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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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how is Justin Trudeau so popular?

Anecdotally, it is for tangential reasons. He is attractive & knows how to use it to appear charismatic. He performs all the 'good boy' rituals that headline-only readers enjoy. He keeps his corporate interests happy and the opposition is as incompetent as it gets.

Justin Trudeau has a discount version in 'Rahul Gandhi' in India. Son of royalty, given his position due to nepotism, attractive man, does all the right woke-rituals while running his own party as a dictator. Left-Media does everything to bolster his position while anyone is opposition is called racist/fascist/bigoted. The 2 main differences are Gandhi's lack of charisma & being faced with the most competent democratic politician alive in Modi.(maybe along side Netanyahu)

Trudeau needs some proper opposition.

One of my favorite wacky conspiracy theories of the last 10 years is that Justin Trudeau is actually the biological son of Fidel Castro and thus geneticially predisposed to become a charismatic tin-pot dictator beloved by mid-wit intellectuals.

Mind you I don't buy into that theory, or genetic determinism in general, but it would be pretty damn funny if it were true.

There are millions of people in Canada and only one prime minister. How probable is it that Justin Trudeau would be the son of a leader in the Americas?

The theory rests on the idea that his mom & official dad were communist friendly and at least swinger-adjacent -- in addition to being personally close to Castro, and documented to be someplace where he could conceivably have been present around the time of Justin's conception. And he does look kind of similar.

I wouldn't give it high probability, but it's not the most outrageous conspiracy theory I've ever heard by a long shot.

Given the small number of presidents within the general population how probable is it that that the US's 43rd president would be the son of it's 41st president.

As a non-American, I had always just assumed that George Bush is a common name in the US.

It's certainly not an uncommon name, both "George" and "Bush" are common names on their own, but if you wanted a maximally generic American name it would be something like "Matt Smith" "Shaun Black" or "Elizabeth Rodrigues"

The Havana Candidate.

I unironically believe that conspiracy theory. Not that I think my belief or nonbelief really matters in any real sense, but in my opinion there's a decent amount of evidence for it, the official denials would look identical regardless of the truth and thus offer zero evidence for or against the proposition, and so I choose to believe that it's true because it makes me laugh.