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America’s far right is operating in Canada. Why don’t we consider that foreign interference?

17 comments
  • There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how different governments operate in different countries. China’s government operates from the top down (from Xi Jinping down to the national, province, and municipality level). Russia’s government operates through state-linked enterprises that are definitely not government-owned. America’s government operates from the bottom up (from PACs and lobbying groups up to the federal government). American state-sponsored electoral interference is an inherently different problem than Chinese or Russian interference because there are many American actors at play. These include those American PACs and SIGs and other lobbying groups looking to use their billions of dollars in funding to push their ideals around the world by directly and indirectly interfering with foreign elections.

    At the end of the day, foreign interference is anything that leads to Canada pursuing activities not in its own best interest from anyone that isn’t Canadian (if we want to fuck ourselves up, we have that right) and funded with non-Canadian money. This has clearly happened from Chinese, Russian, AND American sources and it needs to stop if we want to protect our democracy.

  • Because they're white people, and their backers are rich.

    That's all you need to know. The far-right is allowed more latitude because, at least for now, they're useful idiots for the wealthy who can use their votes to further the agenda of tax cuts and deregulation. The problem is of the "riding the tiger" variety: at some point, the rabble will get out of control, and some of the wealthy will have their Fritz Thyssen moment.

17 comments