I have a question for my Canadian sisters, brothers, and others.
How much of this shit is actually organic to Canadian culture, and how much creeps in because the assholes there see what the assholes in the US are exploiting and decide to give it a try there?
Feels like a lot of culture creep. Some of these wing nuts talk about the first amendment as if we have that here. Some of them also seem to think that our Prime Minister has presidential powers. I think the “fuck Trudeau” flags are a rip off of the “fuck Biden” flags too.
Yeah, when the convoy crew ended up in court, they kept talking about their 'amendment rights', and the judges had to ask what they were talking about. These people are so dense that black holes are jealous. It's more proof that they're being purposely misled and manipulated in order to sow anger, disharmony, and fight against ourselves instead of the real sources of our problems.
Nah. The YouTube and Facebook channels are probably more US-centric, which is where they get the "amendment" crap, but there are absolutely groups like this - anti-intellectual, often fairly "religious" - that have been around in Canada for a long time. More they're just more organized and funded instead of being loose collection of weirdos that most people could happily ignore. Trumpism in the US may have emboldened village idiots around the world, but it didn't really make them.
Trudeau has been around longer than Biden has been president, as have the bumper stickers. Those were here even before he became PM.
We tend to consume a lot of American media, whether it be music, movies, tv, etc.
With the advent of social media, that got cranked up to 11. So, we have the same impressionable people being targeted by US-style far right propaganda and you can already see its effects.
Someone like Erin O'Toole was exactly what the conservative party needed to bring more people from the center to the Torys, but as soon as he lost one election, they booted him to the curb in favour of Alt-Right Milhouse, who was cozying up to the Convoy protestors and being called "a Superstar for the Far Right" by none other than InfoWars owner and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
I just hope to god our apathy doesnt take over and allow that cretin and his cronies form government and keep carving up our country and environment to the detriment of everyone but the ultra-wealthy.
Don't have any sources but it seems pretty likely that Canadian hate groups have similar sponsors to American ones so it's a little like planting the same seeds in different soil, it's not really a surprise when you get the same tomatoes.
That's a great question. I think there's been a lot of influence from the U.S., but the potential for this inane behaviour was always there.
Unfortunately where I live (northern Ontario), the people you see who are all like, Fuck Trudeau, are the ones with the massive Ford F250's with lift kits and regular-sized tires in winter, who decided not to further their education after high-school. These are people who don't listen to reason and believe the ramblings of people who are literally unhinged, because they want to believe someone/thing is responsible for their life choices and problems.
With the convoy that went to Ottawa (a whole other story), my husband would try to reason with these people in FB groups. He got banned a lot. Most of them would quote Joe Rogan and Russel Brand, who are hilariously not Canadian.
(Anglo) Canada is culture creep: the nation. We never left Britain, but we sound like Americans when we talk. You know why? Every time something bad happens down there a giant wave of immigrants comes up here. Draft dodgers were only the latest wave.
So yeah, they're very clearly ripping off the GOP. You can also tell because they didn't even really change the artwork. The question is what will we do about them? I'm afraid we're going to go the modern German way and let hate movements fester until they're too big to effectively deal with.
Australian here. We got the same shit going down here and it's very much not organic to our culture. We're having a referendum this year for our first nations people to be recognised in our constitution. I shit you not the campaign against this is being funded directly by the same bad actors behind the culture wars bullshit in the US.
I was literally just going to make a joke about that.
I'm from the US, we have much better things to copy than our absolutely shit garbage politics... like BBQ ribs. Copy those, don't copy our garbage propaganda lol