Roundup: The invasion as a culmination

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It was a shocking spectacle that, sadly, was not wholly unexpected as Trump supporters invaded Capitol Hill in Washington DC, halting the process of certifying the election results. This was the culmination of years of incitement, not only by Trump, but by the whole of the right-wing media ecosystem in the US, which has been feeding the kind of anger that builds to this kind of violence. Now, there are some questions about how serious these invaders were – many seemed to be largely play actors who were LARPing the start of the next American civil war (like they’ve been dreaming about), but it does make me wonder about how much this emboldens the real far-right militias in the country, because they watched how easily these Trumpsters overwhelmed security in the building and took it over. The next time, the invaders are likely to be far better armed, and serious about their threats of violence – and that should be alarming. This also puts an end to America’s usual boasts that they’re the “only country in the world” with a peaceful transition of power – a risible statement, but their self-created myth has been shattered. It was enough to spook most Republicans on the Hill into giving up their performative insistence that the election results were fraudulent and to be contested, but the damage is done. (Also, this technically was not a coup attempt, and they don’t quite fit the definition of terrorists, so those are not the best words to employ for what happened, as much as people want to).

https://twitter.com/jm_mcgrath/status/1346915575017177088

In terms of the response from Canada, Justin Trudeau did first tell a media interview as this started going down that he was watching it “minute by minute,” and hoping for the best, before sending out a tweet denouncing the violence and attack on democracy. Erin O’Toole, meanwhile, tweeted that he was “deeply saddened” by what was happening, but offered no condemnation of the violence – which should be important, because if he had a semblance of self-awareness, he would realize that his own rhetoric is feeding into some of these same sentiments in this country. Recall that his leadership slogan was asking people join his fight to “take back Canada.” It’s not even a stretch to point out that the implicit message in that statement is that the current government is illegitimate and must be replaced, and it feeds into these same dark impulses that we’re seeing play out. This is why it matters when we see O’Toole and company shitposting memes that are coming from these same American tactics – because it’s importing the American culture war into Canada, and it can have similar consequences if we let it fully manifest itself here. Don’t forget that there were pro-Trump rallies happening in this country as this spectacle went down in the States.

One thing that this whole incident does give rise to is a bit of smugness in our own Westminster constitutional monarchy, which prevents much of the kind of chicanery we’re seeing around this election in the US, and I know, we can’t be too smug because we have some of these very same dangerous elements in this country, but there is a bit of comfort in having a superior form of government.

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1346921398837497863

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt warns Canadians not to get too smug as these kinds of sentiments don’t stop neatly at the border, and we recently saw someone drive up to Rideau Cottage with a truck full of weapons. Paul Wells offers some necessary snark as to the deafening silences coming out from this country over what has taken place in the American election (though he was a bit premature as statements did come, and it’s almost certain the call with Boris Johnson was much earlier in the day as those readouts tend to be on a six-to-seven-hour delay).

Good reads:

  • Continued pandemic growth in Quebec is leading to the country’s first curfew as part of their tighter lockdown; Doug Ford is mulling new restrictions as well.
  • The new testing restrictions for air travel to Canada kicked in last night.
  • Bill Blair offered a bit more context to the vaccinations of federal inmates, which is starting with only 600 of the most vulnerable behind bars.
  • François-Philippe Champagne has condemned China’s arrest of Hong Kong Democratic Party members, and says allies are meeting to determine a response.
  • A report from the Department of National Defence posits that the longer the pandemic, the more it could feed far-right extremism and threats to democracy.
  • Another senator, Vern White, is currently in quarantine in Finland where he and his family travelled to see his in-laws.
  • Because of renovations, Jason Kenney is moving his office to the “Sky Palace” penthouse that sunk Alison Redford, and there is some delicious irony in there.

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One thought on “Roundup: The invasion as a culmination”

  1. Canada’s mainstream media is owned by the same kind of “respectable” right-wing monied interests that bolstered Trump just as much as the lunatic fringe conspiracy theorists. Which I suspect is why there hasn’t been any sort of deep dive into Rebel Media or the other crank blogs like Post Millennial and Proud Canada that Scheer recommended as an “alternative” in his outgoing jeremiad. Recall that Rebel’s co-founder was Scheer’s campaign manager and was either ignored or got nothing but fluff pieces even from the ostensibly “liberal” Star. There’s a sort of incestuous overlap, when one considers that Ezra got platformed in the “paper of record” G&M, and all the interplay between now defunct Sun News and Global, CTV, even the national broadcaster. Postmedia especially is a well-known blight on the landscape. I mean does anyone really think that an oligopoly chain founded by Conman Black and owned by a Trump-acolyte U.S. hedge fund is going to essentially investigate itself?

    Canada needs its own form of Murdoch Inquiry the likes of which former PM Kevin Rudd is demanding for Australia. Wells *almost* gets it with his dig at Harper, but the IDU seems to be a third rail nobody will investigate, and his pox on all their houses cynicism undermines and dilutes whatever his message is supposed to be. Which is maybe the point, his message is a pox on all their houses and not an actual targeted critique of which “side” is really at fault. Self-protectionism of the stale pale male media who have their own hand in furthering this problem through deliberate ignorance and gaslighting bothsiderism.

    Pity that Jesse Brown turned into the Chapo version of Ezra with his pathetic fundraising gambit on the WE Charity, which turned into a Clintonesque conspiracy theory about the “Trudeau mafia slush fund.” There’s a dire need for a kind of Brian Stelter-esque, “fact-checking the gatekeepers” project that the yeoman’s work of ordinary folks dismissed as “Liberal Twitter” can’t keep doing all by themselves. Don’t get smug indeed Canada, or complacent, because there are some very rich and powerful people who *want* this sort of thing, or wouldn’t mind/wouldn’t be harmed if it happened. It creates bigly ratings and distracts the public from the kind of resource hoarding and division games they’re doing, which will only increase the risk of dangerous outbursts down the line.

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