Holding forth on elections

[sabotabby]

 Well, the highest comedy and likely best possible outcome came to pass.

First, a joke: What's the difference between Pierre Poilievre and a toilet?
They're both full of shit, but at least a toilet has a seat.

Many of my comrades are being crusty about it on Facebook*, in stark contrast to the rejoicing and relief I see practically everywhere else. Just to be clear: I don't like the Liberals. I don't like much of Carney's agenda. I would prefer an NDP government, and even more than that, I would prefer a left of the NDP government. Even more than that, I would prefer Indigenous self-governance and decentralized workers' councils. But, like, I live in the real world where there was a fascist who by all accounts, five months ago, was set to become Prime Minister of my country with the largest number of seats in goddamn history and to stay there for a decade or more. This is a Harper-trained ideologue who wanted to end the "woke" agenda, a.k.a. kill trans people, steal vast swaths of territory from Indigenous communities and build pipelines without any kind of pretend-consultation even, purge encampments and jail homeless people en masse, criminalize protest, crash the economy by investing in bitcoin, and end vaccination campaigns. This is a junior Trumpist and Modi asset who literally campaigned on the same slogans that got us fascism down south.

So yeah. I am going to protest whatever fuckery the Liberals get up to, because protest will still be legal in this country and my trans friends who go to protests with me will be alive. And I get to be happy about this.

It's very scary that around 40% of the country looked south, saw what Trump was doing, and said, "I want me some of that." Basically turnout was so high that they won more votes than ever and still lost. The Liberals won basically by bleeding support from the NDP, the Bloc, and anyone else with half a brain. The Conservatives lost because more people looked at Trump and said, "absolutely not." The NDP got crushed because they have failed to make a serious attempt anything higher than Official Opposition for my entire lifetime, and also failed to meaningfully differentiate themselves from the Liberals or appeal to the working class. People didn't vote for the Communist Party because they don't like wasting their votes. It's not a mystery.

The scariest thing to me is actually the result of the student vote from CIVIX. This normally goes to the NDP with a healthy Green showing; for both the Ontario election and the Canadian one, it went to the Conservatives. Now, granted young people don't tend to vote, and previous waves of progressive young people haven't translated into electoral victories once they hit the age where people do, but it does suggest a narrative where young people, particularly young men, are increasingly reactionary. These are Poilievre's potential brownshirts if he manages to hang on as Opposition leader, so pay attention.

Anyway. I don't even know the first thing about Bruce Fanjoy but I would like very much to congratulate him on some great work, and an even bigger congratulations to the Longest Ballot Committee, who are fighting for democracy and winning in the most hilarious way possible.

We dodged a bullet yesterday, people. Don't get complacent.

* You'll be surprised that the loudest complaints are coming from cishet white guys.

Comments

[redbird]

It looks from here as though a bunch of people in Quebec looked at the options and decided that yes they wanted an independent Quebec, but they'd rather be part of Canada than of the United States.

[sabotabby]

Yep, and who could blame them?

[sovay]

So yeah. I am going to protest whatever fuckery the Liberals get up to, because protest will still be legal in this country and my trans friends who go to protests with me will be alive. And I get to be happy about this.

Strength to your arm! May your protests achieve their goals and have good music.

[sabotabby]

And yours as well.

[mistersmearcase]

Many of my comrades are being crusty about it on Facebook

I think I used to try and understand this kind of leftists but once I fully understood they had nothing but contempt for me for being insufficiently radical and considered me the enemy, I pretty much lost interest. I'll just assume they're off somewhere singing "Love Me I'm a Liberal" over and over and telling each other how important they are.

[sabotabby]

I can't turn the teacher part of my brain off and the result is that I feel the need to Educate them that their little sectarian party isn't ever going to command higher than triple digits. If they want to actually engage with useful activism outside of electoral politics, I respect that, but for the most part they are not. They are hanging around with other leftists talking to each other.

The worst thing is that I agree that all their critiques about each of the parties are correct. But. There is one party that's the worst and poses an existential threat, and thus the moral thing to do is vote against them (which takes at most an hour out of your life) and then keep doing the activism that you think is going to actually make a difference.

/rant

[minoanmiss]

I underwent the exact same journey.

[kore]

Phil Ochs reference, heh.

[gingicat]

Hurray for it still being legal to protest!

[sabotabby]

I mean for now, our NDP mayor is apparently willing to cave to pressure and make huge areas of the city "bubble zones" where no one can protest. But the difference between centre-left and hard right is that we get public consultations about it tomorrow.

[frenzy]

congrats on not getting trump. gods im so jealous

[sabotabby]

It involved a lot of moral compromise and relative good luck.

[china_shop]

Oh thank goodness!!

(Forty percent, ffs!! /o\ And that's so scary about the kids. It reminds me of the "How to talk to your son about fascism" podcast you linked to a while back.)

[sabotabby]

Yeah. To be fair, I don't think all of those 40% of voters want to eradicate trans people. It's just that they don't care enough to not eradicate trans people.

[ioplokon]

This is why I think we need to make fun of Poilievre the choker as much as possible. Because lbr a lot of the Con vote is people hoping the grass is greener (& in the case of the Youths, having basically no real firsthand experience of how a Conservative government will fuck them). Like idk if the Liberals can fight people's urge to want to mix it up forever. So probably good to try to push the Cons back to somewhere survivable... Also it's just fun to mock him!

[minoanmiss]

Is there a gender divide among the youth, as there is in the US, where (largely speaking) Harris got the young women and Trump got the young men for depressingly obvious reasons?

[dewline]

Apparently, Fanjoy and I have some mutual friendly acquaintances. I don't know if that will help matters. I do hope it won't hurt matters.

[sabotabby]

Even if he's only mid, it's good news that he beat out one of the worst people in Canadian politics.

[minoanmiss]

Well done (60% of) Canadian voters! I am amused that Trump has negatively affected many fascist-leaning leaders around the globe; apparently it's mostly Americans who cannot learn from America's mistakes.

Also, not that this is or should be anyone's priority, thank you for denying Trump another ally.

[sabotabby]

It's totally the thing that won Carney the election. For all his tough talk, everyone knew Poilievre would lick the boot, and Carney won't.

[xturtle]

"You'll be surprised that the loudest complaints are coming from cishet white guys."
Will I, though? 😀
I seriously love this for y'all, no matter how jealous I am.

[sabotabby]

You can do it too!

[kore]

We dodged a bullet yesterday, people. Don't get complacent.

WORD

[sabotabby]

I never relax. I'm always in opposition to whoever is in power, I'm just realistic as to how much progress can be made and how dangerous it is to be in opposition.

[frandroid]

Apparently Fanjoy has been canvassing the riding non-stop for the last two years. He said that at most doors people who tell him "it's a pretty blue riding, but you've got my vote!" so the trick was to canvas the whole riding to get enough votes. 8)

[sabotabby]

Oh wow. I did hear he's really been at it. Honestly he sounds great, and my NDP friends there have attested to this.

[greylock]

I gave a small cheer when I heard the announcement.
Only a small one. It didn't sound like a crushing victory, although part of that was "minority governments are bad" rhetoric.

I can't help but be annoyed by the Longest Ballot Committee. My LH ballot this year was four candidates? (six at most), but we have to number every box, and assuming you do there, it would create a lot of wasted votes.
That said, the ends might justify the means, I guess.

Please wish us the best for Saturday, when you'll see how a democracy with mandatory voting responds to Trumpian ideas.

[sabotabby]

Minority governments are great under most circumstances. It's complicated a bit in this case by the NDP being so small and the stakes being so high, but the last minority government was able to do amazing things.

We really do need proportional representation, though.

Good luck Saturday.

[lcohen]

oh, thank god.

[sabotabby]

And the entire Western world breathed a small sigh of relief.

[sambucawitch]

NDP hasn't gotten in since '90. I was too young to vote. I was for the longest time NDP but my friend Lorraine said that they were socialist and I assumed this to be bad... so I've been voting Liberal for the last 10 years or so. And while it's not perf. The Liberals are the lesser of two evils non??

[sabotabby]

And never federally, and it was the worst incarnation of the NDP.

[rafiwinters]

More curiosity: what is CIVIX?

Loving the joke.

[sabotabby]

Oh! It's a really cool non-partisan organization that teaches kids about civics and democratic engagement. I love them. They do student votes every time there's a real election, which teaches kids the different levels of government, what the voting process is like, and helps them figure out where they fall on the political spectrum. They also have days where the local representative comes to visit so kids can ask them questions directly.

Anyway, they publish the results of the student vote every election to compare it to the actual vote, and normally the kids are more left. Not the last two times.

[gingeriana]

The Ukrainian diaspora is seriously torn apart by the results, I must say (but honestly, it does not take much to tear us as a group, we are gladly fighting on every minor issue, lol).
Oldies are FUMING about the results. Newbies are ok-ish.
One of the oldies [relative tho] just wrote here on Dream that Carny "can't smile" and his wife is ugly.
:)
As opposed to two icons of beauty and dignity, I guess.
My face can't hold the required volume of facepalms.


This comment has been delivered to you from THE ONLY orange quartier on the Island of Montreal, heh-heh :)

[sabotabby]

Absolutely bizarre how the Ukrainian diaspora here is so much more reactionary than people in Ukraine. I get it, historically, but I don't get it.

[umadoshi]

They're both full of shit, but at least a toilet has a seat.

*snerk*

I'm not glad that this is the likely best-possible outcome, but that's still what it is, and I'm SO RELIEVED.

[sabotabby]

Yeeeep.

[numb3r_5ev3n]

I think the takeaway from this is that if "the left," which when compared with today's fascist right wing is pretty much anyone to the left of Literal Nazis, doesn't come together and vote as a bloc, we're cooked. No matter where in the world it is. No matter how hard some of them may have to hold their nose in order to be able to stand to vote for whoever "the left" candidate may be at that point in time.

[sabotabby]

I feel like that's the primary takeaway, so it's weird that other people have a completely different impression.

[smittenbyu]

a week (?) before the elections in Canada, there was an article that came on my feed of global populists that loved the orange potato are now running from him and the support is not as much as before. And Canada was first example. Found the article: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/23/nx-s1-5366685/trump-populism-right-wing-world-canada-australia

Of course, now NPR is on the chopping block - the gop has been trying for decades to get rid of it...but yeah..

[sabotabby]

Even the Italian fascists are getting uncomfortable.