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PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   29646 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025

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I think you nailed the tale of three personalities on this change in the winds in Canada. The intra-west vibe shift toward the right has clearly happened in Canada, perhaps more than other places, but it is being parsed through our electoral system with unusual results. The Liberal Party is a non-ideological chimera which is optimized fully for power. This is why, for example, they have the slack to enable constant corruption. Trudeau capitalized on a woke vibe shift back in 2015 and lurched the party to the left and now its lurching back to the right. Canada's other parties are ideological and this puts them at a huge relative disadvantage. The NDP are controlled by unions and woke college students and so can't pivot from leftism in any way. The Conservatives contain multitudes but their leadership keeps them solidly center-right out of fear of the electorate. This gives the Liberals room to maneuver and their natural governing status allows them to attract high-quality candidates who just want competently run centrist globalism. Add their extremely efficient distribution of voters and constant pandering to Quebec and you have a recipe for success.

And kudos to Mark Carney who saw all of this months ago. Everyone thought whoever took over for the Liberals was just taking Trudeau's bullet for him, but Carney saw that the hatred for Trudeau masked ambivalence about Poilievre. And now we're probably headed for a Liberal majority.

The specifics of my view of all of this is similar to yours, except I'm a conservative so it blackpills me (even more) about the country. My top issues are immigration, DEI, crime, and housing prices and the Liberal failure on those files is so complete that a rational people would electorally annihilate whosoever did it to them forever. Carney's ideas on these files are either non-existent or the same the previous government. As ever in Canada, the boomer cohorts will sail merrily on with a little anti-Americanism and economic and social mediocrity until the end of time.

The one bit of solace I take from this is the Liberals have moved sharply right virtually ensuring a more conservative country going forward. The NDP have been obliterated and I think its an open question whether the party continues to live on. What I'm really opening for is that we may get an Overton expansion to the right, a CPC re-absorption of the PPC, and open calls for very low levels of immigration and the end of DEI/affirmative action. Anything that puts those ideas into the mainstream is a win.

In terms of first-world government competence (from a right-wing perspective), I rate Trudeau's Liberals as delivering 3/10. Nothing cataclysmic happened but on virtually every file things got worse, often much worse. I am confident that Carney's Liberals will be more like 6/10. They'll steer the ship capably toward a destination that is okay, not great. I am already lamenting that we wont get a confident and high-agency conservative government with a large majority to reverse the damage liberalism has wrought.

The NDP have been obliterated and I think its an open question whether the party continues to live on.

The NDP has lost official party status before and been just fine. Hell, there was even talk that the Liberals were close to collapse after coming in 3rd to the NDP in 2011, only for the Liberals to take everything in 2015. Singh is done, but then again, it's 36 days until the election, and 36 days ago everyone was sure the Conservatives would have the next government.

My top issues are immigration, DEI, crime, and housing prices and the Liberal failure on those files is so complete that a rational people would electorally annihilate whosoever did it to them forever. Carney's ideas on these files are either non-existent or the same the previous government.

My top issues are basically identical to yours, but wouldn't it be fair to levy this criticism at Poilievre as well? From what I can tell, Poilievre is as wishy washy as Carney. Really, only Bernier is serious about tackling immigration, although I wonder if people can pressure Carney to get tough on immigration.

A close reading of statements and actions tells me that Carney is much more bullish on immigration than Poilievre. Carney appointed the founder of the century initiative as an advisor and is inheriting much of the same team as his predecessor. The current immigration targets which Carney has said nothing about are 395,000 falling to 365,000 per year.

Poilievre has been cagey but clearly wants numbers down. He has said good things about Harper’s system which was 200,000-250,000 per year and he has also said the number of immigrants will not be greater than the number of housing completions the year before. We are on track for housing completions to fall well below 200,000 in the next few years.

So there is daylight there, but I agree the Overton window has not moved sufficiently far towards the correct number which is less than 100,000 indefinitely.

How will this likely play with the western Canada/rest of the country tensions?

Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta, had a meeting with Carney last week that went terribly and ended with her issuing a number of demands which certainly wont be met by Ottawa. I'm not sure my mental model of Alberta - Ottawa relations. Carney will almost certainly represent a lowering of the heat relative to Trudeau, but Albertans were about to confidently have their champion and that is now ripped away from them. When a people who see themselves as victims have their hopes dashed is when they are most dangerous (see Blacks after Civil Rights).

and ended with her issuing a number of demands which certainly wont be met by Ottawa

It wouldn't have mattered what she said

Carney will almost certainly represent a lowering of the heat relative to Trudeau

lol, no

but Albertans were about to confidently have their champion and that is now ripped away from them. When a people who see themselves as victims have their hopes dashed is when they are most dangerous

One can only hope.

What I'm really opening for is that we may get an Overton expansion to the right, a CPC re-absorption of the PPC, and open calls for very low levels of immigration and the end of DEI/affirmative action. Anything that puts those ideas into the mainstream is a win.

If there's anything that's going to happen in that regard, it's going to be provincially.

I am already lamenting that we wont get a confident and high-agency Western government with a large majority to reverse the damage Big City Easternism has wrought.

What distinguishes Big City Easternism from standard progressivism in your view?

All of the nastiness of American progressivism, none of the checks and balances that keep it mostly talk.

I guess you could add regional looting which is enabled by our system and which the U.S. doesn't have.

The US doesn't maintain a public list of have and have-not states, but I'd venture that most members of Congress see it as their sacred duty to get as much money as possible redirected from the rest of the country to their state, and preferably to their district. The US is just better at hiding the fact that the regional looting has any costs to anyone.

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