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Are you seriously claiming it isn't true that "federal bureaucracy has merged with big tech, big media and big pharma, resulting in an authoritarian-style administrative state"?

Or are you just saying that "authoritarian-style" is a bit too far? There is ample evidence of censorship planned jointly between the administration and Twitter/Facebook, ample evidence that the bureaucracy is strongly pro-Democrat, ample evidence that legacy media and big tech collaborate to suppress stories.

In a climate of tight media censorship and extralegal action against opposition politicians, do we really need ongoing and massive state-initiated violence to call it "authoritarian"?

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This was always in the cards. A nation that has been infantilised from the get-go by a historical representation of themselves as heroes, worldwide, is primed for this sort of scenario. The re-playing of the Hollywood version of the so-called revolution, that was more a civil war than a revolution, at every opportunity, has had the effect of making people like Bannon, with his ridiculous stories, believable. He's loving it.

To those who are sick of hearing about the US and its latest national meltdown, it pays to remember that the odour of that is wafting over the border, as things do. It's a disease of the mind that Bannon will continue to make worse because, I think, he's a sick fellow himself and this is fun.

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I think we've become complacent; that we've forgotten that citizenship comes with some duties and that one cannot only participate in democracy when there are choices they are excited and passionate about. The very nature of democracy is to find effective compromise, which means that there will be very few times when a policy that you, the voter, is passionate about will come to pass.

If you're reaction to that is to throw your hands up and check out ... to decide that the whole system is a waste of time ... not not vote because you don't love any of the choices ... then you are ceding your voice to those who *are* passionate. Guess what, those tend to be people who are single-issue voters and those at the fringe -- who recognize the majority doesn't love their ideas and are therefore willing to work very hard to get them embedded into policy anyways.

All of which to say -- the engagement of the fringe/whack-a-doodle crowd isn't the problem. It's the apathy of everyone else. In Ontario, we just voted in a not-terribly-competent government who seems to be mainly focused on the needs of their donors. They won a bigger majority with fewer votes than their first win. Why? Because none of the parties offered a compelling choice and lots of people didn't even bother voting. It's a negative feedback loop, though -- you get crap government, get frustrated and disengaged, don't vote and ... guess what ... you get ever crappier government.

For what it's worth, I've voted in every election I've been eligible to vote in. I've voted for a LOT of parties/platforms that I wasn't very enthusiastic about as it was the least/worst options. I've written letters occasionally to my reps on issues I care about. It really doesn't take a lot of effort -- I'm hardly super politically engaged. If every 'regular' person simply did that, a lot of the polarization issues we're seeing (in the US and in Canada) would likely fade away. The problem isn't that the fringe is strong; it's that the centre is apathetic.

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Over its history, many people have cast American’s as weak, corrupt and ineffectual people.

Events, however, inevitably prove them wrong.

Disparaging the United States and its people is an ongoing mechanism of political distraction that has bred a particularly ugly bigotry in Canada.

The current propensity of the Canadian pot to call the American kettle black seems as politically useful as it always has to divert attention from our own governance deficits.

The overweening belief that that has been instilled in Canadians that they are morally superior to true population south of the border has been purposely cultivated out of the political fear that we might just focus unduly on the shortfalls and inconsistencies of our own society.

The fact is that decent people, the vast majority in both countries, are being poorly led by governments that are just to preoccupied with the effort to retain the power and comforts of their office to manage their responsibilities to the people who elected them.

The reason Trump was elected is that people were fed up with the unfulfilled promises of both the Republican and Democratic establishments.

They are still fed up with good reason.

The same thing is happening in Canada with the rise of Poilievre - the Liberal and Conservative establishments have both lost touch and credibility with many Canadians.

The political pendulum is swingling but ultimately decent people on both Canada and the US will make a decision on just how far to the right they are comfortable with.

I trust that both people of both nations will be able to make a considered decision without being unduly influenced by the radicals of both political stripes in their midst.

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Well Cheney and the MSM would have more credibility if the Russian Hoax hadn't happened. Cheney is part of an American political powerhouse that has held power and influence for a long time. All I see are the corrupt fighting the corrupted for the power of the Americam people. If anyone says that the FBI DOJ is not in bed with Big Tech and Big Pharma they have lost their minds.

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(Banned)Aug 26, 2022·edited Aug 26, 2022

An alternative view was offered by Republican activist and focus-group professional Sarah Longwell in The Atlantic a few weeks back:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/trump-january-6-hearings-2024-election/670971/

Longwell does those deep-dive focus groups that talk at length with a dozen people, and she's been focused on Republican voters as the summer of hearing went on. Fascinatingly, the Republicans still stoutly condemn the hearings as lies and defend their man...but over the last two hearings were talking all differently about whether DT should run: "too divisive"; "many good candidates"; "want similar views, but not as big an ego"; "time to move on" were suddenly on many lips. They're suddenly concerned that ALL Trump does is talk about the past election and himself, not about any other issues. Longwell believes the hearings, while 'officially' disbelieved, have "given them soft permission to move on". Other comments indicate that even Republicans can get tired of the endless drama, all about Trump, not about policy. (This was also the same weeks when it became clear that Rupert Murdoch was abandoning Trump.)

And then came the FBI and everybody snapped to defend.

The FBI didn't have much choice, but if I did think it a giant conspiracy against the GOP, then it would be a conspiracy to KEEP him popular, with the GOP, so that they do keep him around. I think he'd be easier to beat in '24 than '20, by far.

Trumpist values and messages have their followers, but he'd never have won without the whole aura-of-power he got from the inherited wealth, and the TV show making up a story about the wealth coming from his brains and savvy.

He is no longer being attacked for his views, that his followers love. He isn't being attacked on immigration, or on trade, defense, or abortion. He's being attacked for his personal conduct, and all the discussion is about things that the followers have no real reason to defend, other than defending Trump as their icon. As one writer put it, his cloak of victimhood is getting threadbare.

As for stealing the election, everybody gets to watch the ballots counted, slipping in crooks as returning officers can't change that, it's law. And the courts decide who won, if an election is challenged, not the executive. So the crooks can only throw a close election. I don't think that 2024 would even be close, not after two more years of those "attacks" in court, with court rules, not political WWF rules.

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founding

In my opinion, Steve Bannon is finished as a significant force in U.S. politics. Yes, he still has a fringe of followers, and they can be noisy. Yes, he still attempts to manipulate the system. But anyone following the recent Republican primaries, will see no trace of Bannon's influence. Whether a moderate or Trumpist candidate got the nod had nothing to do with Bannon. It had everything to do with Trump himself, and with the chances of winning against a Democrat.

In my opinion, this article assigns disproportionate influence to Bannon. This is in line with a family of conspiracy theories, that see imminent danger in fringe right-wing groups. But the important thing to remember is that they are "fringe". They have no broad based support, whether in the military, the police, or the general population. Hence, there is no chance of a coup d'etat or a successful insurrection, which do require support from at least one of those groups.

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Hi Melanie. You wrote, "Remarkably, many still seem blind to what he’s trying to do." If you mean to say ignorant, please use that word. Equating blindness with ignorance only furthers stereotypical views about what blind people are capable of doing. I don't believe for a moment that this was your intention, but I ask you to consider the effect of such language. Thank you for your consideration.

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Frankly, I find this article very peculiar. Its underlying major premise seems to be that of course The New York Times is more trustworthy and believable than Steve Bannon, and that Trump and Bannon are "weaving a narrative" in ways so foreign to what Democrats would ever think of doing that they not only don't know how to combat it but "don’t even seem to know where the playing field is, let alone how to level it."

Excuse me, but as a retired reference librarian with an ongoing concern for the reliability of information sources and the current state of the information commons (and who, moreover, has always voted left), I not only contest this premise but find it preposterous. Neither Trump nor Bannon needed to "prepare" me to arrive at that particular judgment: the Democrats and The New York Times have done more than enough to arouse my skepticism and sabotage their credibility all on their own. Even if I found what I'm hearing from those sources more plausible than I do, given the relentlessness and uniformity with which they're promoted I'd still fail to see much illegitimacy in a dissenter's attempt to respond in kind. Can you explain why you and I and Bannon shouldn't be entitled to construct narratives of our own--narratives that reflect our views--if The New York Times is free to do it?

I wouldn't vote for Trump for dogcatcher; but it doesn't follow that the prospect of a successful attempt to "take him down as a viable political opponent" give rises to "optimism" in me ('disquiet' is more like it), or that I regard as "absurd" the possibility that if the raid backfires, the "end game" thus created is necessarily more "dangerous" than whatever is guiding the raiders. The most puzzling thing about this article is who it apparently conceives its readership to be. What funds the complacent assumption that if someone doesn't share your take on the meaning and significance of the raid, it can only be because that person belongs to a "different audience" of Trumpian ideological allies, duped by a duplicitous Bannon? Has it ever occurred to you that you might just possibly be the unwitting victim of some institutional duplicity yourself?

If we're all simply at the mercy of our information sources, it's legitimate to ask what makes you immune. If, on the other hand, we have some ability to step back and evaluate the plausibility of the information we receive, then it's incumbent on you to provide an evidentiary trail of just how your sense-making apparatus manages to outperform that of evaluators who arrive at different judgments. It's not enough simply to quote your favoured information sources: their trustworthiness is exactly what's at issue... and the evidence suggests that New York Times editors are every bit as ideologically captured as the most rabid Trump supporters.

By the way, have you ever listened to Bannon for even an hour? He's a pretty smart fellow, and he often makes a more compelling case than NYT op-ed contributors.

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"Bannon is weaving a narrative....". Bunk. Ms Paradis is the one "weaving the narrative". There's not a shred of solid fact in this piece. The work is of someone with Trump Derangement Syndrome so deep she verges on the psychotic.

I don't like Trump for US President either. But such conspiracies are bizzare.

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How it is that the Canadian media establishment is so fixated on the shenanigans of the American Tru-Twin while seemingly oblivious to the threat our Tru-Twin poses to our society?

Admittedly, going after the American Tru-Twin is risk free while seeking to hold to account the Canadian version rules you out as the lucky recipient of a sinecure at the CBC down the road or the ultimate reward for sycophancy, a nomination to the Senate.

Could that be the answer?

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Aug 28, 2022·edited Aug 28, 2022

I got it here. A whole lot involved with it. Seems the party's flip-flopped position in the 60's. https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention

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