site banner
ulyssessword  14d ago (text post)   1721 thread views

Canada Federal Election 2025

Today is the day!

Poll aggregator: https://338canada.com/

Live results: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/federal/2025/results/

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It's hard to disentangle because they happened right on top of each-other, but I think the Conservative collapse (after their, let's not forget, unprecedented historic high) was about equal parts: 1) that voting Conservative was no longer the only way to get rid of Trudeau; 2) Trump scaring the hoes.

For the Trump stuff, keep in mind that Trump is the defining central figure of conservativism to the would-be Canadian Conservative swing voter, not much less than he is to Americans. And then he:

  1. Really quite painfully betrayed and attacked Canada, in an unignorable and materially destructive way (this was less the "51st state" talk than it appears now: remember Canada was hit with the tariffs alone before everyone else)
  2. Did a bunch of wild and unpredictable shit that went way beyond what people centrally wanted out of him

These things were discrediting of conservativism to the marginal swing voter, so the Conservatives' burgeoning "it's okay to vote conservative, it's okay, nothing bad will happen, I promise, come in the water's fine" moment was cruelly cut out from under them.

Of course there could (as in, counterfactually) have also been other factors beyond Trudeau and Trump, but Poilievre failed to make it happen.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats