Are you seriously claiming it isn't true that "federal bureaucracy has merged with big tech, big media and big pharma, resulting in an authoritarian-style administrative state"?
Or are you just saying that "authoritarian-style" is a bit too far? There is ample evidence of censorship planned jointly between the administration and Twitter/Facebook, ample evidence that the bureaucracy is strongly pro-Democrat, ample evidence that legacy media and big tech collaborate to suppress stories.
In a climate of tight media censorship and extralegal action against opposition politicians, do we really need ongoing and massive state-initiated violence to call it "authoritarian"?
My goal here was just to explain what Bannon’s world view is so people understand his opponent is the administrative state, which attracts more people than just traditional Republican voters. Other people can argue about whether its true or not that big tech/pharma etc are influencing too much. To me, it doesn’t matter if it’s true, it matters if it results in more votes. My argument is just that people should pay attention to it!
Yes and let's not forget that Bannon had significant hand in Brexit. The man is truly a menace and would be behind bars right now if Trump hadn't pardoned him. D'oh!
Fair, and I actually like a lot of what you said. In fact, the battle really is the big tech/big pharma/administrative state (which part is the tail and which is the dog is an open and, to me, uninteresting question) vs its opponents. It's also true that the Democrats are solidly allied with the administrative state, while Republicans are split.
This is why opponents of the administrative state in the US have to fight and win two battles: within the Republican party so that the people even get a choice/voice AND against the Democrats.
There is no doubt that Bannon and Trump are evil forces. You have pointed out how they are (and the the dangers of) gaming the system. This should be a non-starter if the country wasn't so exhausted from external wars, internal culture wars, pillaging by oligopolies in every industry, corrupt politician, woke bullshit, race riots, Jan 6 trial, never-ending Trump investigation, never starting Biden investigations, a press corp that doesn't report or investigate but rather opine and propagandize and on and on...
Just like us, they need a major change in leadership -- or should I say some courageous, wize and honest leadership.
As opposed to all the stories the Enquirer bought and killed to protect Trump? There is a huge issue with the amount of influence business now has on governments...of any political stripe. But the what GOP is currently doing is a full court press to end American democracy and turn it's system into a clone of Russia's; elections are held but the outcomes are pre-determined. It's not the democrats fighting against voting rights; it's not the democrats closing polling stations. It's not the democrats gerrymandering to their hearts content.
America will likely fail because their electoral system is controlled by state governments. The system no longer functions for the American voter, and November is their final chance to alter the course of the ship; whether they can save it is a different question.
As for your "ample evidence of censorship", I don't see it. America has massive misinformation problems. They are in a propaganda war that has Joe Goebbels dancing in his grave. But it's a war between American's, and it's destroying the country. The civil war has started. The guns just haven't started firing ...yet.
Considering how many people Trump tried to put into leadership positions in the bureaucracy, I don't think it's doing that bad a job of being impartial. But that is the least of America's worries.
The democrats are just as guilty of gerrymandering, claiming elections were fixed.
If the press really cared about democracy, they would slant positive coverage towards centrists Republican without making them anti-Trump martyrs. All they seem to care about is pandering to their base and not elucidating, educating and informing.
I'm all in favor of making it easier to vote, but please read these bills. The most important factor is voter id. In spite of what the MSM writes, 80% of the public thinks that this is legit (https://news.gallup.com/poll/194741/four-five-americans-support-voter-laws-early-voting.aspx) including minorities (https://news.yahoo.com/poll-majority-dems-non-white-194529851.html). It is also reasonable to put in rule about mail ballots that were slapped together out of necessity during COVID. The JLVRA seems to be a reasonable piece of legislation but I think the issue is that Republicans think this is a states' rights issue since they make the voting laws and the Democrats want it to be a Federal issue.
As with most US Federal lawmaking, there is no compromise. The Dems should trade off Voter ID (which American think is reasonable) for easier sign ups and changes to voter roll purging (which American also think is reasonable). But no -- its always all or nothing it seems.
This is the kind of thing that polarizes: FBI in Zuck Rog Flap
In a story that was a bombshell for conservatives and a back-pager elsewhere, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan his company reduced distribution of an expose about Hunter Biden at the behest of the FBI. “If they come to us and tell us that we need to be on guard,” he said, “then I’m going to take that seriously.”
Joe Rogan talking to anyone on any topic will always be a back pager if it even gets in there.
Nothing to do with a laptop that Rudy got his hands on but then lost to the FBI is interesting. Nothing on the laptop is interesting. Hunter Biden is not interesting. OK, he is, about as much as DJTJ, Eric and the power couple.
I certainly agree that both sides should work together to create a highly secure election process that makes it as easy as possible for every adult citizen (and only adult citizens) to cast a secret ballot. Unfortunately, half of what I said above seems to be opposed by 80% of the American political elite. (40% oppose one half and 40% oppose the other half).
Letting the bureaucracy run elections is no solution.
The events described in it, and the source documents demonstrating it, yes. Are you seriously claiming that big tech isn't censoring people on the request of the US government?
The WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. You know, same guys who own NY Post, Fox News, and many other publications of note. The WSJ actually still is useful for business and such. It is considered a newspaper of record, but it's OpEds generally lean heavily to the right. I guess they don't have a good cartoonist so they add levity through the OpEds. Alex Berenson is on occasion a good writer. He has some popular fiction published. He is also a covid denier nut-bar and his crackpot views should be slammed.
Seldom does media bother with OpEds. Why should they?
Which crackpot views? What covid denial? Let’s be specific about these, with source quotes the same as you are justifiably requesting, because from where I sit he has some valid and important critiques and views that are getting dismissed and now provably censored. Are you aware of the content of the tweet that got him banned off Twitter in the first place? Are you aware that Twitter just settled with him and reinstated him to their platform after he sued? Not saying this to be inflammatory, but this guy hasn’t been saying anything all that outrageous or without merit for public debate. But the attacks against him have been for the most part outrageous and character derived rather than rebutting his ideas. Berenson was able to get discovery and deposition through his lawsuit, that remains intact in his settlement - Twitter internal emails are being produced and provided now in real time and yes the Biden admin did actively pressure Twitter to Censor him. This is a developing story worth following..
The takeover of the US government by Big Pharma Etc. Is not complete but it is far too close for comfort, for sure. The antitrust laws have not been enforced for way too long. The thing about Bannon is that he is a fraud. He doesn't act like a fraud because he's nuts and doesn't think he's a fraud. But don't forget he's a rich Goldman Sachs alumni who is all for the end of democracy and having the corporations run things. Bannon is great at recognizing the anxieties of the working man and harvesting that anxiety but he is in no way a friend of the working man. He just wants to burn everything down. And, if that happens, the rich people will win. As far as Facebook etc being against the Republicans that's a bit of a stretch. They're run by greedy rich people, too, who have clamped down on all kinds of lefty websites also. Those tech companies are also terrified of being regulated in some way so it's a fallacy to think they're in the pocket of Biden or the Democrats.
It's also a stretch to say that the bureaucracy is pro Democrat. It's especially hilarious to see Republicans dumping on the FBI as a bunch of woke liberals. They are the political police who assassinated Fred Hampton plus God knows who else. I would grant you that most of the bureaucracy is pro the Constitution and democracy.. and that puts them squarely opposite of today's Republican Party. America's only hope is people rising up and voting solidly Democrat the next elections and then not going back to sleep and keeping the pressure on the Democrats to back away from corporate control of the government.
...no Democrat President has ever been able to appoint anybody but a Republican to the Directorship. Partly, it would be such a "bad fit" with the FBI culture, but the real problem is finding one. Since only Republicans are ever appointed FBI director, no rising FBI star would register as a Democrat. They have deep bench (the National Security Branch , for instance, is headed by an "Executive Assistant Director" and an "Associate Executive Assistant Director" and there are five more "branches".) And they're all Republicans.
So every director has been a White Christian Republican male, for a hundred years.
As for regulatory capture, meh: there's no appreciation for HOW bad a totally unregulated company would be. They've got regulatory capture to the extent of scandalously high profits and executive pay, but they can't peddle sawdust as a cancer cure...which they would.
For young healthy people, particularly men and boys, the covid shots are actually worse than sawdust as a cancer cure. And they have managed to get governments not simply to allow them, but to force them on people.
Fascinating read. We'll agree to disagree about the merits of the mass vaccination strategy because I suspect everyone is now really bored of our back and forth....including me :)
This was always in the cards. A nation that has been infantilised from the get-go by a historical representation of themselves as heroes, worldwide, is primed for this sort of scenario. The re-playing of the Hollywood version of the so-called revolution, that was more a civil war than a revolution, at every opportunity, has had the effect of making people like Bannon, with his ridiculous stories, believable. He's loving it.
To those who are sick of hearing about the US and its latest national meltdown, it pays to remember that the odour of that is wafting over the border, as things do. It's a disease of the mind that Bannon will continue to make worse because, I think, he's a sick fellow himself and this is fun.
I think we've become complacent; that we've forgotten that citizenship comes with some duties and that one cannot only participate in democracy when there are choices they are excited and passionate about. The very nature of democracy is to find effective compromise, which means that there will be very few times when a policy that you, the voter, is passionate about will come to pass.
If you're reaction to that is to throw your hands up and check out ... to decide that the whole system is a waste of time ... not not vote because you don't love any of the choices ... then you are ceding your voice to those who *are* passionate. Guess what, those tend to be people who are single-issue voters and those at the fringe -- who recognize the majority doesn't love their ideas and are therefore willing to work very hard to get them embedded into policy anyways.
All of which to say -- the engagement of the fringe/whack-a-doodle crowd isn't the problem. It's the apathy of everyone else. In Ontario, we just voted in a not-terribly-competent government who seems to be mainly focused on the needs of their donors. They won a bigger majority with fewer votes than their first win. Why? Because none of the parties offered a compelling choice and lots of people didn't even bother voting. It's a negative feedback loop, though -- you get crap government, get frustrated and disengaged, don't vote and ... guess what ... you get ever crappier government.
For what it's worth, I've voted in every election I've been eligible to vote in. I've voted for a LOT of parties/platforms that I wasn't very enthusiastic about as it was the least/worst options. I've written letters occasionally to my reps on issues I care about. It really doesn't take a lot of effort -- I'm hardly super politically engaged. If every 'regular' person simply did that, a lot of the polarization issues we're seeing (in the US and in Canada) would likely fade away. The problem isn't that the fringe is strong; it's that the centre is apathetic.
To build on the other comments, the other group who has huge influence are those with the means to lobby -- mostly large, multinational companies. When I look at policy platforms for a lot of parties, they are starting to look like a venn diagram of fringe/single issue interests and the interests of large donors ... neither of which would have such outsized influence if more people voted or expected to see shared concerns reflected in policy platforms.
Over its history, many people have cast American’s as weak, corrupt and ineffectual people.
Events, however, inevitably prove them wrong.
Disparaging the United States and its people is an ongoing mechanism of political distraction that has bred a particularly ugly bigotry in Canada.
The current propensity of the Canadian pot to call the American kettle black seems as politically useful as it always has to divert attention from our own governance deficits.
The overweening belief that that has been instilled in Canadians that they are morally superior to true population south of the border has been purposely cultivated out of the political fear that we might just focus unduly on the shortfalls and inconsistencies of our own society.
The fact is that decent people, the vast majority in both countries, are being poorly led by governments that are just to preoccupied with the effort to retain the power and comforts of their office to manage their responsibilities to the people who elected them.
The reason Trump was elected is that people were fed up with the unfulfilled promises of both the Republican and Democratic establishments.
They are still fed up with good reason.
The same thing is happening in Canada with the rise of Poilievre - the Liberal and Conservative establishments have both lost touch and credibility with many Canadians.
The political pendulum is swingling but ultimately decent people on both Canada and the US will make a decision on just how far to the right they are comfortable with.
I trust that both people of both nations will be able to make a considered decision without being unduly influenced by the radicals of both political stripes in their midst.
Of course. It's been clear from the start, except to Democrats and their media arm, that Trump is a symptom, not the malady. It's also likely that if the committed ideologues at both ends of the political spectrum could be shipped off to an island somewhere, to fight things out among themselves, the rest of us would be much better off.
What's disheartening about your post isn't that there's some problem with its content, but that you felt a need to post it. What it expresses would have been common wisdom in any Toronto high school class in the 1960s, along with unanimous support for the principle of freedom of speech and the crucial importance of civil dialogue. In that era, a post like yours would have been thought a curiosity, the equivalent of passionately arguing Earth is round--true, but not a truth needing superfluous defending. Now, it seems, we're surrounded by cultural flat-Earthers, a mystifying regression in intellectual history that's going to provide Ph.D. fodder for future sociologists, presuming academia someday regains its sanity.
I agree with your observations but I feel we will navigate a safe course between the two poles of extremism.
I have met too many decent people in Canada and the US to believe that they don’t have an abiding belief in the democracy and freedom that was won for them by other decent people.
I don’t believe that extremists are going to wrest that belief from them and that they are not going to allow such people to subjugate themselves or anyone else.
We will always be in a state of social evolution but we have seen too much inhumanity in the course of past evolution to allow ourselves to veer away from the decency that has sustained the society we are so privileged to enjoy.
If our political establishments fail to maintain credibility within society, decent people will seek out alternative leadership -but they will not let extremists capitalize on the vacuum created.
You seem to be saying that both Canadians and Americans, the decent ones, will only decide to move to the right politically. Consider a more thoughtful swing to the left and begin moving away from the seemingly etched in stone Lib or Con, Dem or GOP.
I think that the swing to the right will lead both countries to more moderate and pragmatic politics.
Basically, I do not expect decent people to exchange one doctrinal extreme for another.
I expect the swing to the right will bring society back to a more centrist and bi-partisan position on the political spectrum - no matter what the resistance of their political establishments.
I think that a more thoughtful swing away from the left is occurring which does not imply that our societies are on a mindless swing to the extremes of the far right.
The excesses of far left are leaving the constituencies they once appealed to disillusioned but their rejection of these excesses is not likely to lead these constituencies to embrace the same rejection of moderation the far right demands.
If we leave off the excesses of both the far left and right and just look at the muddy middle (MM) range where I think most of us settle, it is still a pleasantly wide range but it doesn't get as much of the attention or press.
The MM is not monolithic. MM-R wants limited gov, fiscal responsibility, free markets, social responsibility, anti-union, pro-energy, anti-woke on principle, rule of law, individual freedoms, and somewhat suspicious of evolving science.
MM-L wants as much gov as necessary, fiscal responsibility, social responsibility, collective responsibility, rule of law, pro-union, pro-choice, pro-clean energy, woke in the original sense, justice, individual freedoms, secularism, assorted freedoms: speech, the press, religion and civil and human rights.
My lists, of course, are not complete and there is a tremendous overlap between MM-R and MM-L. But there are enough differences that I cannot imagine people swinging en mass towards the right just because it's more pragmatic and moderation is never clearly defined.
Conservatism (not the party), to me, has always seemed to be about curtailing, stopping, barriers, unforgiveness, and judgement, gatekeepers if you will. Liberalism or social liberalism gives us civil and political rights, the common good, social programs, social equality, building and opening, not closing doors.
Canadians have always been inundated with American culture and in the past few decades (social media) more than ever. Since the entire Trump thing, everyone is more aware than ever to the point where too many Canadians think the American Constitution and Amendment actually apply here. I think we are psychically tired. We see, hear, watch the American TV reality show and now we have our own parroting the same messages the same way. And it's everywhere. It is very difficult to turn it off or tune it out. We are tired of it. Rather than seeing a swing to the L or the R in any great numbers, I expect that the 2024 election (if not sooner) will have a sadly poor turnout. People will simply not bother because whatever happens feels like more of the same.
As we are a free people, we will work towards the things that are important to us. Anyone who thinks that our political parties can affect real positive change is kidding themselves. For good, positive change to happen takes time and commitment. Our current parties have neither. Getting excited of perceived excesses while already stirred up by our American friend's excesses just seems more exhausting. The polarization/partisanship is not going to go away or be toned down anytime soon either. JT cannot hiccup without scorn and disdain falling on his head whether is warranted or not. PP posts a video and the mocking begins. How can anyone focus on the lovely MM when the MM is trying to tear itself apart? The MM-R and the MM-L will continue to go their own ways, the "press" will take stabs at identifying swatches of it and people will misread the statistics like it's trading time.
I cannot see a swing to the right for the rights sake. Maybe the Cons will get in again, they do occasionally but as the poster-child for Canada, PP isn't it.
Sorry this is so rambling, I hope I'm making some sense while I disagree with you:)
I think most people are decent, not always, but mostly.
The difference you perceive in the existing MM is relatively accurate.
The MM-L embraces the notion of communal dependence and the role of government to secure, encourage and enforce communalism.
The MM-C embraces the notion of individual independence and that the role of government is to discourage dependence for all but those who are genuinely in need of public assistance.
As you have noted, the MM is not monolithic and there remains a distinct possibility that the give and take of bipartisan negotiation can be resurrected to return society to a more functional balance of the two preferences.
Well Cheney and the MSM would have more credibility if the Russian Hoax hadn't happened. Cheney is part of an American political powerhouse that has held power and influence for a long time. All I see are the corrupt fighting the corrupted for the power of the Americam people. If anyone says that the FBI DOJ is not in bed with Big Tech and Big Pharma they have lost their minds.
Longwell does those deep-dive focus groups that talk at length with a dozen people, and she's been focused on Republican voters as the summer of hearing went on. Fascinatingly, the Republicans still stoutly condemn the hearings as lies and defend their man...but over the last two hearings were talking all differently about whether DT should run: "too divisive"; "many good candidates"; "want similar views, but not as big an ego"; "time to move on" were suddenly on many lips. They're suddenly concerned that ALL Trump does is talk about the past election and himself, not about any other issues. Longwell believes the hearings, while 'officially' disbelieved, have "given them soft permission to move on". Other comments indicate that even Republicans can get tired of the endless drama, all about Trump, not about policy. (This was also the same weeks when it became clear that Rupert Murdoch was abandoning Trump.)
And then came the FBI and everybody snapped to defend.
The FBI didn't have much choice, but if I did think it a giant conspiracy against the GOP, then it would be a conspiracy to KEEP him popular, with the GOP, so that they do keep him around. I think he'd be easier to beat in '24 than '20, by far.
Trumpist values and messages have their followers, but he'd never have won without the whole aura-of-power he got from the inherited wealth, and the TV show making up a story about the wealth coming from his brains and savvy.
He is no longer being attacked for his views, that his followers love. He isn't being attacked on immigration, or on trade, defense, or abortion. He's being attacked for his personal conduct, and all the discussion is about things that the followers have no real reason to defend, other than defending Trump as their icon. As one writer put it, his cloak of victimhood is getting threadbare.
As for stealing the election, everybody gets to watch the ballots counted, slipping in crooks as returning officers can't change that, it's law. And the courts decide who won, if an election is challenged, not the executive. So the crooks can only throw a close election. I don't think that 2024 would even be close, not after two more years of those "attacks" in court, with court rules, not political WWF rules.
Very good points. The Atlantic piece was indeed really interesting. Where I still find gaps in the analysis, however, is accurately segmenting traditional Republican voters from American First Americans (Bannon’s audience). Traditional republicans may indeed be sick of Trump’s drama, but republican-voting America First Americans certainly aren’t.
I'm not even sure there's a difference, or at least not a binary are/aren't distinction. The "regular Republicans" have supported fabulated conspiracy theories (Saddam nuclear-conspiring with his arch-enemies in Al Qaeda) and voter suppression (Florida 2000, google "greg palast florida ex-con") as blatant as anything more recent.
Note that none of Longwell's focus groups split out into two kinds of Republicans; the 'traditional' Republicans continued to be superficially Trump-loyal. It's more of a continuum, I suspect. With a continuum, there's no dramatic turning points; every knife-cut into Trump's popularity just shaves off a few voters that would rather die that vote Democrat, but can be too busy on election day. (The 'death of a thousand cuts' would be very satisfying, so I'm probably indulging in foolish optimism.)
In my opinion, Steve Bannon is finished as a significant force in U.S. politics. Yes, he still has a fringe of followers, and they can be noisy. Yes, he still attempts to manipulate the system. But anyone following the recent Republican primaries, will see no trace of Bannon's influence. Whether a moderate or Trumpist candidate got the nod had nothing to do with Bannon. It had everything to do with Trump himself, and with the chances of winning against a Democrat.
In my opinion, this article assigns disproportionate influence to Bannon. This is in line with a family of conspiracy theories, that see imminent danger in fringe right-wing groups. But the important thing to remember is that they are "fringe". They have no broad based support, whether in the military, the police, or the general population. Hence, there is no chance of a coup d'etat or a successful insurrection, which do require support from at least one of those groups.
Hi Melanie. You wrote, "Remarkably, many still seem blind to what he’s trying to do." If you mean to say ignorant, please use that word. Equating blindness with ignorance only furthers stereotypical views about what blind people are capable of doing. I don't believe for a moment that this was your intention, but I ask you to consider the effect of such language. Thank you for your consideration.
Frankly, I find this article very peculiar. Its underlying major premise seems to be that of course The New York Times is more trustworthy and believable than Steve Bannon, and that Trump and Bannon are "weaving a narrative" in ways so foreign to what Democrats would ever think of doing that they not only don't know how to combat it but "don’t even seem to know where the playing field is, let alone how to level it."
Excuse me, but as a retired reference librarian with an ongoing concern for the reliability of information sources and the current state of the information commons (and who, moreover, has always voted left), I not only contest this premise but find it preposterous. Neither Trump nor Bannon needed to "prepare" me to arrive at that particular judgment: the Democrats and The New York Times have done more than enough to arouse my skepticism and sabotage their credibility all on their own. Even if I found what I'm hearing from those sources more plausible than I do, given the relentlessness and uniformity with which they're promoted I'd still fail to see much illegitimacy in a dissenter's attempt to respond in kind. Can you explain why you and I and Bannon shouldn't be entitled to construct narratives of our own--narratives that reflect our views--if The New York Times is free to do it?
I wouldn't vote for Trump for dogcatcher; but it doesn't follow that the prospect of a successful attempt to "take him down as a viable political opponent" give rises to "optimism" in me ('disquiet' is more like it), or that I regard as "absurd" the possibility that if the raid backfires, the "end game" thus created is necessarily more "dangerous" than whatever is guiding the raiders. The most puzzling thing about this article is who it apparently conceives its readership to be. What funds the complacent assumption that if someone doesn't share your take on the meaning and significance of the raid, it can only be because that person belongs to a "different audience" of Trumpian ideological allies, duped by a duplicitous Bannon? Has it ever occurred to you that you might just possibly be the unwitting victim of some institutional duplicity yourself?
If we're all simply at the mercy of our information sources, it's legitimate to ask what makes you immune. If, on the other hand, we have some ability to step back and evaluate the plausibility of the information we receive, then it's incumbent on you to provide an evidentiary trail of just how your sense-making apparatus manages to outperform that of evaluators who arrive at different judgments. It's not enough simply to quote your favoured information sources: their trustworthiness is exactly what's at issue... and the evidence suggests that New York Times editors are every bit as ideologically captured as the most rabid Trump supporters.
By the way, have you ever listened to Bannon for even an hour? He's a pretty smart fellow, and he often makes a more compelling case than NYT op-ed contributors.
"Bannon is weaving a narrative....". Bunk. Ms Paradis is the one "weaving the narrative". There's not a shred of solid fact in this piece. The work is of someone with Trump Derangement Syndrome so deep she verges on the psychotic.
I don't like Trump for US President either. But such conspiracies are bizzare.
How it is that the Canadian media establishment is so fixated on the shenanigans of the American Tru-Twin while seemingly oblivious to the threat our Tru-Twin poses to our society?
Admittedly, going after the American Tru-Twin is risk free while seeking to hold to account the Canadian version rules you out as the lucky recipient of a sinecure at the CBC down the road or the ultimate reward for sycophancy, a nomination to the Senate.
Better yet the farmers protests all over Europe right now that started in the Netherlands. We just had some family from the Netherlands visit. The put in the Fertalizer bans as they did on Canadian Farmers as they want to destory all family farms by pushing the limits on fertilizers to which will fiancially bankrupt them. The idea is to make food production centralized and run by the same people who brought us the pandemic and its rules. These globalist elites will cause mass starvation and death across the globe in order to control everything centrally. If they control the food production, they control the people.
Here is another tid bit for folks here. In the Netherlands, if you have too much money in the bank, the banks charge you, not pay interest on your holdings. How does that sound? They use your money for investments and they make millions from that and then they charge you to keep your money in their bank. They want your money out of the bank as they are trying to do here now. They want you to spend your savings regardless if the majority is in RRSP's as they will get three quarters of it in taxes. This is the reason that Freeland said there is lots of money in accounts right here and they can use that to stimulate the economy. I just bet they could. The banks even chimed in on that one. Now these are real newsworthy instead of Trump derangement syndrome but you hear nothing in the media about any of this.
Please explain how it is I am wrong. There is a tariff on imported fertilizer already so it costs more and they are moving to a thirty percent reduction coming in October by Trudeau. As for Holland I am getting straight from the people and the people are standing with the farmers, not the Government. So if there is something I am missing here please explain.
ML, I'm Dutch. Note the name. It means "carpenter" in English but Holland is such a tiny little country that everyone knows a farmer. I have 9 aunts and uncles and about a million cousins and some farm too.
You are wrong about:
Fertilizer ban in Canada.
They want to destory all family farms by pushing the limits on fertilizers to which will fiancially bankrupt them.
...make food production centralized and run by the same people who brought us the pandemic and its rules.
These globalist elites will cause mass starvation and death across the globe in order to control everything centrally.
If they control the food production, they control the people.
if you have too much money in the bank, the banks charge you, not pay interest on your holdings. (Canadian banks do exactly the same thing to unused cash in an account. A German friend lest $800 in a chequing account at the BMO. He thought he'd be back in a year or so. 5 years later he comes back and there is nothing left, it went to fees. This was 10 yrs ago or so. He argued and the manager returned his money. Today I think they'd tell him too bad, so sad.)
There is lots of money in accounts in Canadian bank (I suspect it's the same in Holland) and the banks invest it. They always have, they don't just sit on it waiting for you to withdraw. Again, rules and regs abound on the banks...who also are the most profitable businesses in Canada, ever.
TDS is MAGAts and that lot. Not the people who are concerned about that big country to the south of us.
Well Lyle that happens to be the government document telling farmers to reduce their use of fertilizers by 30 % and it starts in October. Foolish me not showing you proof.
Oh no not bad at all except there is already a food shortage and this will make it worse. That there will be half of the farmers having the land that has been in their families for generations removed from their land and unable to farm. Are you truly cognizant of the problems happening around the world and the starvation going on due to Ukraine war and difficulty getting foods out. This creates an even further shortage of food. This work is being done by uninformed scientists that know zero about farming and are all tied up in globalist ideals that will rape this world of further foods to go around. They are sending these same people to Alberta and Saskatchewan but they will not be allowed to trespass on farmers land as it is private property. They must ask for admittance and I don’t see that sforthcoming.
There is no food shortage today. There is a distribution problem. This is not new and not just due to covid.
It's not just Holland and Canada that is looking to cut nitrogen production. Everyone will be doing it. We also have the science to help.
Most ag scientists are not insane global idealists who goal is to reduce the world pop as viciously and horribly as possible. Be more aware of international corps like Monsanto and Dupont and their genetically modified sterile seeds and plants. Most farmers use more fertilizers than necessary for bigger yields and hopefully a bigger return.
No one is going to farms in Canada and trespassing and doing what? Don't be silly.
I thought it was the Military Industrial Entertainment Complex, all four in one. Now you are telling me that Entertainment is a sub-division.
Yes, we are aware that Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked and there has been a shooting war for the past 6 months. What are we missing? Is the US no longer involved?
Are you seriously claiming it isn't true that "federal bureaucracy has merged with big tech, big media and big pharma, resulting in an authoritarian-style administrative state"?
Or are you just saying that "authoritarian-style" is a bit too far? There is ample evidence of censorship planned jointly between the administration and Twitter/Facebook, ample evidence that the bureaucracy is strongly pro-Democrat, ample evidence that legacy media and big tech collaborate to suppress stories.
In a climate of tight media censorship and extralegal action against opposition politicians, do we really need ongoing and massive state-initiated violence to call it "authoritarian"?
My goal here was just to explain what Bannon’s world view is so people understand his opponent is the administrative state, which attracts more people than just traditional Republican voters. Other people can argue about whether its true or not that big tech/pharma etc are influencing too much. To me, it doesn’t matter if it’s true, it matters if it results in more votes. My argument is just that people should pay attention to it!
Yes and let's not forget that Bannon had significant hand in Brexit. The man is truly a menace and would be behind bars right now if Trump hadn't pardoned him. D'oh!
Stealing from the donors to the fund.
Unbelievable stupid people who thought they were really buying a wall!
I listen to his podcast from time to time. Your conclusions are correct, IMO. He's very effective.
Fair, and I actually like a lot of what you said. In fact, the battle really is the big tech/big pharma/administrative state (which part is the tail and which is the dog is an open and, to me, uninteresting question) vs its opponents. It's also true that the Democrats are solidly allied with the administrative state, while Republicans are split.
This is why opponents of the administrative state in the US have to fight and win two battles: within the Republican party so that the people even get a choice/voice AND against the Democrats.
There is no doubt that Bannon and Trump are evil forces. You have pointed out how they are (and the the dangers of) gaming the system. This should be a non-starter if the country wasn't so exhausted from external wars, internal culture wars, pillaging by oligopolies in every industry, corrupt politician, woke bullshit, race riots, Jan 6 trial, never-ending Trump investigation, never starting Biden investigations, a press corp that doesn't report or investigate but rather opine and propagandize and on and on...
Just like us, they need a major change in leadership -- or should I say some courageous, wize and honest leadership.
Pro- democrat or pro -democracy? They are not the same thing.
In the case of the bureaucracy, they are pretty much exact opposites.
As opposed to all the stories the Enquirer bought and killed to protect Trump? There is a huge issue with the amount of influence business now has on governments...of any political stripe. But the what GOP is currently doing is a full court press to end American democracy and turn it's system into a clone of Russia's; elections are held but the outcomes are pre-determined. It's not the democrats fighting against voting rights; it's not the democrats closing polling stations. It's not the democrats gerrymandering to their hearts content.
America will likely fail because their electoral system is controlled by state governments. The system no longer functions for the American voter, and November is their final chance to alter the course of the ship; whether they can save it is a different question.
As for your "ample evidence of censorship", I don't see it. America has massive misinformation problems. They are in a propaganda war that has Joe Goebbels dancing in his grave. But it's a war between American's, and it's destroying the country. The civil war has started. The guns just haven't started firing ...yet.
A pro-Democrat bureaucracy and a pro-Republican bureaucracy would both be the opposite of pro-democracy.
The bureaucracy should do what it's told by the elected government, not pick sides.
Considering how many people Trump tried to put into leadership positions in the bureaucracy, I don't think it's doing that bad a job of being impartial. But that is the least of America's worries.
When people believe in the "living Constitution", that doesn't amount to much.
The democrats are just as guilty of gerrymandering, claiming elections were fixed.
If the press really cared about democracy, they would slant positive coverage towards centrists Republican without making them anti-Trump martyrs. All they seem to care about is pandering to their base and not elucidating, educating and informing.
Not like this. 19 GOP states with voting restriction laws, and the entire Senate voting against the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/19-states-enacted-voting-restrictions-2021-rcna8342
Nice balanced report :)
I'm all in favor of making it easier to vote, but please read these bills. The most important factor is voter id. In spite of what the MSM writes, 80% of the public thinks that this is legit (https://news.gallup.com/poll/194741/four-five-americans-support-voter-laws-early-voting.aspx) including minorities (https://news.yahoo.com/poll-majority-dems-non-white-194529851.html). It is also reasonable to put in rule about mail ballots that were slapped together out of necessity during COVID. The JLVRA seems to be a reasonable piece of legislation but I think the issue is that Republicans think this is a states' rights issue since they make the voting laws and the Democrats want it to be a Federal issue.
As with most US Federal lawmaking, there is no compromise. The Dems should trade off Voter ID (which American think is reasonable) for easier sign ups and changes to voter roll purging (which American also think is reasonable). But no -- its always all or nothing it seems.
This is the kind of thing that polarizes: FBI in Zuck Rog Flap
In a story that was a bombshell for conservatives and a back-pager elsewhere, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan his company reduced distribution of an expose about Hunter Biden at the behest of the FBI. “If they come to us and tell us that we need to be on guard,” he said, “then I’m going to take that seriously.”
Joe Rogan talking to anyone on any topic will always be a back pager if it even gets in there.
Nothing to do with a laptop that Rudy got his hands on but then lost to the FBI is interesting. Nothing on the laptop is interesting. Hunter Biden is not interesting. OK, he is, about as much as DJTJ, Eric and the power couple.
I certainly agree that both sides should work together to create a highly secure election process that makes it as easy as possible for every adult citizen (and only adult citizens) to cast a secret ballot. Unfortunately, half of what I said above seems to be opposed by 80% of the American political elite. (40% oppose one half and 40% oppose the other half).
Letting the bureaucracy run elections is no solution.
An independent bureaucracy running elections is the only solution.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
And when the actual bureaucracy is partisan?
I'm pretty sure that 100% of the American voting public doesn't care what you think.
Democrats oppose:
"highly secure", "only adult citizens", and "secret"
Republicans oppose:
"easy" and "every adult citizen"
Both oppose: "work together"
To me, this article, plus the fact that it didn't receive coverage in any other legacy media, is conclusive proof of censorship: https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-becomes-a-tool-of-government-censors-alex-berenson-twitter-facebook-ban-covid-misinformation-first-amendment-psaki-murthy-section-230-antitrust-11660732095
Let me see if I have this straight. Your proof of censorship is an op-ed?
The events described in it, and the source documents demonstrating it, yes. Are you seriously claiming that big tech isn't censoring people on the request of the US government?
The WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. You know, same guys who own NY Post, Fox News, and many other publications of note. The WSJ actually still is useful for business and such. It is considered a newspaper of record, but it's OpEds generally lean heavily to the right. I guess they don't have a good cartoonist so they add levity through the OpEds. Alex Berenson is on occasion a good writer. He has some popular fiction published. He is also a covid denier nut-bar and his crackpot views should be slammed.
Seldom does media bother with OpEds. Why should they?
Which crackpot views? What covid denial? Let’s be specific about these, with source quotes the same as you are justifiably requesting, because from where I sit he has some valid and important critiques and views that are getting dismissed and now provably censored. Are you aware of the content of the tweet that got him banned off Twitter in the first place? Are you aware that Twitter just settled with him and reinstated him to their platform after he sued? Not saying this to be inflammatory, but this guy hasn’t been saying anything all that outrageous or without merit for public debate. But the attacks against him have been for the most part outrageous and character derived rather than rebutting his ideas. Berenson was able to get discovery and deposition through his lawsuit, that remains intact in his settlement - Twitter internal emails are being produced and provided now in real time and yes the Biden admin did actively pressure Twitter to Censor him. This is a developing story worth following..
The takeover of the US government by Big Pharma Etc. Is not complete but it is far too close for comfort, for sure. The antitrust laws have not been enforced for way too long. The thing about Bannon is that he is a fraud. He doesn't act like a fraud because he's nuts and doesn't think he's a fraud. But don't forget he's a rich Goldman Sachs alumni who is all for the end of democracy and having the corporations run things. Bannon is great at recognizing the anxieties of the working man and harvesting that anxiety but he is in no way a friend of the working man. He just wants to burn everything down. And, if that happens, the rich people will win. As far as Facebook etc being against the Republicans that's a bit of a stretch. They're run by greedy rich people, too, who have clamped down on all kinds of lefty websites also. Those tech companies are also terrified of being regulated in some way so it's a fallacy to think they're in the pocket of Biden or the Democrats.
It's also a stretch to say that the bureaucracy is pro Democrat. It's especially hilarious to see Republicans dumping on the FBI as a bunch of woke liberals. They are the political police who assassinated Fred Hampton plus God knows who else. I would grant you that most of the bureaucracy is pro the Constitution and democracy.. and that puts them squarely opposite of today's Republican Party. America's only hope is people rising up and voting solidly Democrat the next elections and then not going back to sleep and keeping the pressure on the Democrats to back away from corporate control of the government.
https://www.rawstory.com/watch-every-fbi-director-has-been-a-white-republican-male-complicating-trumps-grudge-match/
...no Democrat President has ever been able to appoint anybody but a Republican to the Directorship. Partly, it would be such a "bad fit" with the FBI culture, but the real problem is finding one. Since only Republicans are ever appointed FBI director, no rising FBI star would register as a Democrat. They have deep bench (the National Security Branch , for instance, is headed by an "Executive Assistant Director" and an "Associate Executive Assistant Director" and there are five more "branches".) And they're all Republicans.
So every director has been a White Christian Republican male, for a hundred years.
As for regulatory capture, meh: there's no appreciation for HOW bad a totally unregulated company would be. They've got regulatory capture to the extent of scandalously high profits and executive pay, but they can't peddle sawdust as a cancer cure...which they would.
For young healthy people, particularly men and boys, the covid shots are actually worse than sawdust as a cancer cure. And they have managed to get governments not simply to allow them, but to force them on people.
But that's another debate.
That you're still on the wrong side of I see.
Give it up. The denial of reality is getting sooooo boring.
https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/what-does-the-thailand-myocarditis
Fascinating read. We'll agree to disagree about the merits of the mass vaccination strategy because I suspect everyone is now really bored of our back and forth....including me :)
Yes. Dr. Ch.
Why do rich people collude, and not pay all their taxes, and lobby for business breaks? Because there is always someone richer.
He's nuts, and he's a money guy. When is enough money enough?
This was always in the cards. A nation that has been infantilised from the get-go by a historical representation of themselves as heroes, worldwide, is primed for this sort of scenario. The re-playing of the Hollywood version of the so-called revolution, that was more a civil war than a revolution, at every opportunity, has had the effect of making people like Bannon, with his ridiculous stories, believable. He's loving it.
To those who are sick of hearing about the US and its latest national meltdown, it pays to remember that the odour of that is wafting over the border, as things do. It's a disease of the mind that Bannon will continue to make worse because, I think, he's a sick fellow himself and this is fun.
I think we've become complacent; that we've forgotten that citizenship comes with some duties and that one cannot only participate in democracy when there are choices they are excited and passionate about. The very nature of democracy is to find effective compromise, which means that there will be very few times when a policy that you, the voter, is passionate about will come to pass.
If you're reaction to that is to throw your hands up and check out ... to decide that the whole system is a waste of time ... not not vote because you don't love any of the choices ... then you are ceding your voice to those who *are* passionate. Guess what, those tend to be people who are single-issue voters and those at the fringe -- who recognize the majority doesn't love their ideas and are therefore willing to work very hard to get them embedded into policy anyways.
All of which to say -- the engagement of the fringe/whack-a-doodle crowd isn't the problem. It's the apathy of everyone else. In Ontario, we just voted in a not-terribly-competent government who seems to be mainly focused on the needs of their donors. They won a bigger majority with fewer votes than their first win. Why? Because none of the parties offered a compelling choice and lots of people didn't even bother voting. It's a negative feedback loop, though -- you get crap government, get frustrated and disengaged, don't vote and ... guess what ... you get ever crappier government.
For what it's worth, I've voted in every election I've been eligible to vote in. I've voted for a LOT of parties/platforms that I wasn't very enthusiastic about as it was the least/worst options. I've written letters occasionally to my reps on issues I care about. It really doesn't take a lot of effort -- I'm hardly super politically engaged. If every 'regular' person simply did that, a lot of the polarization issues we're seeing (in the US and in Canada) would likely fade away. The problem isn't that the fringe is strong; it's that the centre is apathetic.
Amen to that!
To build on the other comments, the other group who has huge influence are those with the means to lobby -- mostly large, multinational companies. When I look at policy platforms for a lot of parties, they are starting to look like a venn diagram of fringe/single issue interests and the interests of large donors ... neither of which would have such outsized influence if more people voted or expected to see shared concerns reflected in policy platforms.
Over its history, many people have cast American’s as weak, corrupt and ineffectual people.
Events, however, inevitably prove them wrong.
Disparaging the United States and its people is an ongoing mechanism of political distraction that has bred a particularly ugly bigotry in Canada.
The current propensity of the Canadian pot to call the American kettle black seems as politically useful as it always has to divert attention from our own governance deficits.
The overweening belief that that has been instilled in Canadians that they are morally superior to true population south of the border has been purposely cultivated out of the political fear that we might just focus unduly on the shortfalls and inconsistencies of our own society.
The fact is that decent people, the vast majority in both countries, are being poorly led by governments that are just to preoccupied with the effort to retain the power and comforts of their office to manage their responsibilities to the people who elected them.
The reason Trump was elected is that people were fed up with the unfulfilled promises of both the Republican and Democratic establishments.
They are still fed up with good reason.
The same thing is happening in Canada with the rise of Poilievre - the Liberal and Conservative establishments have both lost touch and credibility with many Canadians.
The political pendulum is swingling but ultimately decent people on both Canada and the US will make a decision on just how far to the right they are comfortable with.
I trust that both people of both nations will be able to make a considered decision without being unduly influenced by the radicals of both political stripes in their midst.
Of course. It's been clear from the start, except to Democrats and their media arm, that Trump is a symptom, not the malady. It's also likely that if the committed ideologues at both ends of the political spectrum could be shipped off to an island somewhere, to fight things out among themselves, the rest of us would be much better off.
What's disheartening about your post isn't that there's some problem with its content, but that you felt a need to post it. What it expresses would have been common wisdom in any Toronto high school class in the 1960s, along with unanimous support for the principle of freedom of speech and the crucial importance of civil dialogue. In that era, a post like yours would have been thought a curiosity, the equivalent of passionately arguing Earth is round--true, but not a truth needing superfluous defending. Now, it seems, we're surrounded by cultural flat-Earthers, a mystifying regression in intellectual history that's going to provide Ph.D. fodder for future sociologists, presuming academia someday regains its sanity.
I agree with your observations but I feel we will navigate a safe course between the two poles of extremism.
I have met too many decent people in Canada and the US to believe that they don’t have an abiding belief in the democracy and freedom that was won for them by other decent people.
I don’t believe that extremists are going to wrest that belief from them and that they are not going to allow such people to subjugate themselves or anyone else.
We will always be in a state of social evolution but we have seen too much inhumanity in the course of past evolution to allow ourselves to veer away from the decency that has sustained the society we are so privileged to enjoy.
If our political establishments fail to maintain credibility within society, decent people will seek out alternative leadership -but they will not let extremists capitalize on the vacuum created.
What do you consider "decent"? And who do you consider extremists?
What range of behaviour allows people to retain their humanity?
I believe that decent people live within that range whereas indecent people inevitably exceed it.
Decent people have the strength and discipline to maintain their humanity.
Extremists are indecent people who strive to overcome the resistance decent people have to inhumanity.
You seem to be saying that both Canadians and Americans, the decent ones, will only decide to move to the right politically. Consider a more thoughtful swing to the left and begin moving away from the seemingly etched in stone Lib or Con, Dem or GOP.
I think that the swing to the right will lead both countries to more moderate and pragmatic politics.
Basically, I do not expect decent people to exchange one doctrinal extreme for another.
I expect the swing to the right will bring society back to a more centrist and bi-partisan position on the political spectrum - no matter what the resistance of their political establishments.
I think that a more thoughtful swing away from the left is occurring which does not imply that our societies are on a mindless swing to the extremes of the far right.
The excesses of far left are leaving the constituencies they once appealed to disillusioned but their rejection of these excesses is not likely to lead these constituencies to embrace the same rejection of moderation the far right demands.
If we leave off the excesses of both the far left and right and just look at the muddy middle (MM) range where I think most of us settle, it is still a pleasantly wide range but it doesn't get as much of the attention or press.
The MM is not monolithic. MM-R wants limited gov, fiscal responsibility, free markets, social responsibility, anti-union, pro-energy, anti-woke on principle, rule of law, individual freedoms, and somewhat suspicious of evolving science.
MM-L wants as much gov as necessary, fiscal responsibility, social responsibility, collective responsibility, rule of law, pro-union, pro-choice, pro-clean energy, woke in the original sense, justice, individual freedoms, secularism, assorted freedoms: speech, the press, religion and civil and human rights.
My lists, of course, are not complete and there is a tremendous overlap between MM-R and MM-L. But there are enough differences that I cannot imagine people swinging en mass towards the right just because it's more pragmatic and moderation is never clearly defined.
Conservatism (not the party), to me, has always seemed to be about curtailing, stopping, barriers, unforgiveness, and judgement, gatekeepers if you will. Liberalism or social liberalism gives us civil and political rights, the common good, social programs, social equality, building and opening, not closing doors.
Canadians have always been inundated with American culture and in the past few decades (social media) more than ever. Since the entire Trump thing, everyone is more aware than ever to the point where too many Canadians think the American Constitution and Amendment actually apply here. I think we are psychically tired. We see, hear, watch the American TV reality show and now we have our own parroting the same messages the same way. And it's everywhere. It is very difficult to turn it off or tune it out. We are tired of it. Rather than seeing a swing to the L or the R in any great numbers, I expect that the 2024 election (if not sooner) will have a sadly poor turnout. People will simply not bother because whatever happens feels like more of the same.
As we are a free people, we will work towards the things that are important to us. Anyone who thinks that our political parties can affect real positive change is kidding themselves. For good, positive change to happen takes time and commitment. Our current parties have neither. Getting excited of perceived excesses while already stirred up by our American friend's excesses just seems more exhausting. The polarization/partisanship is not going to go away or be toned down anytime soon either. JT cannot hiccup without scorn and disdain falling on his head whether is warranted or not. PP posts a video and the mocking begins. How can anyone focus on the lovely MM when the MM is trying to tear itself apart? The MM-R and the MM-L will continue to go their own ways, the "press" will take stabs at identifying swatches of it and people will misread the statistics like it's trading time.
I cannot see a swing to the right for the rights sake. Maybe the Cons will get in again, they do occasionally but as the poster-child for Canada, PP isn't it.
Sorry this is so rambling, I hope I'm making some sense while I disagree with you:)
I think most people are decent, not always, but mostly.
The difference you perceive in the existing MM is relatively accurate.
The MM-L embraces the notion of communal dependence and the role of government to secure, encourage and enforce communalism.
The MM-C embraces the notion of individual independence and that the role of government is to discourage dependence for all but those who are genuinely in need of public assistance.
As you have noted, the MM is not monolithic and there remains a distinct possibility that the give and take of bipartisan negotiation can be resurrected to return society to a more functional balance of the two preferences.
Well Cheney and the MSM would have more credibility if the Russian Hoax hadn't happened. Cheney is part of an American political powerhouse that has held power and influence for a long time. All I see are the corrupt fighting the corrupted for the power of the Americam people. If anyone says that the FBI DOJ is not in bed with Big Tech and Big Pharma they have lost their minds.
An alternative view was offered by Republican activist and focus-group professional Sarah Longwell in The Atlantic a few weeks back:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/trump-january-6-hearings-2024-election/670971/
Longwell does those deep-dive focus groups that talk at length with a dozen people, and she's been focused on Republican voters as the summer of hearing went on. Fascinatingly, the Republicans still stoutly condemn the hearings as lies and defend their man...but over the last two hearings were talking all differently about whether DT should run: "too divisive"; "many good candidates"; "want similar views, but not as big an ego"; "time to move on" were suddenly on many lips. They're suddenly concerned that ALL Trump does is talk about the past election and himself, not about any other issues. Longwell believes the hearings, while 'officially' disbelieved, have "given them soft permission to move on". Other comments indicate that even Republicans can get tired of the endless drama, all about Trump, not about policy. (This was also the same weeks when it became clear that Rupert Murdoch was abandoning Trump.)
And then came the FBI and everybody snapped to defend.
The FBI didn't have much choice, but if I did think it a giant conspiracy against the GOP, then it would be a conspiracy to KEEP him popular, with the GOP, so that they do keep him around. I think he'd be easier to beat in '24 than '20, by far.
Trumpist values and messages have their followers, but he'd never have won without the whole aura-of-power he got from the inherited wealth, and the TV show making up a story about the wealth coming from his brains and savvy.
He is no longer being attacked for his views, that his followers love. He isn't being attacked on immigration, or on trade, defense, or abortion. He's being attacked for his personal conduct, and all the discussion is about things that the followers have no real reason to defend, other than defending Trump as their icon. As one writer put it, his cloak of victimhood is getting threadbare.
As for stealing the election, everybody gets to watch the ballots counted, slipping in crooks as returning officers can't change that, it's law. And the courts decide who won, if an election is challenged, not the executive. So the crooks can only throw a close election. I don't think that 2024 would even be close, not after two more years of those "attacks" in court, with court rules, not political WWF rules.
Very good points. The Atlantic piece was indeed really interesting. Where I still find gaps in the analysis, however, is accurately segmenting traditional Republican voters from American First Americans (Bannon’s audience). Traditional republicans may indeed be sick of Trump’s drama, but republican-voting America First Americans certainly aren’t.
I'm not even sure there's a difference, or at least not a binary are/aren't distinction. The "regular Republicans" have supported fabulated conspiracy theories (Saddam nuclear-conspiring with his arch-enemies in Al Qaeda) and voter suppression (Florida 2000, google "greg palast florida ex-con") as blatant as anything more recent.
Note that none of Longwell's focus groups split out into two kinds of Republicans; the 'traditional' Republicans continued to be superficially Trump-loyal. It's more of a continuum, I suspect. With a continuum, there's no dramatic turning points; every knife-cut into Trump's popularity just shaves off a few voters that would rather die that vote Democrat, but can be too busy on election day. (The 'death of a thousand cuts' would be very satisfying, so I'm probably indulging in foolish optimism.)
In my opinion, Steve Bannon is finished as a significant force in U.S. politics. Yes, he still has a fringe of followers, and they can be noisy. Yes, he still attempts to manipulate the system. But anyone following the recent Republican primaries, will see no trace of Bannon's influence. Whether a moderate or Trumpist candidate got the nod had nothing to do with Bannon. It had everything to do with Trump himself, and with the chances of winning against a Democrat.
In my opinion, this article assigns disproportionate influence to Bannon. This is in line with a family of conspiracy theories, that see imminent danger in fringe right-wing groups. But the important thing to remember is that they are "fringe". They have no broad based support, whether in the military, the police, or the general population. Hence, there is no chance of a coup d'etat or a successful insurrection, which do require support from at least one of those groups.
Hi Melanie. You wrote, "Remarkably, many still seem blind to what he’s trying to do." If you mean to say ignorant, please use that word. Equating blindness with ignorance only furthers stereotypical views about what blind people are capable of doing. I don't believe for a moment that this was your intention, but I ask you to consider the effect of such language. Thank you for your consideration.
Thanks Derek, that’s a very good point and I will choose a better word for future writings!
Thank you very much for listening.
Frankly, I find this article very peculiar. Its underlying major premise seems to be that of course The New York Times is more trustworthy and believable than Steve Bannon, and that Trump and Bannon are "weaving a narrative" in ways so foreign to what Democrats would ever think of doing that they not only don't know how to combat it but "don’t even seem to know where the playing field is, let alone how to level it."
Excuse me, but as a retired reference librarian with an ongoing concern for the reliability of information sources and the current state of the information commons (and who, moreover, has always voted left), I not only contest this premise but find it preposterous. Neither Trump nor Bannon needed to "prepare" me to arrive at that particular judgment: the Democrats and The New York Times have done more than enough to arouse my skepticism and sabotage their credibility all on their own. Even if I found what I'm hearing from those sources more plausible than I do, given the relentlessness and uniformity with which they're promoted I'd still fail to see much illegitimacy in a dissenter's attempt to respond in kind. Can you explain why you and I and Bannon shouldn't be entitled to construct narratives of our own--narratives that reflect our views--if The New York Times is free to do it?
I wouldn't vote for Trump for dogcatcher; but it doesn't follow that the prospect of a successful attempt to "take him down as a viable political opponent" give rises to "optimism" in me ('disquiet' is more like it), or that I regard as "absurd" the possibility that if the raid backfires, the "end game" thus created is necessarily more "dangerous" than whatever is guiding the raiders. The most puzzling thing about this article is who it apparently conceives its readership to be. What funds the complacent assumption that if someone doesn't share your take on the meaning and significance of the raid, it can only be because that person belongs to a "different audience" of Trumpian ideological allies, duped by a duplicitous Bannon? Has it ever occurred to you that you might just possibly be the unwitting victim of some institutional duplicity yourself?
If we're all simply at the mercy of our information sources, it's legitimate to ask what makes you immune. If, on the other hand, we have some ability to step back and evaluate the plausibility of the information we receive, then it's incumbent on you to provide an evidentiary trail of just how your sense-making apparatus manages to outperform that of evaluators who arrive at different judgments. It's not enough simply to quote your favoured information sources: their trustworthiness is exactly what's at issue... and the evidence suggests that New York Times editors are every bit as ideologically captured as the most rabid Trump supporters.
By the way, have you ever listened to Bannon for even an hour? He's a pretty smart fellow, and he often makes a more compelling case than NYT op-ed contributors.
TY Mark. That was very good.
"Bannon is weaving a narrative....". Bunk. Ms Paradis is the one "weaving the narrative". There's not a shred of solid fact in this piece. The work is of someone with Trump Derangement Syndrome so deep she verges on the psychotic.
I don't like Trump for US President either. But such conspiracies are bizzare.
Pat, this sort of junk seriously undermines overall quality.
How it is that the Canadian media establishment is so fixated on the shenanigans of the American Tru-Twin while seemingly oblivious to the threat our Tru-Twin poses to our society?
Admittedly, going after the American Tru-Twin is risk free while seeking to hold to account the Canadian version rules you out as the lucky recipient of a sinecure at the CBC down the road or the ultimate reward for sycophancy, a nomination to the Senate.
Could that be the answer?
I suspect that part of it is because the US electoral system is controlled by state governments, and our is independent.
Trudeau will either be turfed by his party, or the first credible leader that some other party puts up.
seconded
I'm tired. I'm also tired of all the stupid cute names. Grow up.
Just can't help yourself, hey?
I know.
Chill.
I got it here. A whole lot involved with it. Seems the party's flip-flopped position in the 60's. https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention
Better yet the farmers protests all over Europe right now that started in the Netherlands. We just had some family from the Netherlands visit. The put in the Fertalizer bans as they did on Canadian Farmers as they want to destory all family farms by pushing the limits on fertilizers to which will fiancially bankrupt them. The idea is to make food production centralized and run by the same people who brought us the pandemic and its rules. These globalist elites will cause mass starvation and death across the globe in order to control everything centrally. If they control the food production, they control the people.
Here is another tid bit for folks here. In the Netherlands, if you have too much money in the bank, the banks charge you, not pay interest on your holdings. How does that sound? They use your money for investments and they make millions from that and then they charge you to keep your money in their bank. They want your money out of the bank as they are trying to do here now. They want you to spend your savings regardless if the majority is in RRSP's as they will get three quarters of it in taxes. This is the reason that Freeland said there is lots of money in accounts right here and they can use that to stimulate the economy. I just bet they could. The banks even chimed in on that one. Now these are real newsworthy instead of Trump derangement syndrome but you hear nothing in the media about any of this.
ML, you are wrong again.
Please explain how it is I am wrong. There is a tariff on imported fertilizer already so it costs more and they are moving to a thirty percent reduction coming in October by Trudeau. As for Holland I am getting straight from the people and the people are standing with the farmers, not the Government. So if there is something I am missing here please explain.
And you never ever stand with any gov at any level in any country anywhere ever.
ML, I'm Dutch. Note the name. It means "carpenter" in English but Holland is such a tiny little country that everyone knows a farmer. I have 9 aunts and uncles and about a million cousins and some farm too.
You are wrong about:
Fertilizer ban in Canada.
They want to destory all family farms by pushing the limits on fertilizers to which will fiancially bankrupt them.
...make food production centralized and run by the same people who brought us the pandemic and its rules.
These globalist elites will cause mass starvation and death across the globe in order to control everything centrally.
If they control the food production, they control the people.
if you have too much money in the bank, the banks charge you, not pay interest on your holdings. (Canadian banks do exactly the same thing to unused cash in an account. A German friend lest $800 in a chequing account at the BMO. He thought he'd be back in a year or so. 5 years later he comes back and there is nothing left, it went to fees. This was 10 yrs ago or so. He argued and the manager returned his money. Today I think they'd tell him too bad, so sad.)
There is lots of money in accounts in Canadian bank (I suspect it's the same in Holland) and the banks invest it. They always have, they don't just sit on it waiting for you to withdraw. Again, rules and regs abound on the banks...who also are the most profitable businesses in Canada, ever.
TDS is MAGAts and that lot. Not the people who are concerned about that big country to the south of us.
https://inspection.canada.ca/plant-health/fertilizers/fertilizer-or-supplement-registration/new-regulations-guide/eng/1601391948941/1601392244498
Well Lyle that happens to be the government document telling farmers to reduce their use of fertilizers by 30 % and it starts in October. Foolish me not showing you proof.
https://nypost.com/2022/07/12/good-for-dutch-farmers-for-fighting-back-against-a-govt-bowing-to-enviro-radicals/
Oh no not bad at all except there is already a food shortage and this will make it worse. That there will be half of the farmers having the land that has been in their families for generations removed from their land and unable to farm. Are you truly cognizant of the problems happening around the world and the starvation going on due to Ukraine war and difficulty getting foods out. This creates an even further shortage of food. This work is being done by uninformed scientists that know zero about farming and are all tied up in globalist ideals that will rape this world of further foods to go around. They are sending these same people to Alberta and Saskatchewan but they will not be allowed to trespass on farmers land as it is private property. They must ask for admittance and I don’t see that sforthcoming.
There is no food shortage today. There is a distribution problem. This is not new and not just due to covid.
It's not just Holland and Canada that is looking to cut nitrogen production. Everyone will be doing it. We also have the science to help.
Most ag scientists are not insane global idealists who goal is to reduce the world pop as viciously and horribly as possible. Be more aware of international corps like Monsanto and Dupont and their genetically modified sterile seeds and plants. Most farmers use more fertilizers than necessary for bigger yields and hopefully a bigger return.
No one is going to farms in Canada and trespassing and doing what? Don't be silly.
I thought it was the Military Industrial Entertainment Complex, all four in one. Now you are telling me that Entertainment is a sub-division.
Yes, we are aware that Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked and there has been a shooting war for the past 6 months. What are we missing? Is the US no longer involved?