“We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Donald Trump said this past November, in a campaign speech that was ostensibly honoring Veterans Day. “The real threat is not from the radical right; the real threat is from the radical left … The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”
What immediately leaps out here is the word vermin, with its echoes of Hitler and Mussolini. But Trump’s inflammatory language can overshadow and distract from the substance of what he’s saying—in this case, appearing to promise a purge or repression of those who disagree with him politically.
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Trump himself has changed, too—the old Trump seemed to be running for office partly for fun and partly in service of his signature views, such as opposition to immigration and support for protectionism. Today’s Trump is different. His fury over his 2020 election defeat, the legal cases against him, and a desire for revenge against political opponents have come to eclipse everything else.
Uhhh, you guys okay down there? From a Canadian
No. We are not.
Not really, even if you put aside the big orange idiot, our country is quite fucked.
Fellow Canadian here. The Conservatives in Canada are seeing Trump’s success at controlling Republicans and are bringing that to Canada. Just look at Alberta and Saskatchewan politics… Danielle Smith is like MTG and Scott is like Ron DeSantis albeit not as crazy but they’re trying…
Tis true. We have Anti-Sogi protesters marching today on the stronghold of LGBTQIA acceptance on the West Coast and you can bet their rhetoric will be filled with Alex Jones-isms and all the Fox news talking points. American media is a fucking menace and until their house is in order they are a lead weight destined to drag the rest of us down.
No, we haven’t been ok for quite some time, things are coming to a head
It remains to be seen really. Hopefully Trump will be in a jail cell instead of the White House by the end of the year, but there is a group that has been part of the cult for so long that they are ready to give it all away for their dear leader rather than admit they were duped into following a grifter.
Mr Canada Person, here is how Ok we are and how it has literally affected your country, in an example that should hopefully spell this out well.
The QAnon movement started essentially as a PsyOp on 4chan, but there amongst the most vile of internet users it took hold of their conspiracy addled and angry at everything minds, and took on a life of its own as it exploded in popularity astounding quickly for how absurd any of it is.
It was a conspiracy theorists wet dream, a meta conspiracy theory of nearly every other already existing American conspiracy theory all interwoven into a grand narrative that took root as essentially a comprehensive world view for those susceptible to suspending any need for actual evidence, later, for any even basic plausibility whatsoever.
Q’s posts carried an aire of mystery, suspense, and gravitas amongst the early adherents. A huge part of why they were so effective is that they seemed plausible to some of those who do actually know some of the vernacular of classified information, which Q used more or less correctly in many instances, but when he made grandiose claims that defied reason or left open ended questions…
… the users of 4chan, having nothing better to do, debated as to what any of what he was saying could be referencing, what he could say and could not, what he was saying was disinfo and what was real.
This giant clusterfuck of speculation and debate grew and intensified to point thata Q Drop was viewed with essentially the same reverence as if God himself was depositing information for the faithful to decipher, and quite literally fairly soon there were already opposing camps of factions of Q adherents clustering around various Q Interpreters.
Eventually Trump realized he could win over this demographic, specifically of internet addicts, by merely referencing certain key phrases and signs and sayings the movement had adopted… and why not?
Much of the Q theories revolved around Trump working in secret, with secret evidence, vastly outwitting his rivals whom he would soon be unleashing a massive wave of arrests of for heinous and despicable crimes.
It did not matter that none of this was true, that nearly none of the crimes claimed had any evidence whatsoever to suggest their occurance, and the few that had even a sliver were vastly blown out of proportion as to their actual value as evidence.
You see Trump had all the info, but it was classified. He had secret emails from Hilary Clinton, he was working in all levels of the government to stop essentially a combination sci-fi political thriller movie plot from destroying the US government and society from the inside out.
Or, so was believed by the Q adherents.
When Trump engaged with this group by dog whistling to them ina few public speeches, photographs, tweets, the Q movement was emboldened, and everyone who was sitting on the fence about it became nearly total true believers.
All these theories reinforced and compounded and dovetailed with general right wing conservative fears, tropes, hatreds and desires in such a way that not long after, it became almost impossible to disentangle the two, to find a self professed conservative who did not believe in significant elements of Q Anon theories.
The popularity of all this grew faster and faster, spreading over Facebook, Terrestrial Radio, In Person, In Churches, On Podcasts, essentially all forms of media.
This all culminated in the Jan 6th Insurrection.
You see, Trump was supposed to have already called down the Storm, the mass arrests of somewhere from thousands to tens of millions of Americans, depending on which Q adherent you asked.
But he could not do that if he was not President.
So he decided he still was.
And personally directed his followers to make this so.
…
The coup attempt, the insurrection failed.
But its effects will be with us for a very, very long time.
Sorry to bury the lead but heres one stupendously stupid but serious and dangerous way this movement has directly affected Canada;
At some point, I think about 3 years back, a woman residing in Canada was taken hold by the Q Phenomena.
Romana Didulo.
Queen, Romana Didulo.
She believes, amongst many other things, that she has been appointed the rightful Queen of Canada by the ‘White Hats’, the Q name for those within the upper echelons of the US Military and other State Apparati that are working with Trump to arrest all the traitors.
She believes she has the right to make unilateral decrees that all Canadians must follow, including essentially the abolishment of all taxes, the death penalty for anyone who defies her will, and at one point demanded at jet aircraft be made available to her so that she personally could travel to Europe and negotiate peace in the Ukraine conflict… between the US and Russia.
She also believes she is a Reptillian alien, or descended from ones that long ago came to our world, intermixed with and subjugated humans, and that the traces of Reptillian Alien DNA are present in the humans that today comprise many of the ruling class of many societies, powerful and influential people.
But… she… is a /good/ Reptillian. She knows their ways and has turned on them, for the good of humanity.
Herself and her followers at one point attempted to perform citizens arrests of … all of the police present at the time in a police station in a city in Canada, cant remember which one. Violence ensued, though to the best of my knowledge no one was seriously injured or killed.
Her and her followers then spent about a year driving around Canada in an RV with accompanying caravan of other followers in cars.
At one point, in another town, a very small town, someone sympathetic to Queen Romana actually legitimately gifted her the deed to an abadoned school, I thinknit was.
Her and her followers set up shop in this old school, and the number of her … movement… either approaches or exceeds the actual population of the town, who they began harassing, threatening, demanding the mayor and tiny city government step down amd hand formal control of the town to them.
Last I heard the RCMP has been dispatched to this town essentially for peacekeeping purposes.
…
I could not possibly make this up if I tried.
I looked in queen Romana… always fascinated to see cult leaders and what make their followers believe. Facts don’t matter there, emotions do. The darker the better because only the leader can solve the issue triggering the dark emotions…
**Qult Leaders
FTFY
No. Please send help. We’re desperate
And poutine? I wanna try poutine at some point.
Me too; good and quality Poutine, from the source. Not this “cheese gravy fry bowl” down south
I know you’re just doing the Canadian thing and being polite, but if you need to ask, at this point, you really haven’t been paying attention…
nope. Can I come visit?
promise to not whine about the winters…
It was -49C (-56F) with the wind today so you may want to reconsider lol. We are. 😁
I’ve camped in worse, believe it or not.
Also, bitching about the winters is like a state past time in Minnesota, so, yeah.
The weird thing is people really accept it too, though. Mostly people who have never lived anywhere else and took a vacation to Arizona a couple times. I heard ‘I LOVE the winter!’ many times from people who then were borderline suicidal around feburary.
I Like the changes between the seasons. The winter’s a bit too cold, and the summers a lot too warm, for my tastes. I’d probably go insane if it was perfect all the time… which, for the record, is 60’s and sunshine.
the other thing I like about camping in winter is that you don’t have fair-weather hipsters walking into your camp because they smell the coffee and their alchy stoves could barely manage heating up the freeze dried food. I’ll take -40 anything over freezing and rainy any day of the week. Cold and wet is the kind of stuff that seeps into you… and nothing wholesome ever seeps.
once its cold enough there’s nothing wet out there, it’s really just a matter of being smart and managing your layers.
I love it when the weather 50-55 and misty… some of my favorite days up north. But yeah, that makes for miserable, seepy camping. It’s true that sub-0 is very dry. I liked how there are places almost completely impassable in the summer - mucky death swamps - and then in the winter, frozen solid, and you can just walk right over them.
We got very few balmy weather days up there, so you had to seize the day when it was time. Now and then I’d be waiting and waiting for spring or summer (since the winter is like 7 months long and real summer, maybe 2) and then I’d have work to do and realize I’d been inside working for 2 weeks while the days were delicious. Still, I’d make the most of the winter too. I loved going to a park near my house for walks when it was 0-10 degrees. It was a cross country ski track, but nobody was ever there. These days people I live with want to go for walks and check the weather, and say “35!! That’s so cold!!” 35, sunny, no wind? As you note, you just have to dress right.
Nothing wholesome every seeps lol love it. With you on the hovering around zero and wet though, that was my last big camp for three nights in Kootenay National Park. No problems staying cozy if it’s dry and cold, but the seepage gets to you.
I have my -50 camping badge from when I was a scout 😁
Wind doesn’t count once you’re inside or even a tent, though. If we count wind chill I’ve been in -70 a bunch of times.
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world You guys are nuts. Sincerely, your neighbor from the better border bastion. If it gets below Miami’s average temperature, I’m putting on the parka.
“all that sunshine, it’s unwholesome. It gets into people’s heads. their wits dribble out their ears. UNWHOLESOME!” - Me every spring when you’ve got the first day of 60’s and sunshine. (yes, I put on my best “Old Man Shouting At Clouds” voice for it. And yes, I’m being somewhat sarcastic. Though… I’ll note there’s an increase in pedestrians getting struck by cars… cuz they’re all stopping mid-sidewalk going “oh this is lovely”)
Hell, the first time it was sunny and 40 degrees I’d walk outside saying “WOW! T-shirt weather!”
If he wins, can I apply for refugee status as a gay Texan?