This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
If you look at 2022 - 2026 numbers then it's clear that the real story is the collapse of the NDP. They've lost half of their typical support.
Look at past elections: https://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/1867-present.html
If this holds up then we're looking at a realignment following the death of the NDP as a national party. They basically committed suicide to stop the Conservatives in the last election, and it's not clear that they can come back if they do it again.
There's a long tradition in Canada of blaming the Conservative leader for not being in government. Surely if they oust him then the messiah will appear.
The reality is that there are multiple institutions in Canada who consider shitting on the right wing opposition leader to be a de-facto part of their mandate. By contrast it's relatively easy for Carney to look Prime Ministerial, what with him actually being the PM.
There's a baseball stats term called "Wins Above Replacement" where to evaluate players they compare their stats to a typical replacement level player. We can't quantify political leaders like that but I am suggesting he's better than any likely replacement.
As for the polls, there were polls showing them as tied back in December and January. It'd be silly to oust a leader over something so transient.
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.
My view is that there's no depth behind that. Canadians don't know much about him, have seen negative stories about him lately, and so report a negative opinion on polls.
Carney has been staying popular by keeping the focus on anti-Americanism and avoiding launching new bold social experiments.
His problem is that's not sustainable. His base has been distracted by Trump but they are going to be expecting some bold new social program soon. Meanwhile Carney is going to be hit by consequences of Trudeaus policies hard over the next couple of years and it will be extremely hard for him to navigate.
Poilievre's big problem previously was that he was running a front runner campaign. His people didn't want him doing podcasts / youtube because it would upset national reporters in Canada. He's been making some changes with that.
Poilievre's Triggernometry interview from 7 days ago is at 675k views. Those views are likely mostly from people outside Canada, but that's a lot for a Canadian politician. Especially for one who's only in opposition.
Contrast that with Carney's Monocole interview from 2 days ago which currently has 139k views. Keep in mind that he's the actual PM.
"very, very, unpopular with the broader public" implies that there's some deep dislike, and I don't see any evidence of that. Opinion can turn on a dime if Carney gets into trouble and isn't seen as viable.
Poilievre just needs to keep going on podcasts to get his message out and wait for Carney to be hit with a crisis that divides his base.
More options
Context Copy link
Something has always felt off about that.
I'll grant it's true now. I don't know that it always was. There was a time where he seemed like the most popular Conservative leader in living memory. He was genuinely getting people out to rallies, and not even during election season. His campaign doubled party membership in under a year.
And even then, the media was running the story "Pierre is unlikeable and unpopular". I was like "are we watching the same movie?". Doubted it was true at the time. Suspected they memed it into existence, but it stuck.
He's been saying (with energy!) the things young people have been grumbling about for years, especially re: housing, economy, etc. A coworker was ranting about politics to me basically complaining about the fact that she'll never buy a home, and practically repeating lines from Pierre's youtube playbook. I asked her what she thought of Poilievre. "don't like him". "oh? why?". "dunno. just don't"
I think it's because he's a nerd. The general public hates a nerd. Even though he ditched the glasses, hit the gym, and changed his messaging to 3-word populism, people can tell he's still a nerd. He has debate club energy, and the fact that he is right and "wins" the debate doesn't help him.
He gives off a really smug vibe and I find him generally offputting, but I found Trudeau to be more offputting. I did plan on voting CPC in the last election but the CPC platform was not published before I voted, and when I read their governance document (forget the proper title) I found it vague and full of contradictory sentiments as they tried to appeal to reactionary voters (medical decisions are your right, the government can't mandate vaccinations, but also, you can't be making medical decisions about your children with the participation of those children and their medical team -- vaguely worded of course). I also listened to interviews with Carney from years prior and found him to be a reasonable, pragmatic, neoliberal technocrat. I hopped on /r/candianconservative and asked for people to give me links to PP discussing trump and other issues of the moment. The videos all turned me off because of his tendency to blame others (the Liberals in this case), and not come out with concrete plans. He never felt like a serious man with serious plans who wants to build stuff. He came across as a reactionary politician trying to create soundbites and boo his outgroup.
Now, I'm open to changing my mind. I do not think he's an evil man, or Canadian Trump or any of that BS. However, he really needs to focus on ignoring the Liberals and laying out a clear plan (emphasizing CLEAR) on lots of issues. When he gets interviewed and asked tough questions he needs to answer them instead of trying to pivot to talk about how bad the Liberals are. It's insufferable. I know the Liberals suck, I don't need you to tell me that. Tell me how you are going to lead the country instead.
Yeah. I had a similar evaluation. Expected Carney to be a more competent leader, which counts for a lot, though I still could not vote Liberal that election. After breaking the country so badly with the immigration & housing mess across a decade, just couldn't endorse another term for their government.
I will say that Poilievre used to do more messaging about economics, inflation, housing, etc. trying to show his work. At a certain point, he stopped doing that and pivoted to more attack ads and three word slogans. Worse in my opinion, but it probably polled better.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link