[JaredMilne]

Thanos Thanos:

Even more so when it comes from PeePee, who hasn't actually worked any sort of real-world job in his entire life. None of that gaggle of young conservative shitheads (Poilievre, Levant, Anders, Jaffer, Day, etc) who burst onto the scene in the late 1990's have. High school conservative club, straight into political science & communications in university, then became the backroom of young punks doing the agitation work, performing stupid media stunts, & making up the daily talking points list for Reform Party MP's. Even Trudeau worked outside of politics, sort of, even if most of it was just to do something with his spare time as opposed to having to make a living. Christ, I've hardly had the most stellar career and job experience in my own life but I'm still pretty sure that I've had more dirt underneath my fingernails than most of today's Conservative caucus has had combined. Fuck, if anyone here at CKA has even turned a wrench or screwdriver or popped open a computer console even once in your entire life then you've done more actual work than any of these professional politicians ever have.

xerxes xerxes:

So many populist movements quickly devolve into a grift. And the right wing is adept at separating rubes from their money as they promise to fight the “elite”, as they pocket the money and rejoin the elite at their country clubs and laugh at the suckers.

You want to know who was also called a populist back in the day?



John Diefenbaker was a short-tempered blowhard who similarly railed against the country's media and intellectual elites the way a lot of conservatives do today, but he still got a lot of shit done. He gave First Nations full legal voting rights, reformed agriculture and found new markets for Canadian wheat, started the ball rolling on pan-Canadian public healthcare, scrapped the ethnically-biased immigration system he inherited, got South Africa kicked out of the Commonwealth over its apartheid policies, helped the Alberta energy industry grow with his Oil and Gas Program, and finished the Trans-Canada Highway.

I wouldn't be surprised if Diefenbaker, were he alive today, would verbally tear someone like Levant apart (and physically too, if Diefenbaker could get his hands on him). If you look at Dief The Chief's actual historical record, at least half of it would probably trigger Levant.

Like I noted before, I wonder how Poilievre will be able to keep the anti-vaxxers and convoy protesters onside while also further expanding the tent to racialized people, not to mention his economic promises without pissing off the business community. That type of juggling act can be done, but it's not at all easy.

If you were to gather every single Prime Minister who's ever run this country, living or dead, locked them in a room and forbade them from coming out until they found one thing they could all agree on, they'd be out in two minutes. The thing they could all agree on is that this country can be an absolute bitch to govern.

[Scape]

Hear! Hear!

[DrCaleb]

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

John Diefenbaker was a short-tempered blowhard who similarly railed against the country's media and intellectual elites the way a lot of conservatives do today, but he still got a lot of shit done. He gave First Nations full legal voting rights, reformed agriculture and found new markets for Canadian wheat, started the ball rolling on pan-Canadian public healthcare, scrapped the ethnically-biased immigration system he inherited, got South Africa kicked out of the Commonwealth over its apartheid policies, helped the Alberta energy industry grow with his Oil and Gas Program, and finished the Trans-Canada Highway.

What? Dief was an actual Progressive? How odd!

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

I wouldn't be surprised if Diefenbaker, were he alive today, would verbally tear someone like Levant apart (and physically too, if Diefenbaker could get his hands on him). If you look at Dief The Chief's actual historical record, at least half of it would probably trigger Levant.

I would pay money to see this.

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

Like I noted before, I wonder how Poilievre will be able to keep the anti-vaxxers and convoy protesters onside while also further expanding the tent to racialized people, not to mention his economic promises without pissing off the business community. That type of juggling act can be done, but it's not at all easy.

I think he will have more than one "Stand back and Stand by" moment.

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

If you were to gather every single Prime Minister who's ever run this country, living or dead, locked them in a room and forbade them from coming out until they found one thing they could all agree on, they'd be out in two minutes. The thing they could all agree on is that this country can be an absolute bitch to govern.

I think this is why nothing gets done. A PM can't stand behind something one group feels strongly about without angering another group somewhere else.

[Strutz]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I think this is why nothing gets done. A PM can't stand behind something one group feels strongly about without angering another group somewhere else.

Politicians... people pleasers need not apply

[housewife]

But that’s all it is these days Strutz. One big old popularity contest… don’t worry about their platform or their background vote for the cute one that can read a speech well. It’s a crap show!

[DrCaleb]

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[raydan]

I know little about politicians, but I do know who I hate.

[xerxes]

I'd say there's a big difference between the populism of Diefenbaker, and the pseudo-populism of PP. Dief's policies were meant to help Canada and like most other populists from Canadian political history, it was a populism rooted in morality.

PP's "populism" is rooted in selfishness and greed.

[Scape]

PP tribe, the ones that chant 'FUCK TRUDEAU' at the drop of a hat, is not rooted in reality and that's why he is dangerous.

That said the government HAS stumbled during this difficult time and instead of being the LOYAL opposition and highlighting what is wrong and how to do it better they instead give aid and comfort to insurrections who want to overthrow ALL authorities. It's imbecilic to think this line of attack will garner support from anyone outside of the convoy supporters.

The PP party is the convoy party of Canada. Welcome to the pollical hinterland because you are never getting trusted with power till you understand the difference between being the opposition and enabling insurrectionist and separatists.

Blaming Trudeau for EVERYTHING sounds easy but it has a cost. Housing, inflation and lack of doctors isn't the feds falling down, it's the colleges, the intuitions, the provinces and the feds all falling short here. Pining the tail on the donkey needs to be targeted and a PLATFORM with actual policies needs to be tabled to correct this. You don't get that with FUCK Trudeau, you get another TRUMP.

[housewife]

Scape Scape:

PP tribe, the ones that chant 'FUCK TRUDEAU' at the drop of a hat, is not rooted in reality and that's why he is dangerous.

That said the government HAS stumbled during this difficult time and instead of being the LOYAL opposition and highlighting what is wrong and how to do it better they instead give aid and comfort to insurrections who want to overthrow ALL authorities. It's imbecilic to think this line of attack will garner support from anyone outside of the convoy supporters.

The PP party is the convoy party of Canada. Welcome to the pollical hinterland because you are never getting trusted with power till you understand the difference between being the opposition and enabling insurrectionist and separatists.

Blaming Trudeau for EVERYTHING sounds easy but it has a cost. Housing, inflation and lack of doctors isn't the feds falling down, it's the colleges, the intuitions, the provinces and the feds all falling short here. Pining the tail on the donkey needs to be targeted and a PLATFORM with actual policies needs to be tabled to correct this. You don't get that with FUCK Trudeau, you get another TRUMP.

That’s basically everything I was thinking in much better format!

[herbie]

CAn't wait for the whining to start now Poilivre has USED the Convidiots and fringe elements to win leadership and has to lurch to the center if he wants to actually win an election.
There's just not gonna be abortion debates, painting over rainbow crosswalks and legislation over if you're standing or sitting to pee behind the bathroom door. And if unlike past CPC leaders he realizes that 'their Climate policy is no good' is NOT a climate policy, his win won't be a Tory celebration it will be their last gasp.

[Scape]

Doubt it. The liberals will find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by tacking to the right. Double down on austerity to looks more conservative than the conservatives. I guarantee they will do that to distract on their clumsy handling of the pandemic and dragging their feet on reforming colleges from letting in doctors and nurses from other countries.

Easier to them to say we should all sacrifice and tighten our belts , scapegoat the lunatic convoy fringe while doing little if any real changes. They had to be threaten with an election if they didn't offer dental care for example by the NDP. Kicking and screaming before they do something for anyone but their immediate circle of supporters is the reason why they don't have a majority either.

[Thanos]

The informal Lib/NDP alliance will keep the CPC in minority territory for the foreseeable future. I don't see why Trudeau would ever move rightwards economically. There's no one calling for it, not the way back in the 1990's when all the banks & other rip-off artist fiscal gatekeepers were screaming "public debt!?!?!? ahh, you gotta gut all government spending now, especially anything that helps non-wealthy people, or WE'LL ALL DIE!". And it would piss off the NDP too much and the alliance would collapse. There's no benefit at all in embracing austerity for the Libs. When even someone like Jason Kenney avoids austerity with a thousand-foot long pole then it's safe to assume that the entire proposal is dead to pretty much everyone outside of the fiscal think-tanks in university economics faculties. Leave such talk to PeePee and the other scolds in the perpetual opposition party to whine about these things to give themselves something to do.

[herbie]

Been dare dundat. I remember how after Mulroney's austerity (LOL!) the whole country seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when Chretien won.
A whole decade without a pot to piss in, both of us with union jobs at the time...

The korporate c*nts have figured out how to rake in even more money without calling for belt-tightening and that 1980s bullshit. That's why they're silent.

And AFAIC "Trudeau" didn't mishandle Covid at all. He handed off responsibility to Doctors who were supposed to know way more than he did about disease... and we had 1/3 the deaths per capita as the freedumb loving USA and their mishmosh of responses.
The Tories would probably just now come out with a list of who they decided would qualify for Covid relief, made you pay if you chose to get the vaccines and we'd be well into a real depression because of it.

[DrCaleb]

herbie herbie:

And AFAIC "Trudeau" didn't mishandle Covid at all. He handed off responsibility to Doctors who were supposed to know way more than he did about disease... and we had 1/3 the deaths per capita as the freedumb loving USA and their mishmosh of responses.

And way less than the UK, who have nationalized healthcare like us. But a Conservative government, unlike us.