Holding forth on elections
Apr. 29th, 2025 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-30 03:28 pm (UTC)So yeah, anyone doing the “voting doesn’t matter because they’re all the same” can eat my ass.