I mean it’s not necessarily the retailers. It’s Canadians themselves who aren’t buying them. If I read “états unis” on a product I will look for an alternative or go without.

Nuclear deterrent next, please Mr Carney. 🙏

Surely Trump will respect any agreement you make with him. He would never go back on his word.

Why is the UK being such a cowardly little bitch? I don’t get it.

Is it possible to buy Jarritos in Canada that is not imported via Texas? That’s what I want to know.

Although it’s not insurmountable with the advent of improved battery storage technology, this kind of dramatic change is an issue for existing baseload infrastructure. The French grid is basically designed around a nuclear baseload which many would already consider ‘green.’ Nuclear also comes with a very high capital investment, typically from public funds, and energy prices dropping below a certain threshold could impact repayment, public debt and interest costs etc.

What does Trump think is far larger than 25%? I’d swear that he thought that 25 was as high as numbers go. Someone must have told him about 26.

It is not risking 30% of anything. 3% maybe.

Benny Hill music intensifies.

Well, I hope you can afford me the benefit of the doubt when I say that my critque comes from a left leaning perspective. I see this kind of response a lot online, particularly in left leaning spaces: “the left’s authoritarianism is a conservative conspiracy” with a generous helping of accusations of ‘both sidesing.’ I don’t think those characterizations are true or helpful.

The general public in most western nations all more or less agree with the flagship policies of the left. Whether that be universal healthcare, freedom of choice, marriage equality etc. The question then becomes; why do people vote against their own beliefs? What is it about “The Left” that is so unappealing that people would rather vote for fascists?

It seems to me that the reason the left is doing so poorly in Europe and NA is because we’ve been hijacked by purity spirals, exacerbating our already greater proclivity to fracture. Our message is not reaching the people who would be inclined to vote for left leaning policies because it is drowned out by so much of the more authoritarian online discourse, some of which has spilled out into real life politics. That’s not to mention our aversion to recognizing or admitting fault in our own movement. We’re each like the proverbial frog in boiling water; complacent to the growing failings and dangers within our own movement because we’ve slowly become acclimatised to it.

The authoritarian tendencies of the left’s flank are, in my opinion, partly to blame for some of what we are seeing unfold and my fear is that unless we can acknowledge and reign in some of that we will, as a society, continue to careen toward something considerably more awful than Trump, Le Pen, Farage, Poilievre, Meloni etc. The backlash to the backlash will compound and compound until society ruptures.

Of course it could be that I am entirely too pessimistic and the future will be bright and rosey.

I think that left politics are more compassionate and probably better for more people, particularly working class people so I absolutely am not a centrist in that regard.

In terms of extremism/authoritarianism; everyone’s susceptible to it and I don’t think online discourse helps things, particularly when it comes to assumptions about others’ motives and our lack of charitability.

There are always consequences, some more productive that others. Note that I am not claiming that progressive politics are authoritarian, only that there are authoritarian tendencies on the far left end of the progressive spectrum. I would probably class myself as progressive. Green/Labour left is probably closer.

Where one might say ‘overly zealous’ another might say ‘authoritarian.’

There is a tendency amongst those on the political extremes to:

Silence opposing voices; Push for, and sometimes implement the policing and criminalization of certain speech; Root out ‘enemies’ through witch-hunts and humiliation rituals or ‘struggle sessions’; Enforce a conformity of ideas and opinions through the threat of ostracization, humiliation or violence. Instill a culture of fear around speech or activities contrary to the ‘party line.’ Amongst other things.

On one hand; not a bad strategy if your aim is simply to have tariffs dropped, even for a short time. Appeal to Trump’s narcissism by promising him a Canadian leader aligned with him.

On the other hand; wtf?

It’s super fucked up, is what it is. What is going through the heads of these people? Lead in the eyeliner?

It’s weird, because there’s inarguably been a ‘vibe shift’ away from the more authoritarian side of progressive ideas and politics, and for a while it seemed the backlash was unstoppable and far-right. I hope we are starting to see a ‘vibe shift’ away from the extremes of the right, too. It can’t be healthy for a society to swing from one extreme to the other. I suppose social media, and the difficulty with communicating nuance on such platforms is partly, maybe wholly, to blame.

Lay your own eggs, turkey looking cunt.

My theory is that we’re in an ‘emperor has no clothes’ situation, where a cult of sycophants has nourished itself on a leader with a genuine case of cognitive decline, and who are too afraid, because of the sunk cost or a fear of banishment or retribution, to point out this flaw or contradict their madman.

You see them parrot his insane talking point with such glee because the madness and fervour are contagions. Within the cult, the insanity is self perpetuating, and the longer you’re in, the crazier you become. 15 or 20 years ago, these same people probably had fairly typical views and opinions and, if confronted by their past self, would now only see a stranger or a traitor. Their past self might look at what they’ve become and wonder, “What did I do to deserve that?!”

What I’m saying is I think Trump might be Cthulu.

Huh. TIL. Never heard of it before.

There’s no time like the present!