I was recently #BlockedByDanielleSmith but it doesn't matter because her political career is effectively over after this next election. A "Conservative" that can't win in #YYC can't win the province. Just too damned extreme for the business class. #abpoli
Calling it: this does not a governing majority make. Not even here. The same forces that tore Kenney's premiership to shreds will blow up the UCP's next election chances. #abpoli
As of today it's official: Danielle Smith cannot win an Alberta provincial election. If she chooses to remain in politics it will only be as leader of an unelectable separatist rump that can only dog and hurt whichever "Conservatives" seek power in the future. She's done. #abpoli
If your Alberta is one where everybody makes less money except for the bosses it should come to you as no surprise that Danielle Smith's UCP is the party for you. /6 #abpoli
Smith playing footsie with lowering the minimum wage as if the only demographic to get hit will be schoolkids living with their parents as opposed to single mothers. It's not tough Smith: if you work full time the wage must cover the cost of living /7
The alternative is leaving it to the government to make up the difference which is the farthest thing away from "small c conservative" you could ever do. But the Big Bosses like it & that's all that matters to "Conservatives" like Danielle Smith /8 #abpoli
Too extreme. Too fringey. Whole volumes of *really* bad quotes like this one. She can't win Calgary and if you can't win Calgary you can't win Alberta. /10 #ucpldr#abpoli#yyc
When Jason Kenney was elected many of us knew it was about weathering the storm and mitigating what damage we could until he's replaced. Nothing has changed. Danielle Smith just has a shorter timeline. Alberta's next election season is here /12
Calgary is a business/money town. Business/money wants its workers vaxxed & productive. This junk doesn't win Calgary and if you can't win Calgary you can't win Alberta /13 #abpoli#cdnpoli#upcldr#DanielleSmith
If I'm an Albertan "Conservative" I'm calling shenanigans on the whole thing😏. Between this and her obscene comment about the poor antivaxxers #DanielleSmith just threw the race😆. IN WEEK ONE.🤣 /15
Turns out catering to #TheFullOnCrazies makes for bad general election campaigns, even if your political parties rolls right over for as much extremism as you can throw at them. Who could've ever imagined? /16 #SimultaneousImplosion
Feel like we're gonna hear a lot of “I have no idea how this works” over the next several months in Alberta. Ask yourself who could represent Canada WORSE at an international conference on CLIMATE. Maybe "Pipelines In All Directions" Poilievre? /21 #abpoli
Every day it's all sorts of new Stupid/Kooky from Alberta's non-elected Premier* Danielle Smith because she's done just fine with Stupid/Kooky for her wingnut radio station/blog/podcast/rodeo clown show. Any accountability whatsoever's a BRAND NEW THING for her /23 #abpoli#ableg
It's ugly to puke out a really bad narrative like "Russia is the victim" & "Ukraine oughta just roll over" but it won't cost you so long as your job is "edgy far right firebrand" not "unelected Premier facing a spring election." There's so, so, so much more /24 #ableg#abpoli
Edgy far right wingnut firebrand grifters are free to promote whatever quackery their audiences are most susceptible to but move into the bright lights of an election and even with a likely in-the-bag media you can still expect each little bozo eruption to leave a mark /25 #ableg
Do we know what the record is for mind-numbingly stupid/reckless things said by a non-elected Premier that had to be walked back in the shortest amount of time? How many walk-backs is she at now? For the record just last night Smith refused to apologize, said "move on"/27 #abpoli
I guess when you're running for Premier of Alberta & you've already shit-canned all the big city votes you really want to soak up as much of the rural vote as you can, which is problematic when you've also just shit-canned the votes of 370K Ukrainian Albertans. /28 #abpoli#ableg
Election commercials writing themselves in realtime:
"First they gave you Jason Kenney. They threw him out because he was a disaster. Who did they replace him with? DANIELLE SMITH. Isn't it time for competent scandal-free leadership in Alberta again?"
/29
Q: What does Danielle Smith have in common with the party that just elected her? /30 #abpoli#ableg#cdnpoli
Election commercials writing themselves in realtime:
"Are you tired of Alberta making international news for ALL THE WRONG REASONS? Stop voting for the party that first brought you Jason Kenney, kicked him out for being a disaster then 🧐replaced him with DANIELLE SMITH."🤨 /31
At JUST OVER A WEEK IN to Danielle Smith's non-elected premiership it's perfectly reasonable for "Conservatives" across Alberta to now be asking themselves:
"well c'mon, how much more can there POSSIBLY be?"
Given non-elected Danielle Smith's own admission that her former staffers thought she had #NoCrazyRadar is it reasonable for Albertans to expect she will acquire some at some point before Albertans choose the next premier this spring? /33 #abpoli#ableg#cdnpoli#yyc#yeg
Populist Trump lost reelection. It wasn't close
Populist UK PM Truss didn't last 3 months
Populist Poilievre has been in constant implosion since becoming Con leader
Poilievre courts violent women-hating incel creepos while Alberta's UCP under Danielle Smith courts racists. Increasingly to be "Conservative" is to be a far right extremist. I don't see any way around it. /35
Every single one Smith's UCP leadership opponents knew she had 16 different types of crazy in her history & not one had the courage to bring it up, even when they knew they had no chance of winning if they didn't. Not ONE. What does that tell you about the "Conservative" base?/36
Only folks that look worse than Danielle Smith's cowardly leadership opponents is most of our media. They're supposed to do some vetting too. These failures allowed a KNOWN KOOK to walk into the highest seat of power in Alberta politics, election-free. /37
Dare to dream that just maybe this is the time for what sane "Conservatives" that remain to take a hard look first at Kenney's many failures & then the burning tirefire that is Danielle Smith & admit that they don't pay enough attention to politics /38
Bird Site Migrant Angst vs The Latest on Emergencies Act Inquiry 🧵 #EAInquiry#cdnpoli
Wrote 100 post thread on this here #BirdSite about everything that'd NOT be covered by the #EmergenciesActInquiry & how we'll need a #Jan6thInquiry that digs into ALL OF IT, not just whether Trudeau was justified (because OF COURSE he was). /2
Lots worth adding today but I'm feeling the weight of being here. Building here. When every day it feels increasingly like things are DESIGNED to chase me and people that think like me outta here to somewhere else. It's gross these days. Getting grosser /3 #mastodonmigration
I've taken this to heart ever since I saw it on a friend's wall some years ago. I think you could say the same thing about the pushback on "#woke" by genuinely bad people who'd rather we all just stayed asleep so they can make their gobs of money off a clearly broken status quo.
So I wrote a 100+ tweet 🧵on the great many & ever-growing failings rendering "Conservative" leader Poilievre unelectable as Prime Minister but it got mangled at the end. Given the 3x weekly proto-fascistic bozo eruptions of this man & his enablers, this 2nd 🧵was needed. Mahalo!
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
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
"All politicians are the same," they mooed lazily, chewing their collective cud in a field now openly ablaze. "There's no difference between political parties, *everybody* knows that!" /2 #cdnpoli
Just don't get yourself arrested. @CalgaryPolice are just as forceful as ever AS LONG AS YOU'RE NOT AN ANTIVAXER. Might get hit with a bike or other blunt instrument. They don't even care if you're a senior citizen, right @neufeld_mark? /41 #yyc#yyccc
DO YOU GET THAT THIS IS YOUR WHOLE CAREER FLASHING BEFORE YOUR EYES CHIEF @neufeld_mark? This IS a policing failure. We don't NEED to be told its not & we don't NEED to be told to just LIE DOWN & TAKE IT. You need to EXPLAIN THE FAILURE. /42 #yyc#yyccc