Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.09-224025/https://www.ft.com/content/df86ab14-5b02-4992-9afc-c694be0b7fb0
Canada’s ruling Liberal Party has elected Mark Carney as its new leader and therefore Prime Minister, setting up a face-off between the former central banker and US President Donald Trump.
On Sunday afternoon the Liberal party announced Carney had won the contest to replace Justin Trudeau, who stepped down as leader in January after months of party infighting and poor polling.
However, celebrations for Carney and his team in Ottawa will be shortlived as Canada faces a trade war with its southern neighbour. Trump has threatened to levy broad tariffs on Canada’s imports and taunted that the country should become the 51st state of the US.
Carney is expected to immediately replace Trudeau, who was at the Liberal party event on Sunday.
Yes, but why do the voters think that? The voters in America thought that Trump would be better on the economy. Why on earth did they think that? It’s a very weird thing for them to think. They have a lot of those weird beliefs that definitely aren’t reality, and have to come from somewhere. Or, maybe they have some kind of grain of truth, but they get blown up into these hugely important things, that emotionally resonate. “He’s arrogant and out of touch” is a perfect example of one of those things.
Like I say, I’m not saying the voters don’t genuinely think that. I am asking where they got that idea.
I actually don’t know the answer, even as far as America and Trump being good for the economy. And I don’t think the answer for America, at least about that instance, is clearly “Russians,” for what it’s worth. And also yes I am totally uninformed about Canadian politics. I just know that with these kind of vibes-based judgements about politicians, it’s almost always based on some kind of bullshit.
That kind of thing. It’s very malleable. You might as well say that Trudeau is a man of the people, because he was a drama teacher, and this other guy is from a bank, he’s a banker, he’s greedy, he’s everything that’s wrong with society today. It’s just kind of vibes and random judgements. Or, at least, when I look at it within American politics, that’s what it is.
Republican propaganda, that’s how.
Conservatives’ (incorrect) belief that republicans are better with money is very deeply entrenched. They don’t ever think about it critically. And the propagand machine has been reinforcing it for decades.
I’m pretty sure people thought Trump would be good at economics literally just because of the Apprentice. Manny more people in the US watch reality TV than have any real understanding of politics. Look at all the Trump voters who literally seemed to have no idea he would do any of the things he very loudly said he was going to do. They just remember him being the boss guy who was supposedly good at business from that one show they watched about business.