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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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  • For the first time in my life, I get the sense that public opinion is turning on immigration. Canada has always had a sort of left-wing nationalist pride in our immigration intake. It's only in the last few years I've started to hear murmurings of dissent. Even so, people don't blame immigrants themselves (rightly!), but the government.
  • There would be some transmission from failure in office to electoral results. It's just delayed because we don't do fixed electoral terms, so the sitting PM gets to sometimes squeeze out an extra few years by calling an election early like Trudeau did in 2021. If the election were held today, it would be a Conservative blowout. I can't imagine it will be any less of a blowout in 2025 if things continue to get worse. There's also the impending mortgage crisis forecast to hit just in time for election season.

What @KMC said. I'm sure this change of heart won't actually go anywhere, it will run up against the innumerable thought terminating cliches with which Canadians have been inoculated (do they say "No person is illegal" up there?) and be successfully contained. And even if it somehow overcomes this conditioning -- then what? The toothpaste is out of the tube, nobody has the guts to deport or worse, so rent will continue to be high and legacy Canadians will continue to find human feces on the beach.

EDIT: Phoneposting typos.

It's fine to not blame the immigrants themselves so long as you don't confuse that with shielding them from consequences. It's not their fault, it's the government's, but just because it's not their fault doesn't mean that they should not be inconvenienced or sent back. That's the crux that I suspect will be overlooked.