Categories for Musings

Donald über Alles: Trump Virus spreads in Toronto

— 11.29.2016 08:52 AM

From InFocus at York University:

Neo Nazi Publication “Your Ward News” appears at York University; Administration Promises Action

Students from the Israeli Students Association (ISA), a CAMERA-supported group, recently discovered copies of the virulently anti-Semitic Your Ward News being distributed on official newsstands throughout York University. The publication was found in highly-frequented areas on campus such as Central Square.

Your Ward News is a neo-Nazi publication that has been accused of spreading “racism, homophobia, misogyny, and anti-Semitism”. This past June, after years of campaigning by an anti-racist coalition called “Standing Together Against Mailing Prejudice” (STAMP), the Canadian Minister of Public Services and Procurement Judy Foote prohibited Canada Post from delivering Your Ward News.


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This week’s column: God save Justin Trudeau 

— 11.29.2016 01:00 AM

Grateful, relieved, happy. 

That’s what not a few of us felt when Donald Trump “won.” 

(I put “won” in flying quotes because, as various experts have now noted, there’s an excellent chance that the bilious billionaire actually lost the presidential race, but “won” because industrious Russian hackers nudged 100,000 votes in three states towards him. In that way, Trump – who is now more than TWO MILLION VOTES behind Hillary Clinton nationally – “won” the state-by-state Electoral College. But we digress.)

Nobody who is sane was in any way grateful, relieved or happy when Trump “won,” naturally. Anyone with the slightest stake in the present was variously outraged, mystified and/or scared shitless. We still are, on a global scale. 

But, nationally, at least, I suspect most Canadians were happy. Because (a) we live in Canada, and (b) because Justin Trudeau is Prime Minister. 

If you live in Canada, you are generally always happier than our American friends. We have a better quality of life, we have free health care, we have better public schools, we have safer streets, we have better regulation of banks and industries, we have much better relationships with our fellow citizens – whatever their race, religion or sexual orientation. Up here, everything is just way better – hockey now regretfully excluded. Every Canadian knows that. 

But, in the past three weeks, we have been made better by Justin Trudeau running things, too. It’s the truth. 

It is also true that I have not always been wildly enthusiastic about the way the newly-minted Prime Minister does things. Having had the privilege and honour of working for the Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien for quite a few years, I learned the value of the following things:

• always undersell and over-perform 

• always be in the papers as little as possible

• always treat taxpayer dollars like they are precious things, because they are 

The Trudeau guys have a different way of doing things. The selfies, the media focus, the tendency to be slightly-less-than-parsimonious, the frequent use of adjectives when describing what they were elected to do. I’m not used to that style of governing, at all, and I don’t particularly like that style of governing. I have often said so, Liberal Party membership card notwithstanding. 

But now? Now, after Trump? Now, when the world is about to become decidedly more nasty, more brutish, more short?

In Trump World, I now feel like kissing the ground upon which Justin Trudeau walks. I feel like giving voice to heavenly hosannas and hallelujahs. I feel like dancing, to quote Leo Sayer, circa 1976. 

Trudeau, whatever his shortcomings, is a giant on the world stage when compared to the sausage-fingered, sphincter-mouthed, combed-over, racist/sexist/arguably fascist Human Cheeto to the South. 

Justin Trudeau is everything Donald Trump is not: Likeable. Sane. Decent. Smart. Democratically elected (see: industrious Russian hackers perverting democracy in three states, above). 

Will we Canucks be safer in the coming Dark Times? Probably not. Trump is the best recruitment tool ISIS has ever had. Will we benefit economically? Don’t be ridiculous: Trump’s trade policy is more protectionist than North Korea’s. Things are about to get way worse, and everyone will feel it. 

But Canada, as several Americans recently told me, is a much better place to be until Trump is indicted. During the campaign in which she would get TWO MILLION VOTES more than her vile opponent, my wife and I volunteered for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, Maine and at her Brooklyn headquarters. Over and over, our fellow Team Clinton members would say to us: “If Trump wins, can we move into your basement? Oh, and PS: Justin Trudeau is awesome.”

Well, folks, we can reveal that there are now several million American refugees down in our basement, stacked like cordwood. All clutching Team Trudeau campaign buttons. 

They are grateful, relieved and happy that Justin Trudeau and Canada both still exist. 

Like I am. And like you should be, too. 


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Trudeau, Castro, condolences and memory

— 11.27.2016 12:09 PM


So:

  1. The Canadian Prime Minister praised Castro in a statement a twenty-something wrote and no one  really looked at before it went out
  2. The (mainly conservative and Conservative) Internet went totally apeshit
  3. The Canadian Prime Minister walked it back, a bit, and the conservative types said the original sin would live in infamy forever 

It won’t. Nothing does, anymore. We tender as evidence: Donald J. Trump. 

Trump is a racist, sexist crook with fascist inclinations. But he also understands the popular consciousness better than anyone who has ever lived. 

He knows we have a national memory of five minutes, and he knows that every new outrage – no matter how outrageous – will be forgotten by tomorrow. 

Gone. Poof. It’s a memory. Overtaken by Kanye being led away to a padded room, or a video of a kitten sitting on a Roomba. Gone. 

He also knows that people have a really low opinion of politicians. So, when a politician does something stupid – like, say, praising a dictator who murdered and repressed his own people (Trudeau on Castro, Thatcher/Reagan on Botha) – well, no one cares nearly as much as the chattering classes do. 

Regular folks already think politicians are stupid and/or corrupt, and they aren’t therefore surprised when a politician says or does something that is stupid and/or corrupt. 

Welcome to the new era. Every chord has been played before, everyone knows it, and no one will stop humming the tune. 


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Castro

— 11.26.2016 10:08 AM

Summarized brilliantly by the paper that could do it best, the Miami Herald:



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It’s Forum. But, holy crap. Also, change chosen.

— 11.25.2016 08:14 AM

So:

Approval of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and her government is so low the Progressive Conservatives are in supermajority territory, a new poll shows.
The Tories would snap up 70 of the 107 seats at Queen’s Park if an election were imminent, the Forum Research phone survey of 1,184 people shows. The NDP would become the official opposition with 26 seats and the Liberals would hold just 11.

The whole nasty thing is here.

So, three things. 

One, it’s Forum. They’re the ones who said there’d be a Parti Québécois majority, a BC NDP majority, a Wildrose majority, and…you get the picture. 

Two, it’s a poll. Every single poll in the U.S. Presidential campaign got the outcome wrong, for weeks. Polls aren’t very reliable, these days. 

Three, it’s Ontario. In 2003, 2007 and 2011 and 2014, polls said the PCs would win. They didn’t. 

That all said, the Ontario Liberals – with whom, I wish to emphasize to the court, I have not been involved with for many years, Your Honour – obviously need to make some changes. 

This poll isn’t what they call an outlier. It’s reflective of other polls, internal and otherwise, in recent months. If it isn’t true, it’s probably pretty close to being true. 

It also reflects what folks at Queen’s Park – in all parties – are muttering in the corridors of near-power: 13 years on top is a long time. And: a variety of political chickens have now come home to roost – Hydro, pocketbook concerns (like, say, tolls), the most-recent ethical imbroglio, the shine coming off the Liberal brand as the Trudeau honeymoon fades, etc. etc. That kind of stuff. 

But the big one, the one that is hardest to overcome? Change. With Brexit, with Trump, “change” is just about impossible to beat, these days. At a certain point, the people just want it, you know? They want it. 

That all said, I will leave you with this: I possess a poll that says something totally different. It shows the Ontario Liberal Party – as a brand – is still the winning one. It shows the Libs can win again. 

But it also shows it wins only if it changes. 

Cue Ziggy Stardust.




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