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Sep 11 • 58 tweets • 29 min read
Bitcoin champion, convoy enthusiast and walking climate disaster Pierre Poilievre is officially the new leader of the "Conservative" Party of Canada. I'm told I should be *very* afraid he'll become the Prime Minster. I'm not. I don't think he has a hope in hell 🧵#cdnpoli Image
People have short memories and the (ongoing) pandemic feels like a lifetime ago which is why Canadians may need reminding what "Conservative" leadership would have looked like during that time had Polly been PM. No CERB. No nothing. You're on your own. /2
Might as well nip this in the bud: I'm not AT ALL advising anybody "let their guard down". I think this generation of "Conservatives" need the electoral reckoning of their entire existence so all future generations know not to float this extremist garbage at Canadians. /3
/4
And I'm not AT ALL saying we shouldn't be *very* mindful of an increasingly abysmal & in-the-bag national media apparatus enabling all-things-"Conservative" at the expense of everyone/everything else. That's baked in. /5 #cdnpoli
And I'm not saying that Poilievre, his "Conservatives" & a mostly con-partisan national press won't attempt to fearmonger/#RageFarm Canadians every twist & turn along the way because of course they will. It's what they do now. It's ALL they do now /6
But I AM saying most Canadians AREN'T BUYING IT. /7 ctvnews.ca/politics/major…
And I'm told I should keep in mind that "he's unelectable" was what we all said about Trump & fair enough but, well, GOSH a lot's happened since then. Like Trump lost in a landslide, was impeached twice, incited a deadly insurrection & now he's busted on nuke secrets /8 "Pandemonium" pai...
I'm surely not saying Canadians won't need reminding of who Poilievre is, especially with most of our national media doing their level best to make us forget. We'll have to remind Canadians of the terrible things he's said about Indigenous peoples /9 theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…
As Canadians increasingly come to terms with what #TruthAndReconciliation means & learn the horrors of mass graves for children, more & more of us are rejecting the type of abject cruelty we hear from the likes of new Con leader Poilievre. He's never apologized. /10 #cdnpoli Image
Canadians'll need reminding (& by now we all *know* our national press is mostly not up to the task) that Pierre Poilievre never worked a day out of his life outside of politics and somehow found a way to get rich off of us. Funny trick, that. /11 #cdnpoli Image
Canadians'll need reminding of all this stuff because we KNOW @RobynUrback doesn't see it as her job to report truth. Right out of the gates this fine Sunday this is her announcing she's a partisan mouthpiece for all things Poilievre & "Conservative" /12
Canadians will need reminding that Poilievre has a well established history of cheating in electoral campaigns, that he's the only sitting MP under a compliance agreement with #ElectionsCanada due to his past malfeasances /13 #cdnpoli newswire.ca/news-releases/…
Canadians will need reminding that Poilievre has a history of lying about elections and will certainly lie cheat and steal everything he possibly can when it's his shot at the highest seat in Canadian governance. /14 #cdnpoli cbc.ca/news/politics/…
Canadians need reminding of Poilievre's long history of cheating in & around elections & they'll need to understand he's CHEATED ON ELECTIONS as recently as this very leadership campaign, with full complicity from the national "Conservative" party /15 cbc.ca/news/canada/to…
Canadians will need reminding that like Jason Kenney, Poilievre is a Stephen Harper acolyte and as such cannot help himself when it comes to cheating Canada's democratic values. It's in their DNA. Be more surprised when they *don't* lie, cheat & steal. /16 macleans.ca/politics/what-…
Day 1 of Poilievre's "leadership"

✅ Bot armies launched

/17
I think this person is eminently beatable. Yes, I absolutely do. /18 #cdnpoli
/19
/20 Image
All the smart strategists are telling me this perspective is gobsmackingly wrong. I stand by it entirely. Time will tell. Regardless this generation of "Conservatives" need a profound electoral drubbing so they crawl back under their rocks forever /21
Strong majorities of Canadians have been voting for parties with climate policies in federal elections for some time now. This is Poilievre's climate policy: /22 #cdnpoli Image
Let me put it another way (and I know this won't make me any friends either): if in 2022, in CANADA, your party can't beat the fringey goofball advocating we BUILD PIPELINES IN EVERY DIRECTION? I don't blame the fringey goofball. /23
/24
Poilievre plays the exact same game as Trump who makes noises to the working class & plies them with Fear, Hatred & Lies, all while pushing policies that benefit only the rich. The standard con. Can it fool enough Canadians to make him PM? /25 #cdnpoli pressprogress.ca/pierre-poiliev…
Rather than relentlessly comparing our situation to a populist-empowering America or UK in 2016 why not make political hay all day with what that populism's accomplished by 2022: BREXIT's an enormous costly failure & Trump has all but burnt America as we know it to the ground /26
There's never been a Canadian politician more like Trump than Poilievre. It was inevitable "Conservatives" here would attempt the same formula. But outside of the fringes Trump is NOT popular in this country & neither is his deadly #Jan6Insurrection. /27 newsweek.com/majority-canad…
The time is now to make these connections clear to all sane Canadians:

Poilievre 🔁 Trump
Freedummies 🔁 MAGA
Occupation/Blockades 🔁 #Jan6thInsurrection

Same tactics, same tools, same targets. Most Canadians don't want this.

/28 Image
The more apt comparison to make between Canada & America in all this is to look at what Biden's doing RIGHT NOW to great success: calling out the extremists on the right while giving the non-extremists an easy way out. Smart. And it's working. /29 #cdnpoli nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…
PM Trudeau makes a decent start here. Like Biden he can go a long way towards sealing up the next election by reminding us of his many existing accomplishments & promoting additional policies popular to youth, labour, families etc in what time remains. /30
As both America & Australia announce their biggest climate plans ever, Canada's "Conservatives" just nominated a fringey goofball whose sole climate plan is axing the carbon tax & "pipelines in every direction". Trudeau should step it up too. Canadians will reward him for it /31
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Interlude #3: And finally, if you're getting value from this thread you may want to check out my "Genthology", containing 30 threads (and counting) on all the biggest, most critical issues of our time. Buckle up and bring whiskey. Now back to the 🧵!
"Conservatives" can only lie. It's all they do & they do it because they assume all Canadians are as stupid as their base. Scheer's first act as Poilievre's co-deputy was to lie to Canadians about inflation. The picture below immediately disproves him. /33 Image
Lantsman is Poilievre's other co-deputy & like Scheer her 1st act was to tell an obvious lie to Canadians. It'll play well to their stupid-as-paint base but your average Canadian knows this isn't how Trudeau talks. Is this the campaign I should be so fearful of? /34 #cdnpoli Image
Poilievre's "media scrum" begins, says he wouldn't be taking questions, gets pressed by @davidakin, starts whining about #LiberalHecklers then deigned to answer just 2 questions. This same would-be worldbeater paid 50K to avoid a debate. THIS is who I should be so afraid of? /35
What do you say about a guy who holds a pretend debate with an empty chair then pays $50K of his supporters' money to avoid debating his real life opponents? You telling me I should fear this little creep? I'm telling you this is gonna be FUN. /36 #cdnpoli
Maybe the key messaging for all things non-extremist in Canada moving forward should be: "WE'VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE. NOT A BLOODY CHANCE!!! ARE YOU *KIDDING* ME?!?" /37 #cdnpoli
"We're not your f-ng stenographers" is one of the most important messages journalists can communicate to those in power these days. You made Poilievre answer 2 questions. His original intention was NONE. Canada needs more of this, not less /38 #cdnpoli
Day 2 of the Poilievre campaign and it's already OFFICIALLY a laughable shambles. *This* is the campaign I'm to be so terrified of? /39 Image
This look like an "automated text" to you? 🤡 Day 2 of the campaign and yet ANOTHER big dumb easily disprovable lie. Again, "Conservatives" assume all Canadians are as mind-numbingly stupid as their base. We're just not. Neither is a herd of cows in a field. /40 Image
Day 4 of the campaign. Bots flood the twitterverse to fearmonger/hatefarm on PM Trudeau. The problem? They did the exact same thing in America literally days before😆and EVERY TWEET is using the EXACT SAME PHRASING🤣. Hereby introducing the #PollyShambles hashtag /41 #cdnpoli ImageImageImage
It's a good time to remind our fellow Canadians that Russia is spending 100s of MILLIONS influencing political leaders & campaigns in more than 2 dozen countries, Canada most certainly included. /42 ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-russ…
Who paid for this latest anti-Trudeau bot campaign, lame & laughable though it no doubt be? Is it the stuff of tinfoil hattery to suggest Russia's already chosen its favourite in Canada's next election & is already actively interfering? /43 #cdnpoli theglobeandmail.com/canada/article…
Well, no. It's not. We know Russia's state-controlled propaganda org has already taken great interest in the anti-democratic protofascistic Freedom™️ Convoy, which Poilievre has officially & inextricably tied himself to, hand and foot. /44 #cdnpoli globalnews.ca/news/8983352/f…
[and yes I know America's President Biden is calling it #SemiFascism but I was calling it #ProtoFascism almost a full year before & I stand by the label on accuracy, if not ease of comprehension by your average American (or Canadian for that matter). Good? Good.] /45
If you're looking for a straight line between Russian bot campaigns running first through America then into Canada & being enabled by either complicit or just plain stupid "Conservative" politicians at all levels of government look no further than Poilievre & @ABDanielleSmith /46 Image
I'm not ready to start bandying about a #ComradePoilievre hashtag yet but he & Russia both saw opportunity during the worst pandemic of our lifetimes to manipulate our fears through disinformation & championed the anti-democratic Freedom™️ Convoy /47 nationalpost.com/news/canada/ru…
Some #cdnpoli political heads may forget but prior to Poilievre jumping in front of the so-called Freedom™️ Convoy most Canadians had never heard of him. Here we are just 7 months later & he's parlayed all that into a full & easy seizure of the entire "Conservative" party /48
And yes by all mans we can choose to be oh-so-very afraid of this man but I keep coming back to the fact that a STRONG MAJORITY of Canadians DESPISE the convoy & antivax street corner yokels & it's not something he can EVER pivot away from. /49 angusreid.org/trudeau-convoy… #cdnpoli
To wit: the very means of Poilievre's rise will be his inevitable undoing. I can't imagine an easier case to make in a federal election. Only way the Liberals could lose would be to take the Ontario Liberal/NDP approach of not engaging on it at all /50
#CountryOverConvoy. I like that. /51 #cdnpoli
And sure a case could be made that in some instances Poilievre might not've known he was standing beside a known terrorist/violent extremist/#ProtoFascist but that doesn't explain why they're tripping all over themselves to get pictures with *him.* /52 pressprogress.ca/pierre-poiliev…
That said I don't know how you join somebody's march without looking into who that person is but if you never take questions from the press maybe you feel you don't have to. Which is fine unless you're RUNNING FOR PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA /53 #cdnpoli globalnews.ca/news/8959365/c…
Why do ALL of Canada's worst people want pictures with Poilievre? Most Canadians regardless of political stripe don't like seeing big abusive dumb slobs bullying women into elevators. We know this is wrong & will only lead to further violence in the days to come. /54 #cdnpoli ImageImage
Poilievre's response is now well known: he took < 10 seconds to make it all about himself. From here on it's valuable for Canadians to view everything he's done or will do through a Trumpian Lens: NEVER expect decency. NEVER expect truth /55 #cdnpoli
Sound like anybody we know? /56 #cdnpoli rawstory.com/gop-debates/

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