- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- canada@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- canada@lemmy.ca
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/21755185
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation as Liberal leader comes just two weeks before Donald Trump takes office as U.S. president while threatening to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all imports from Canada on Day 1.
Trudeau said he will stay on as prime minister until his successor is chosen, creating the prospect that Canada will have a lame duck head of government just as its biggest trading partner hits its exports with steep tariffs.
dons tinfoil hat
I think it’s all Russian propaganda hard at work. It just seems too systematic. You can almost predict what the next talking point/rhetoric is going to be. I’ve had several occasions where I’ve seen a comment online that really seems out there or needlessly inflammatory, and then watched that comment slowly get adopted and spread to the right, only to become the drum they bang for the next 6 months. It also all seemed to start 2015ish, which somewhat lines up with the Crimean invasion.
I think you are right. Unfortunately knowing what’s going on is not going to help us. The propaganda worked and people are truly turning hard right and pro-Russia. Something that would have sounded insane during the cold war. Often the same topics: “tax money wasted on corrupt Ukraine”, “against woke agenda”, “LGBTQ gender insanity”, “immigrants are criminals”. I tried to talk to people, but any information that contradicts what they now think is “fake”. There are still parts of the puzzle I don’t get. What turned Trump and Elon to Putin? What might Putin possibly have on Trump that could damage him? Trump can truly shoot someone in the street and people would be ok with it, like he said so himself. Elon has all the money in the world and can buy who he wants. Is it a cooperation that benefits them all? That destabilizing the West helps Putin is obvious, I suspect that what Elon and Trump get out of it is just making money and enjoying power. Where this all will end. I hope less bad than I fear. Prepare for the worst though.
Fascist rhetoric does not require Russian propaganda to spread. If you feel this way because right-wing talking points and Russia tend to line up, that’s because Russia’s government is terribly right-wing and has been for decades. But correlation is not causation. Blaming Russia for its own fascist trending is perfectly correct; blaming the country for everyone’s fascism problems is ridiculous.
Personally, I really dislike thinking like this. Blaming Russia for everything distracts us from problems our own countries made all on their own. It’s an overly-simplistic answer to a complicated and wide-reaching set of problems, and prevents us from properly thinking about those issues.
There is definitely Russian propaganda, not that this is the only factor.
The comment I was replying to insinuated that Russian propaganda was the primary if not only factor. Which is, again, ridiculous. Besides, as far as I’m concerned, Russian propaganda is an excuse used to prevent people from realizing how many of our problems have a domestic source, and that our government is and has been insanely terrible for a long time. Is it there? Sure, but it’s far from the biggest issue. Capitalism is an excellent incubator for fascism all by itself, and you don’t need an outside push to make the decay hit.
You’re probably right, and I tried to acknowledge that my thinking was flawed by the donning of the tinfoil hat. You make some great points; i just abhor coincide, and pick at it like a dried scab. This sometimes leads me to the ‘put everything in this square hole’ approach (cue nerdy girl melting down).
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle: Russians meddling (and others) a bit when opportunities arise, because a right wing or destabilized west benefits them, with fascist groups emboldened as a result. There’s probably more to it and this is a ‘4 am phone check response’ and I’m going back to bed.
It’s largely reactionary. The world has seen a lot of progression in the last couple decades, but a lot of people aren’t feeling any benefits. In fact, many feel worse off because they see progressive policies as unfair to them. It’s always been a pendulum… My worry is that the pendulum seems to be swinging further to each side than we’ve seen in a long while. It’s really starting to feel like widespread unrest will give way to widespread uprising.