our present; here we are, post-pandemic... does the government have more power than it had before the lockdown? Or about the same?
Depends. They have less power and control over drug addicts, actual criminals and more control over bank accounts, private information, law-abiding gun owners, etc. But the reality is, we don't actually know the level of control they have over certain things, and they aren't going to tell us.
Was Carney ok because he wasn't technically in charge at the time, despite agreeing with everything Trudeau did about the Convoy, or was he also an unacceptable choice for pm?
I am waiting to judge Carney on how he acts as PM, although I had my concerns about him way back when he was Gov of the B of C. I never did agree with his choice to lower interest rates to the point he did and keep them artificially low for so long. And I don't trust him because I feel he's got a lot of conflicts of interest. But so far, I haven't had much of an opinion of his prime ministership until today, when I saw this clip https://x.com/CoffeyTimeNews/status/1962564696348700679 I'm not impressed.
The PMO wanted the trucker protest. Health Canada, through Border Services, declared that unvaccinated truckers would not have to isolate after crossing into Canada. The PMO overrode that decision, despite knowing a protest had been brewing.
I doubt he was thinking about truckers at all. Trudeau was trying to win re-election, he figured COVID response was his issue, and he was running out of ways to demonstrate his commitment to action. So, he overreached on vaccine passports, just like he overreached on firearm bans.
Felon47 is already well into fascism in only a few short months in office. His unilateral firing of all the main pillars of the country with his sycophant loyalists (FBI, CIA, Dept of Defense, etc ++) his disregard for all the checks and balances of presidential power, his pardoning of insurrectionists, his abuse of emergency powers for non-emergency issues, his clear and open use of bribes/meme coins/donations to enrich himself, his use of the military against its own people, his endless threats to people in leadership (the Fed, state governers, etc). His illegal kidnapping and deportation of anyone he chooses to be 'illegal' without due process.
There is nothing subtle here, this is pure fascism.
Jen's paragraph, which begins with "..what we're going to see is a lot of people spending the next few years intellectually justifying increasingly unjustifiable policy decisions and statements because they're so locked into the Trump train psychologically that they're going to be unable to pull back and oppose him when necessary."
Can anyone please describe for me all the ways that this is ANY different whatsoever than the rise, heyday, and eventual fall of the 'Woke' narrative...?
Are we trying to pretend that no one was ideologically captured by that wave, and somehow found themselves "intellectually justifying increasingly unjustifiable policy decisions" as progressives....?
In the end, ANY narrative becomes a parody of itself. The Line has spilled a lot of ink on the concept of the political pendulum, so one would think you guys would recognise it for what it is.
As for me, I KNOW America is not currently a fascist country, because people are still allowed to publicly scream Fascist (and Nazi) directly AT politicians, without being arrested or shot. There are no political prisoners in America, nor will there be. The system won't allow it.
Well, yes, but personally I am not willing to be too optimistic. We must face the fact that a great many people are incorrigibly shallow and unable to consider the wider perspective, that is, are incorrigibly stupid; in any country, any society.
You correctly point put the recent and still going strong in too many institutions, 'wokeism' .
Graff is right. David Frum, Andrew Coyne, J.V. Last, and others have made similar calls. The only guardrails that haven't fallen are the ones Trump hasn't bothered to tap. That's why I think it's a Potemkin democracy. Just today, D.C. Mayor Bowser (D) welcomed Trump's federal troops staying indefinitely, and Trump has said troops will be going into Baltimore and Chicago despite a judge ruling he broke the law sending them LA.. I completely agree that the word 'fascist' has been used so often it's lost its power to shock, but there has been nothing approaching this in the US since the 1850s.
It's true Trump doesn't have a consistent ideology, but the Project 2025 folks he's surrounded himself with do, and that is entirely consistent with Trump's refusal to be constrained by anyone, anywhere, anytime. He has always wanted total power: Does it matter if it's not in pursuit of any ideological goal?
Trump has given Isabel van Brugen (a major election denialist) America's top election integrity job and does anyone think Republican states won't do what almost happened in 2020? (Vance has already said he'd accept the fake elector stunt that Pence refused.) Surely people are fooling themselves if they don't think ICE will be at Democratic polling places, just as they've already shown up at Latino markets and job depots. Trump has also already declared a series of obviously fake national emergencies to justify tariffs, deportations, and sending the National Guard into cities run by Black mayors. (And troops from red states to police blue states!) Does anyone think he won't be calling a national emergency if any of the communities he's poking respond? (He wanted to shoot demonstrators during the George Floyd protests/riots.)
Unidentified, masked ICE agents (soon to be 80,000 strong) picking up people off the street and holding them for days without letting them contact lawyers or family -- and the creation of 100,000 concentration/.detention spaces by Christmas -- is already way past red lines. It's essentially a police state for brown people who need to have their papers at all times, American or not.
We can't say something's happened till it's happened, but we can ask ourselves: Is there any reason that Trump won't continue to do what he's been doing just judt seven months, or that he's change his modus operandi: Like, why would he? especially when to do so would risk losing Congress?
Another writer worth following is Timothy Snyder. I remember being in Dachau the morning after Trump won in 2016 and the guide describing the process by which Hitler took power and the undermining of state and other institutions (the guide wisely avoided any comments on Trump). But the parallels are uncomfortable and again Snyder has captured the steps well. Personal redline: out daughter lives and works in the USA and thus anything that threatens her personal security would be top on my list.
My issue with Snyder, who I agree is an astute commentator, is that in On Tyranny he focuses on the authoritarianism of the ideological right without adequately acknowledging the parallel imperatives of the ideological left. Until people are willing to acknowledge that democracy's greatest threats are ideological extremists, period (not only those on the 'other' side), we're going to see increasingly extremist political movements holding sway.
Valid observation, although I think for the moment the main concern these days is more with respect to the authoritarian right rather than the authoritarian left. Agree though on the risks of polarization around different extremisms.
Agreed that the ideological right is the biggest and most immediate threat to democracy in the US right now -- with many of its loudest adherents insisting that the US is not meant to be a democracy at all. Constitution, what?
But it would be a mistake to deprecate the damage the ideological left does to democracy, and to pretend that the ideological left's impulses are any less authoritarian.
My point -- and a point I wish Snyder had emphasized -- is that authoritarian movements are the problem, regardless how they justify themselves.
“Donald Trump is so politically incoherent that it’s hard to assign to him any particular ideology or -ism. Fascist leaders have typically operated within a consistent worldview.”
This is a key distinction, though it may be semantic. Trump is authoritarian, probably along the lines of Xi, funny enough, or maybe Porfirio Diaz in early 1900s Mexico. Unlikely to become Hitler. Trump strikes me as a middle eastern dictator. Lots of graft, democratic backsliding, going after political enemies, but not the scale of the Nazis et al. Which isn’t good, to be clear.
Those would be my red lines. If we start to see a coherency, a paramilitary organization swearing loyalty to Trump, etc., then I’ll use the F word.
Also I’m still struck that many of Trumps authoritarian impulses and actions aren’t necessarily distinct among his presidential colleagues. Again, this isn’t a defence of Trump or optimism about the course of American democracy, just an observation about the republic.
I’m only reading the comments this time to see if they would be as predictable as foretold on the podcast. Short answer, yes.
I’m going to perform some magic for a few that have commented so far. I think you’ll be amazed.
I am capable of believing that woke was, or became, a fundamentally illiberal movement while also believing that putting the military into exclusively blue cities, prosecuting those you don’t like and pardoning or not prosecuting those that you do (or who have paid you through your own meme-coin), firing the head of the statistical agency because you don’t like their stats, ignoring due process, and, oh right, inciting an insurrection are all signs of, at the very least, of a wannabe fascist.
Furthermore, I’m capable of believing that, as someone who is a big fan of liberal democracy, illiberalism is bad no matter which side goes down that path.
Are you not amazed?
I can also believe that the Trudeau government went too far with their vaccine mandates and that turning the center of the capital into a lawless zone was really bad. I am also capable of not turning every comment board into a relitigation of covid mandates as I’m not a keyboard warrior who sunshine has never touched believing my every keystroke is equivalent to Mel Gibson shouting “freedom” in front of the troops before battle.
My red line would be if Trump banned certain groups of American citizens from leaving the country or traveling within it, froze the bank accounts of peaceful protesters or demanded multi-year sentences for the same, or excluded a large and identifiable group of American citizens from employment, education, or unemployment Insurance.
Upon further consideration, a better answer is to reject your premise altogether. Sensible Canadian immigration, economic, criminal, and cultural policy would have far more impact on Canada than anything Trump is likely to do or not do.
The most material impact of Trump in Canada is that our elite - politicians, corporate leaders, officials, judges, media, academia - take all their cues from American discourse. If you people just spent less time consuming American media and more time thinking about your own country, we'd all be better off.
You've correctly identified why you're wrong.
Haha! "The reason why we should obsess about Trump is that we obsess about Trump" isn't completely ridiculous, but it could also apply to pretty much anything.
I like the way I said it better.
But that's always true and thus isn't a Trump phenomenon. So then this should always apply and an article like this can be written every year. Or 6 months if you need to fill space.
A more serious answer would be that I will start to worry when Trump is impairing the constitutional rights of citizens. Claims that he is infringing on the powers of bureaucrats (who are supposed to be responsible to the President as head of the executive), governing Washington DC (the federal district), or enforcing immigration law by removing the millions lawlessly admitted by the previous administration, don't move me. Including them in the article weakens the author's case.
good lord you all gotta get over that deal in Ottawa. It happened, JT folded, most mandates were dropped soon after, the country got really unhappy about the Emergency Act. You all did gain a net victory. Going on ad naseum about it with any decision a liberal government makes, while defending massive over reach by Trump, just makes your movement look ridiculous.
I'm so sick of hearing / talking about the convoy, and I'm more or less pro-convoy.
Some people still rage and seethe at the very mention of the protest in Ottawa now over 3 years ago, twisting themselves into knots to nitpick and goalpost-move until a reasonably successful right-wing protest with no major injuries or non-superficial property damage becomes a traitorous and evil insurrection.
On the other hand there are those who are unwilling to acknowledge that getting arrested is part of the game when you do civil disobedience, and just because the government was too incompetent to do it for three weeks, means it's somehow wrong for the remaining protesters to be rounded up at the end or suffer any consequences for staying put for way, way too long. Invoking the EA was bullshit but ultimately it didn't do that much.
There are other nuances but fuck it, as stated I'm sick of this goddamn topic.
It was a major news event and will be remembered by future Canadian historians, to the extent there will be such a thing. But. Agree broadly with your comments above. Not entirely with how you've described it, but in how you've articulated how people are zoomed in on it. I don't want to say this rudely to anyone, but the convoy (and the pandemic more broadly) broke some brains in a pretty permanent way, it seems, and they can't stop litigating it. Over and over. It's not that far off from PTSD. A lot of people shy away from what traumatized them. Some become stuck in loops reliving it.
This is so true.
I would be happy to put it to bed. The government merely needs to acknowledge that the Emergencies Act, as applied, was unconstitutional and make reparations. But they wont, in spite of the ruling by the judicial branch of the LPC, and so it remains unfinished.
I'm sympathetic, but I'm also... tired.
I'm raising it here mainly to pooh pooh hyperventilation about American fascism.
Lol, so throwing under the bus a large portion of your compatriots - to some of whom the consequences were real and long-lasting, not to say life-destroying - is OK, as long as things are back to "normal"?
Have you ever heard of the concept of accountability?
Wait until the roles are inevitably reversed and you're now the part of the "fringe minority with unacceptable views".
Stop.
So making a point is no longer allowed on the line?
What is the comment section for then?
It’s a place to discuss the content of the article, which usually won’t be the convoy. And yet for some people it always turns into arguing about the convoy. Stop.
Buzz kill! Did you ever “Stop” to think it might be fun for some people to argue endlessly about the convoy? Kind of like Leafs fans ranting endlessly about Kerry Fraser’s infamous missed high sticking call? Seriously it was 1993! Stop it! Of course you don’t want to, you can’t - justice has never been served! And the Leafs have never come close again… (and never will)
I’ll take your point on it not being the point of the column. But I stand by my point.
Great column btw. The quality of the comment section right now is a testament to it.
Fair enough.
I see what you just did there. Well played sir.
I take issue with the entire premise of the column and here's how I would reframe it: both left and right have been in the last 50+ years increasingly implementing more liberticide policies, each taking their turn when they're in power.
So it's not a matter of whether the US is becoming fascist, but how authoritarian it's become, because let's be honest fascist and commies are cut from the same cloth, and let's not forget that the Nazi were a socialist party. Their means may differ slightly (in who owns the means of production), but the ends are largely the same.
So if we start from the premise of whether the US have become more authoritarian over the decades, then the answer is a resounding and unequivocal yes.
From W's patriot act's overreach, to Obama's drone bombing of innocent children and civilians, to Biden's lockdowns and vaccine mandates, to whatever Trump is currently doing, I don't think one can claim that Trump - as authoritarian as he may be - is any worse than any of his predecessors, and even likely better on many policies.
While no conspiracist, I've been paying attention for the last 25 years or so, living in France, the US and Canada in that period, to how much freedom we're losing on a daily basis, and it's pretty clear to me that we're being slow boiled, like the proverbial frog - into a techno-authoritarian-utopia that's being facilitated by the omnipresent ability (and our own willing acceptance) to spy on each of us through our means of communications.
Trump might be the latest incarnation of that authoritarian power, but he's not the first and won't be the last.
But then again, so were the Bushes, Clinton, Obama and Biden. As well as Trudeau, every French president since Pompidou, and many other leaders around the world, since WWII.
So take this as you may, but the only way out is to plan for a quick and painless escape, in case that is ever needed.
"Let's not forget that the Nazi were a socialist party." No. Hitler's National Socialists weren't socialists. They were a fascist, bllod and soil nationalist party that used the word 'socialist' to attract workers.
Perhaps they were socialists in name only, but fascists and commies are functionally the same, the point on the horseshoe where left and right are so close that they are virtually indistinguishable. As I wrote above, different means, same ends.
In today's terms, we see the same thing happening with the woke left and the woke right, they fight different enemies, but the result is that both are intolerant, reactionary, racist, brainwashed assholes.
Though the commies did kill a whole lot more people, so one could say that they were "better" at it.
Armed men closing the border to international trade is not "peaceful protest", regardless of whether they also set up a bouncy castle.
"I've re-defined violence because I won't accept that a group I hate protested peacefully"
Peace/violence aren't a binary where if it wasn't one, it must be the other. See e.g. R v AF-S, 2015 ONCJ 206 at para 24, where the judge found that although certain acts weren't violent, they were nonetheless belligerent: "completely inappropriate, disrespectful, disruptive and deserving of disciplinary sanction".
This routine convoy advocates do where they frame it as "there they were minding their own business not technically assaulting anybody..." has no persuasive value. These people inter alia held up several billion dollars in international trade flow. A few them having their bank accounts temporarily frozen was a remarkably low-impact "finding out" phase.
Consider why you are coming up with complex reasons to remain viscerally angry about this 3.5 years later.
I'm not angry. Condemnation does not require anger, and I respectfully invite you to consider the consequences on one's political worldview of conflating the two.
While some problems may have been aggravated by the bozo down south, all of our problems are due to our own governments' inaction. 15,000 people dying from fentanyl overdoses per year. 25,000 dying while waiting for treatment per year. The economy was collapsing before the US election. Services are crap yet the deficit is going through the roof. Homelessness, housing, immigration.
The feds and provinces are just sitting, hoping our problems solve themselves or are actively making them worse.
But yes, it is important to blame outside forces for all of our problems because the Liberals will soon need to win another election.
If your stupid enough to take any kind of drugs you should realize it could have fentanyl in it
How would you solve the homeless problem, specifically?
Reduce immigration, freeing up employment and housing for those that can rejoin the workforce. Public funding for private mental health or substance care or for those who cannot, yet. (I know private care is controversial. I believe public care is beyond redemption. Your opinion may differ).
I could argue that Canada has slipped into fascism. Seven years for criticizing the government vs. 18 months for sexually assaulting a young boy. The Edmonton School Board banning Ayn Rand and Margaret Atwood.
Right on the point.
What is happening in this country matters as much as what's happening to our south at the moment.
If Canada has slipped into fascism I must have missed it.
Smith and the UCP are certainly trying hard to impose authoritarianism in AB, agreed.
Let’s dive down this rabbit hole? Please provide one specific point of reference? I can’t wait for the “book banning” garbage to be trotted out… I have elementary aged children in AB. I have had my grade 1 daughter bring home an extremely inappropriate book. The EPSB response here has been shameful. Get the activist garbage out of elementary schools. If thats your point - happy to have the argument as someone who has skin in the game.
If not - I’m genuinely curious. Maybe I’m missing something.
Jerry, you all look like fools going on about the maximum sentence possible that Lich could get. Its very rare anywhere in our system someone gets nailed with a maximum sentence. She will not get 7 years in prison. Either your movement seek "truth" or you don't because i keep seeing a lot of BS. And a school keeping books out of its library is not facism. It isnt the government banning a book from all of society (then you would have a point).
Take it down a notch, Dsvey.
Fine Matt, but aren't you getting tired of comments comparing a phantom maximum sentence that hasn't been administered yet, and will never happen, to some vile pedophile that actually got sentenced? There is no intellectual honestly in that. Anyways, you win, ill move on with my day.
I find most comments equally tiring, but the ones that really tire me out are the ones where I’m forced to intervene because people keep mistaking the comment threads of The Line for Twitter, and want to spend all their time arguing with people here. That’s bad for my business, and I have to do something about that, and it’s exhausting.
I think it will come down to him willfully ignoring a supreme court ruling. Congress has already failed to check his overreach. The lower judges blocking him can rightly be called activist. But his hand picked supreme court denying him will anger him. And I still have faith that they will choose appropriately. I am pleasantly surprised Amy Coney Barrett takes her job much more seriously than I would have thought.
There was a similar case with President Andrew Jackson allegedly ignoring the Supreme Court in a decision involving Indian lands. A conclusion enunciated by a commentator was that the U.S. courts are always going to be limited in their authority because they're totally dependent on the political branches (that is, Congress and the executive) for enforcement. As Hamilton pointed out in Federalist 78, Congress controls the money, and the President controls the military and bureaucracy; the courts have no such intrinsic powers beyond their ability to persuade.
Canada has no such issues. The “notwithstanding clause” allows Canadian governments to do pretty much as they please.
Biden ignored the supreme Court in the issue of the student loans. It wouldn't be any different this time.
I don't. Those tariffs will stand, along with all the rest of his autocratic overreach. The Conservative justices want what he wants.
I actually think the Supreme Court will uphold the ruling. It will force Congress to act and you better believe they will vote for the tariffs.
Matt, I love The Line. But are you serious with this line re solid information from the White House/MSP about the health of the President- "(And yes, the Biden folks get some of that blame). Come on man! Some of the blame?? Not sure if you have seen Weekend at Bernie's but the "Biden folks" were ready to run Bernie for re-election of the President of the United States!!
The Biden folks get that blame, yes.
And I've seen BOTH Weekend at Bernie's.
Weekend at Bernie's sucked. Just saying.
Best not share your opinion of Star Trek.
Funny movies.
We can pivot this back to Star Trek: how about “Spock’s Brain” or “Patterns of Force”?
Remember that Trump has already proven that he's not to be trusted regarding his health. In his first presidential campaign, he dictated a letter from his personal physician declaring himself to be "the healthiest person ever to run for president!"
His height and weight were misreported by White House physician (and now Republican Congressman) Ronny Jackson many times during that first term, giving him the BMI of a muscled athlete instead of what we can plainly see to be an obese man who doesn't exercise and binges on McDonald's.
In 2020, he hid the severity of his COVID despite being in severe respiratory distress that required him to be medevaced to critical care.
Since 2020, his language skills have been deteriorating in public, he's been moving slower, has unexplained bruises on his hands and has swollen ankles. Are those signs that he's dying? Who knows? However, it's evident that you probably shouldn't trust Trump or his people to tell you the truth.
So George, I guess where we are at is that you can't trust the Democrats to tell the truth (Bernie aka Biden), we can't trust Republican's to tell the truth and we can't trust the MSP to tell the truth. Which is pretty much where I thought we were before I read Matt's column. Tragically, I don't see much difference in Canada. Which is why trust in Government and institutions is at an all time low.
The blame really goes to Biden and his inner circle, and Trump and his inner circle. Those two men are far more alike in personality than most Democrats or Republicans are comfortable admitting: thin skinned, petty, chips in shoulders, arrogant, stubborn, and nowhere near as smart as they think.
The nearest solution to hand is start electing people of better character. It's not a high bar to surmount: Obama, George W Bush, George HW Bush, Reagan, Carter, and Ford all had better character than these last two. And quit blaming the institutions when it's voters who select morally unfit people to run them.
I think we can still blame the institutions for turning elections into a choice between dogsh*t sandwiches.
It seems all politicians if their lips are moving you can't believe them.
A headline that is much closer to the reality is this :
What is happening in this country matters as much as what's happening to our south at the moment.
DO NOT GET DISTRACTED from the shyte that the Liberals a doing now and orchestrating for the future.
I think it's too late for that. They are distracted.
Did you guys not make it to the point where I wrote "The Line does not intend to turn itself into a journal documenting the ebbing and flowing of American democracy. That’s not what we do. We’ve got our own country to worry about, and it is indeed a country with a great many problems that require serious contemplation," or did you just not believe me?
I do believe you. However, this sentence " We’ve got our own country to worry about, and it is indeed a country with a great many problems that require serious contemplation ", and other sentences with a similar meaning need to be drummed and bagpiped out loudly and repeatedly into the public space, as a contrast to the current "Liberal" Pablum.
I did get to that point. But I've read far too much about Trump in the Line of late. And I will mention my exasperation every time. Maybe you'll get tired of my exasperation and stop writing about Trump. A girl can always hope, can't she?
In the three-month period of June, July and August, there was one (1) article that was focused specifically on Trump. And one (1) dispatch where he was the main item.
The girl should not hope for less than that, no.
The substack app doesn't seem to support article search, but I suspect the word "Trump" appears in the majority of Line postings this year, and none of them are about bridge, whist, or euchre.
I suspect you’re right. But you’re more than smart enough to understand that a reference to a person does not make the article about a person. Any more than someone could infer that our conversation today is about euchre, or bridge.
Yeah, it's hard to search, but I came up with August 17, 22, 27, 29 and September 2 without trying too hard 😂
You have to mention him he is the most threat to our country more so than covid.
okay
B- you can’t help but talk about Trump to a large degree. He’s the elephant we’re sleeping with, and he’s kicking under the sheets. It’s hard not to address it. It impacts Canada immensely.
Canada’s actions or inaction affects Canada more, however. The Liberals are lucky to have found another bogeyman.
I think both things are true
Good question. Mine would be drawn next year if he invokes yet another emergency that would interfere with the midterm elections. You would then know if you had hit the bottom of the slippery slope.
Or sooner than that!
Oh, very possibly. Wouldn't rule out anything. Especially when you start sending the Army into the streets.
Mr. Graff lost all credibility when he referred to two incompetent Governors as being "clear eyed". California is a mess. How many Palisades houses have been built (none)? How is that high speed railway (no track laid after 17 years and 11.2 billion). Highest electricity prices in the US, with 60 percent of auto accidents being hit and runs, due to illegals. MediCal now rivils Canada. Onto Illinois, but you get my point. It is crazy the high crime in DC needed the National Guard but people are now enjoying the USA from the 60s and 70s, going out for supper and walking home safely. DC is a federal city and within his jurisdiction. People have to stop misplacing hyperbolic speech for intention. You know what fascism is? How about Democratic states taking Trump off the ballot, so that he could not even run again? How about 94 indictments in New York, changing limitation date laws for Trump, having a DA campaign to take him down? Dems getting a little payback eh? I will admit claiming the tariffs as national security was specious, but wow, to see a government move quickly was impressive and the US economy is rolling. My red line? Telling the population they cannot work, or play or attend their elderly parents' funeral unless they are vaccinated. As O'Brien told Winston (1984) , he who controls the present, controls the past. That is a red line, when Big Brother starts to rewrite the past, by ripping down statues, removing books, and the like, and over funds the state broadcaster to compete with, and put out of business, private industry (Corus hanging by a thread and Bell does not want CTV News either) ....
Based on what are 60% of auto accidents hit and runs caused by illegals? There is nothing that supports your comments on DC either.
As David Frum said, on the authoritarian train, there are a lot of stops before it reaches Hitler Station. Many people view the start of authoritarian regimes as “Great! They’re getting things done and cleaning house!”
My red line is when the US military or any peace officer is asked to take an oath of allegiance to the President or anybody else instead of the constitution. Kind of like in Canada where the allegiance is to the king / governor general?. Not sure to whom or what members of parliament political parties swear allegiance to stay in caucus.
The excessive “sky is falling” rhetoric about the US is somewhere between a red herring and an excuse for “mañana” intellectual laziness.
While we chatter endlessly about the quantity and color of the lint in the President’s belly button, the people’s republic of China is spending billions acquiring control of Canada’s natural resources not to mention its documented impact on the political process.
For the record, *I've* been in an absolute tizzy over American fascism since the last election since it was established that A) despite pretty clear language in the 25th Amendment, there is clearly no mechanism in the US to prevent an insurrectionist from being removed from consideration as a legal candidate for office and B) since DJT had two active criminal cases before the courts pre-election, one of which was thrown out despite strong evidence, the other in which he was found *guilty* and given no punishment whatsoever. These were all VERY bad signs of things to come.
Rather than talk about the tipping point of the Southern Dumpster Fire, I am instead going to talk about Canada, and where I felt Justin Trudeau lost the plot. I was firmly pro-vaxx the entire pandemic and felt anti-vaxxers were worse than ignorant, they were a danger to public safety. That said, the moment JT invoked the modern incarnation of the War Measures Act and started freezing *bank accounts* of the misguided Trucker protest, that was the moment he crossed the line imho. It was a brutally ham-handed and fascist move against protestors he vocally disagreed with and it was at that point I knew he had to go.
In my opinion, the USA has had *dozens* of these red flag moments since Don's second term. My predictions of where the US is headed are sufficiently grim that even like-minded people believe I am comedically exaggerating. When the president started his talk about the "51st state" that is the closest I have been in my life to purchasing a gun. The fact that American invasion has gone from unthinkable to possible is a sure sign at how far the republic has fallen
The Trucker protest was not misguided, it was not elegant but it was spot on.
You lasted longer than I did. I started questioning when all of else were told to avoid each other, but the politicians went to some climate conference. And when we still told to self-isolate but encouraged to participate in the BLM "gatherings," I just decided that my government and health authority was absolutely not to be trusted that my family and I would have to manage out pandemic response on our own (which is essentially what I was doing in early 2020 before the government was even started to take the pandemic seriously.) Oh, and the Portapique response and the JT's attempt to get carte blanche spending put in place didn't help.
Hey, if sacrificing Justin to a deadly illness is what it takes to end climate change, I will grudgingly accept his fate
Seriously though, there's a difference between being a fascist and being a dumbass, though I can see how he had enough of one to appear to be the other.
There was no shortage of voices during the lockdown claiming the whole thing was a government plot to "seize control of our lives". My argument is that is what the government had *before* the pandemic. The measures we saw were the government *losing* control, not gaining it. Your proof is our present; here we are, post-pandemic... does the government have more power than it had before the lockdown? Or about the same?
Depends. They have less power and control over drug addicts, actual criminals and more control over bank accounts, private information, law-abiding gun owners, etc. But the reality is, we don't actually know the level of control they have over certain things, and they aren't going to tell us.
The question is… would it have reverted without the convoy? I think Justin and Co. started out well intentioned enough… but then they liked it.
Was Carney ok because he wasn't technically in charge at the time, despite agreeing with everything Trudeau did about the Convoy, or was he also an unacceptable choice for pm?
I am waiting to judge Carney on how he acts as PM, although I had my concerns about him way back when he was Gov of the B of C. I never did agree with his choice to lower interest rates to the point he did and keep them artificially low for so long. And I don't trust him because I feel he's got a lot of conflicts of interest. But so far, I haven't had much of an opinion of his prime ministership until today, when I saw this clip https://x.com/CoffeyTimeNews/status/1962564696348700679 I'm not impressed.
Accusing Poilievre of wrapping himself in the flag is a bit rich after "elbows up".
The PMO wanted the trucker protest. Health Canada, through Border Services, declared that unvaccinated truckers would not have to isolate after crossing into Canada. The PMO overrode that decision, despite knowing a protest had been brewing.
I doubt he was thinking about truckers at all. Trudeau was trying to win re-election, he figured COVID response was his issue, and he was running out of ways to demonstrate his commitment to action. So, he overreached on vaccine passports, just like he overreached on firearm bans.
I got the impression he was thrilled about Portapique as well, which pisses me off more than any of the other stuff.
Felon47 is already well into fascism in only a few short months in office. His unilateral firing of all the main pillars of the country with his sycophant loyalists (FBI, CIA, Dept of Defense, etc ++) his disregard for all the checks and balances of presidential power, his pardoning of insurrectionists, his abuse of emergency powers for non-emergency issues, his clear and open use of bribes/meme coins/donations to enrich himself, his use of the military against its own people, his endless threats to people in leadership (the Fed, state governers, etc). His illegal kidnapping and deportation of anyone he chooses to be 'illegal' without due process.
There is nothing subtle here, this is pure fascism.
Jen's paragraph, which begins with "..what we're going to see is a lot of people spending the next few years intellectually justifying increasingly unjustifiable policy decisions and statements because they're so locked into the Trump train psychologically that they're going to be unable to pull back and oppose him when necessary."
Can anyone please describe for me all the ways that this is ANY different whatsoever than the rise, heyday, and eventual fall of the 'Woke' narrative...?
Are we trying to pretend that no one was ideologically captured by that wave, and somehow found themselves "intellectually justifying increasingly unjustifiable policy decisions" as progressives....?
In the end, ANY narrative becomes a parody of itself. The Line has spilled a lot of ink on the concept of the political pendulum, so one would think you guys would recognise it for what it is.
As for me, I KNOW America is not currently a fascist country, because people are still allowed to publicly scream Fascist (and Nazi) directly AT politicians, without being arrested or shot. There are no political prisoners in America, nor will there be. The system won't allow it.
Re. the last paragraph.
Well, yes, but personally I am not willing to be too optimistic. We must face the fact that a great many people are incorrigibly shallow and unable to consider the wider perspective, that is, are incorrigibly stupid; in any country, any society.
You correctly point put the recent and still going strong in too many institutions, 'wokeism' .
Graff is right. David Frum, Andrew Coyne, J.V. Last, and others have made similar calls. The only guardrails that haven't fallen are the ones Trump hasn't bothered to tap. That's why I think it's a Potemkin democracy. Just today, D.C. Mayor Bowser (D) welcomed Trump's federal troops staying indefinitely, and Trump has said troops will be going into Baltimore and Chicago despite a judge ruling he broke the law sending them LA.. I completely agree that the word 'fascist' has been used so often it's lost its power to shock, but there has been nothing approaching this in the US since the 1850s.
It's true Trump doesn't have a consistent ideology, but the Project 2025 folks he's surrounded himself with do, and that is entirely consistent with Trump's refusal to be constrained by anyone, anywhere, anytime. He has always wanted total power: Does it matter if it's not in pursuit of any ideological goal?
Trump has given Isabel van Brugen (a major election denialist) America's top election integrity job and does anyone think Republican states won't do what almost happened in 2020? (Vance has already said he'd accept the fake elector stunt that Pence refused.) Surely people are fooling themselves if they don't think ICE will be at Democratic polling places, just as they've already shown up at Latino markets and job depots. Trump has also already declared a series of obviously fake national emergencies to justify tariffs, deportations, and sending the National Guard into cities run by Black mayors. (And troops from red states to police blue states!) Does anyone think he won't be calling a national emergency if any of the communities he's poking respond? (He wanted to shoot demonstrators during the George Floyd protests/riots.)
Unidentified, masked ICE agents (soon to be 80,000 strong) picking up people off the street and holding them for days without letting them contact lawyers or family -- and the creation of 100,000 concentration/.detention spaces by Christmas -- is already way past red lines. It's essentially a police state for brown people who need to have their papers at all times, American or not.
We can't say something's happened till it's happened, but we can ask ourselves: Is there any reason that Trump won't continue to do what he's been doing just judt seven months, or that he's change his modus operandi: Like, why would he? especially when to do so would risk losing Congress?
Another writer worth following is Timothy Snyder. I remember being in Dachau the morning after Trump won in 2016 and the guide describing the process by which Hitler took power and the undermining of state and other institutions (the guide wisely avoided any comments on Trump). But the parallels are uncomfortable and again Snyder has captured the steps well. Personal redline: out daughter lives and works in the USA and thus anything that threatens her personal security would be top on my list.
My issue with Snyder, who I agree is an astute commentator, is that in On Tyranny he focuses on the authoritarianism of the ideological right without adequately acknowledging the parallel imperatives of the ideological left. Until people are willing to acknowledge that democracy's greatest threats are ideological extremists, period (not only those on the 'other' side), we're going to see increasingly extremist political movements holding sway.
Valid observation, although I think for the moment the main concern these days is more with respect to the authoritarian right rather than the authoritarian left. Agree though on the risks of polarization around different extremisms.
Agreed that the ideological right is the biggest and most immediate threat to democracy in the US right now -- with many of its loudest adherents insisting that the US is not meant to be a democracy at all. Constitution, what?
But it would be a mistake to deprecate the damage the ideological left does to democracy, and to pretend that the ideological left's impulses are any less authoritarian.
My point -- and a point I wish Snyder had emphasized -- is that authoritarian movements are the problem, regardless how they justify themselves.
100%
“Donald Trump is so politically incoherent that it’s hard to assign to him any particular ideology or -ism. Fascist leaders have typically operated within a consistent worldview.”
This is a key distinction, though it may be semantic. Trump is authoritarian, probably along the lines of Xi, funny enough, or maybe Porfirio Diaz in early 1900s Mexico. Unlikely to become Hitler. Trump strikes me as a middle eastern dictator. Lots of graft, democratic backsliding, going after political enemies, but not the scale of the Nazis et al. Which isn’t good, to be clear.
Those would be my red lines. If we start to see a coherency, a paramilitary organization swearing loyalty to Trump, etc., then I’ll use the F word.
Also I’m still struck that many of Trumps authoritarian impulses and actions aren’t necessarily distinct among his presidential colleagues. Again, this isn’t a defence of Trump or optimism about the course of American democracy, just an observation about the republic.
I’m only reading the comments this time to see if they would be as predictable as foretold on the podcast. Short answer, yes.
I’m going to perform some magic for a few that have commented so far. I think you’ll be amazed.
I am capable of believing that woke was, or became, a fundamentally illiberal movement while also believing that putting the military into exclusively blue cities, prosecuting those you don’t like and pardoning or not prosecuting those that you do (or who have paid you through your own meme-coin), firing the head of the statistical agency because you don’t like their stats, ignoring due process, and, oh right, inciting an insurrection are all signs of, at the very least, of a wannabe fascist.
Furthermore, I’m capable of believing that, as someone who is a big fan of liberal democracy, illiberalism is bad no matter which side goes down that path.
Are you not amazed?
I can also believe that the Trudeau government went too far with their vaccine mandates and that turning the center of the capital into a lawless zone was really bad. I am also capable of not turning every comment board into a relitigation of covid mandates as I’m not a keyboard warrior who sunshine has never touched believing my every keystroke is equivalent to Mel Gibson shouting “freedom” in front of the troops before battle.