johnfabian
1d ago
US bases are basically towns in their own right. In every aspect it would be more difficult to school kids off-base, plus it would create new security risks.
johnfabian
1d ago
There definitely are issues with the legal deportation process in Canada, no doubt. But it is also significantly harder to live illegally in Canada than it is the United States. There are no doubt hundreds of thousands of visa overstays, maybe even a million - but we don't have to nearly the same extent the same kind of underground economy.
johnfabian
1d ago
The Liberals are competitive in Alberta again. That Trudeau-era dynamic has been washed away, at least for now.
johnfabian
1d ago
There seems to be a big campaign right now from the left to get the Conservatives to dump Pierre. That's not what you'd expect if he was truly weak.
Poilievre is simply very, very, unpopular with the broader public. There's no way to get around that.
johnfabian
1d ago
It's "woke" to not want to kill children?
johnfabian
1d ago
Immigration has been another interesting change with Carney in power; most of the pathways that were vulnerable to fraud have been (quietly) shut down. It's been a strange phenomenon where you end up seeing the article about how x or y immigration scheme has been closed from an Indian newspaper, because the Canadian government has not commented on it all. Since Carney has taken over, Canada's population has started to shrink for the first time in a long time (not including COVID years). The vast bulk of this is due to expiring visas of temporary residents.
Obviously it won't be enough for a lot of people, but the people who were claiming that Carney was going to press down the accelerator and flood the country were obviously wrong. I think more importantly for Canadians the more obviously fraudulent elements are being restricted, namely the international student streams, while popular capital I immigration (that is to say, permanent residency offered to non-Canadian residents) stays the same.
The other really troublesome issue is the stream of asylum seekers which exploded again at the end of Trudeau's reign; Canada got some 170k in 2024 and another 110k in 2025. The Carney government is cutting a bunch of funding to refugees and asylum seekers (again, quietly), and there's been more recent debate in Parliament about going further.
I think the Liberals have managed to somewhat skillfully defuse immigration as the bomb around their neck, at least for the present, by simultaneously addressing the most negative elements of the system they had set up (while also not telling anyone they are doing so, as to avoid blame).
johnfabian
1d ago
Mark Carney, Ascendant
At the start of the year there was somewhat of a stalemate in Canadian politics. The Liberals were close to a majority with two recent floor-crossings, but still a few seats shy. Prime Minister Mark Carney was reasonably popular, but the Liberal party he led was decidedly not. Conversely, the Conservative Party was moderate popular, but its leader Pierre Poilievre was not. All this added up to what was essentially a deadlock in voter intention should an election be called.
Since then, there has been a dramatic change in political fortunes. Mark Carney is now the most popular Canadian politician in recent memory. Pierre Poilievre is now the most unpopular (give or take a Justin Trudeau). The difference between their favourability metrics (i.e. how much people approve vs disapprove of them) is now 60 points, which is truly monumental. The Liberals are now polling into solid majority territory, but they don't even need to call an election to get one. With two more defections (one from the Conservatives, and another from the NDP last night) they will have a majority if they (almost certainly) win two of three forthcoming by-elections. And that's even if there isn't more floor-crossers, of whom there are several more expected from both the Conservatives and NDP.
What the hell happened?
I've always said that even the most dysfunctional democracies favour boring bankers as leaders in times of crisis. Carney is probably the most-qualified PM in Canada's history, if you try and rank them by achievement before taking office, but obviously that only goes so far in the social media age. But the economic and political turmoil, and especially the impact of Trump, definitely works in his favour. As the various American attempts to squeeze the Canadian economy have continued, Carney's popularity has grown. This isn't all pure contrarian reaction to Trump - Carney's messaging has been very effective. He makes repeated high-profile trips to foreign countries to secure new trade deals and terms, and I think this is a huge boon to his popularity as the news of new trade deals, investment, partnerships, etc. is a good counterpoint to the economic uncertainty. Even the areas where Liberal support reached a nadir, like Alberta and Saskatchewan, have substantially warmed up to him because of his success in ending trade conflict with China and clearing the bureaucratic hurdles towards substantial new infrastructure projects. Also it can't be overlooked how influential his speech at the WEF was in setting himself apart from the crop of other Canadian politicians in terms of having a coherent, long-term philosophy that is achievable rather than a mishmash of contemporary trends and reflexive partisanship.
Speaking of which, Pierre Poilievre is largely the victim of his own personality. He is not exactly what you would call charismatic. He has had basically no work experience outside of being an MP, and for decades was the "attack dog" of the Conservative caucus who gave much of their replies during Question Period in Parliament. In short he developed a character that was partisan, quippy, and negative. This worked just fine when he was up against a very unpopular Justin Trudeau. Even while he was still unpopular himself he was looking at a super-majority election win at the end of 2024. But up against a very popular Carney he comes across very poorly by comparison, and Canadians have soured on him even more as a result. It doesn't help that his leadership style is very literally driving MPs out of his party: all the three defectors from the Conservatives so far have cited his abrasive nature as a reason for leaving. In late January his continued leadership of the party was confirmed at the Conservative convention, but you wonder how much leash he has if Carney remains popular and peels another few Conservatives away. It's one thing to lose an election: it's another to then let your opponent form a majority because you've driven off your own MPs.
The third element in all of this is that the NDP, the traditional third (fourth?) party and the left flank of Canadian politics, is currently having its leadership race and looks set on picking Avi Lewis, who is firmly from the progressive/activist mould. He is an interesting choice for leader in the sense that there is some reward to the risk; he's a very smooth media personality and has the potential to sell Canadians on a different approach. But his views are at odds with average Canadians and more NDP MPs seem primed to jump ship to the Liberals if he wins, which is very bad for the NDP as they're already skating on thin ice. Even the MP who just quit the party, Lori Idlout, was a supporter of Lewis not an opponent. But at some point you figure it's better to be in the tent pissing out, so to speak. Especially given that Carney has (so far) been successful at securing foreign deals and investments, there's a strong personal and political incentive to join the winning team if you can secure something for your region out of it.
Anyways, here are the polls as they stand now. You can see the very marked shift in fortunes since the start of the year. This is a new phenomenon in Canadian politics; floor crossers are nothing new, but the sheer number of them in such a short span of time, let alone to form a majority government, is entirely novel.
johnfabian
5d ago
Here's an easy deal: you can call it treason after Congress declares war (or otherwise formally approves military operations against Iran).
Up until that point this is purely the whims of the President, not the elected representatives of the country. Opposing Trump is no more treason than opposing Biden or Obama.
johnfabian
5d ago
Yes, this idea of Europeans (in any significant number) cheering on 9/11 seems completely made-up. There was a wave of pro-American goodwill like I can never remember before after 9/11. Lots of European countries participated in invading and occupying Afghanistan.
Iraq, on the other hand, thoroughly reset the counter. But that was after.
johnfabian
7d ago
I think it's much more simply a form of in-group pressures, which have grown stronger in the age of social media. If you don't use the most extreme adjective to describe [negative thing X], then aren't you really actually in support of [negative thing X]?
This is not something unique to social justice progressives.
johnfabian
8d ago
That might be the official line, but given the degree to which Russia is investing in new delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons suggest that at least they believe that American capabilities are or will be greater than are currently stated.
johnfabian
10d ago
Yes, that's why I specified "in occupied territory." The western Allies didn't necessarily consider enemy civilians to be "fair game" per se, but there was certainly a murkier moral world view than might have wished to be remembered. Certainly the strategic bombing offensives engaged in a similar kind of euphemistic language ("morale bombing", attacking the "enemy housing stock") as the Nazis did with respect to targeting civilian populations.
johnfabian
11d ago
This kind of indiscriminate murder was the norm among Axis countries. For example the "kill 1 in 10" rule was something the Germans frequently deployed when "pacifying" unruly communities in Yugoslavia or Greece or Italy. (They were likely to do far worse in Eastern Europe)
For the Allies, no this was not normal. Violence against civilians in occupied territory was either very rare (western Allies) or common and unrestrained (Soviets), but in any case not typically used as an overtly political tool to quash dissent.
johnfabian
12d ago
That was more classical siege etiquette, not medieval. In medieval times sieges tended to be very prolonged, assaults rare, and in general hunger was the main tactic used to force surrender.
johnfabian
13d ago
Good rule of thumb for US military interventions: once all the toys are out of the toybox, they're going to get played with.
A message to people trying to negotiate with the US is that the longer you let the build-up continue, the more you're going to have to give up to call it off. The effort involved in assembling these many military assets in-theater makes its momentum hard to stop. The inertia is just too much.
johnfabian
13d ago
This has been very much the tone of Trump 2.0. It was either this or "Operation Bacon420"
johnfabian
15d ago
I really enjoyed seeing Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie in theaters recently. Very funny movie, and the first time in a long time where I spent so much time afterwards thinking how they managed to do the various things in the film. You'll probably have to wait until it's on streaming because it's a niche Canadian release with limited theatrical rollout, but I'd definitely recommend it
johnfabian
16d ago
It's very easy to imagine the reverse scenario too - a Democrat president asks all those who think fascism has no place in America to stand up, most (or all) Republicans refuse because they understand that when the Democrats say "fascism" they don't mean the Nazis, they mean them. Then all the Democratic-aligned media say look at all these fascists.
johnfabian
19d ago
In one of those weird things where it feels like the internet is actually fulfilling its promise, Angine de Poitrine has gone viral. They are a... uhh, alien? rock group of two guys from Saguenay in the interior of Québec. They play a simultaneously incoherent and very danceable style of microtonal music. They've been active for a few years but blew up in the past two weeks thanks to the video I linked of them playing a studio session in Rennes. Previously obscure if you weren't a real music nerd, their current tour is now selling out everywhere.
The youtube comments are quite funny, but there's also a realization that this is the kind of music that is both cool and totally unmarketable, and so it sort of falls to the whims of the algorithm as to whether unique, interesting, and talented artists like this can find a following.
johnfabian
21d ago
I think much more simply, the conception is that "soldier" is an occupation, and "warrior" is a social class. A soldier's execution of his duty is because of the contractual and occupational obligations foisted upon him. A warrior fights because it his nature.
johnfabian
22d ago
To somewhat ludicrous extremes, when the Sardaukur (the supposed uber-warriors) are taking 3-to-1 casualties fighting the Fremen women and children.
johnfabian
23d ago
Germany performed respectably during the war and lost because it was facing multiple peer adversaries simultaneously+the British naval blockade.
Why did Germany end up facing multiple peer adversaries, including the world's greatest naval and industrial powers?
I don't think you can shrug it off as mere coincidence. The German approach to diplomacy in the decades leading up to WWI was aggressive and confrontational, they very much set this strategic situation up for themselves.
johnfabian
23d ago
All of them are liberal constitutional democracies, however.
I'm not some bleeding heart. I know that war means dead kids, that's just the nature of things. It's why war is bad and you try to avoid it, but it also means that sometimes some civilians will die in order to end a war quicker.
But surely you can see that the sentiment being expressed here is beyond that of just "it is silly to expect perfection from the US."
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