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Please feel free to reblog with your reasoning

No nuance.

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No nuance.

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Wild delusions going on in liberal land. Someone tell these people that the Soviet union has not existed for 35 years. And I know that's probably a lot for them to absorb, but then they should probably also be informed that the US has more than enough problems on its own to give rise to Trump organically.

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Helpful charts:

Let's set the record straight about the Canadian election

because I've seen a lot of terrible takes and it's starting to bug me.

Myth 1: This was a huge defeat for the Conservatives

The way this is presented is that while Justin Trudeau was Prime Minister, the Conservatives had a 25-point lead over the Liberals. But then Trudeau resigned, Trump started making threats, and the Liberals made a miraculous recovery to win their fourth consecutive term in government.

This is true. But the Conservatives did not do badly by any stretch of the imagination.

In 2015, when Justin Trudeau's Liberals won a majority government, he won 39.5% of the popular vote. When Stephen Harper's Conservatives won a majority in 2011, they had 39.6% of the popular vote.

In this election, the Liberals won 43.7% of the popular vote. Normally that would mean that they won a crushing majority of seats. But they won a minority. The Conservatives got 41.3% of the popular vote, which also would be enough to win a majority in normal times. And they did pick up 24 seats in the election,

The big story isn't that the Conservatives did badly, because they didn't. The big story is that the NDP (the labour/social democrat-ish party) absolutely collapsed in this election, losing seats to both the Liberals and Conservatives. They went from 24 seats to just 7 seats. They lost official party status.

The Liberals rebounded, not because they won Conservative supporters, but because they siphoned support from the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois (the Quebec nationalist party) (who went from 34 to 23 seats).

That's because there were two issues in this election: Donald Trump and the cost of living.

During the last Parliament, the NDP entered into an agreement with Trudeau's minority government to prop them up in return for some very very limited reforms that the Liberals probably would have done anyways. The NDP kept the Liberals in power through the cost of living crisis, through the genocide in Gaza, through the Liberals repeatedly shutting down important strikes (dock workers, rail workers, postal workers). They took on responsibility for a government that was widely unpopular.

Then Trudeau resigned, Mark Carney reverse his most unpopular policies (Carbon tax, Capital gains tax), and Trump instituted tariffs against Canada. The Liberals were able to revamp their image and appeal to people who were scared of Trump, while the NDP bore responsibility for the previous government. And those who were voting based on worries about the cost of living voted Conservative.

The NDP actually lost more seats to the Conservatives than to the Liberals, including the manufacturing regions that have been hit the worst by the trade war. The NDP usually gets a majority of the support from union members and youth, but this time they lost both of those demographics to the Conservatives. Because the Conservatives were the only ones talking about the working class (opportunistically), and the only ones who seemed to be at all anti-establishment (rhetorically).

And this is not going to be a stable government for the Liberals. They're a minority government, those usually last 18-36 months. And come next election, the Conservatives will be well-placed to win.

As a side note, there's a lot of people talking about how Pierre Poilievre (Conservative leader) lost his seat. And yes, it's funny and satisfying. But also it's been way overblown. He's just going to run in a by-election for a safe Conservative seat, it doesn't change anything.

Myth 2: Pierre Poilievre/The Conservatives are fascists

I honestly feel like I'm in the twilight zone with the way some people talk about Poilievre.

He's just a normal conservative. He's been a parliamentarian his entire adult life. He was a member of Stephen Harper's cabinet. He's an establishment politician who jumped on the right-populist bandwagon at the time of the trucker convoy, and then got a makeover and added a few catchy slogans ("boots not suits" "the have-nots vs. the have-yachts").

Are there extremists who vote Conservative? Yes. But the strategy of the Conservative party when it comes to extreme social conservatives (going back to Harper's day, and Poilievre is a Harper-ite) is to use them for their votes and then tell them to shut up. You see this with Poilievre, that he was winning based on talking about the cost-of-living crisis, so he didn't need to get into culture war stuff, and he avoided it.

And you need to look at who voted Conservative: youth, workers, and immigrants. Poilievre is popular because he (demagogically) talks about the fact that people's lives are getting worse, and everyone is sick of the Liberals.

Myth 3: The Liberals are any better

First of all, let's be really clear about what the Liberals are. They've been in power for most of Canada's history. They're nicknamed "the natural governing pary". They are the preferred party of Canadian capitalism.

They're what in political science is called a "brokerage party". That means that they don't stand for anything ideologically, but operate solely on the basis of what will get theme elected. They are not a left party, and have never been a left party.

And the Liberals, being the main party of Canadian capitalism, have presided over some of the worst stuff that Canadian capitalism is responsible for. They were huge supporters of the creation of Israel. They presided over the 60s scoop. Federally, they implemented the worst cuts in Canadian history in the 1990s. Recently, they've shut down every major strike in the past few years. And that's just off the top of my head.

Even under Carney, and he's only been around a couple of months, the Liberals are making massive cuts to Indigenous support programs, and sending weapons to Israel and lying about it.

In this election specifically, Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre's platforms were *extremely* similar. Before the election even got underway, Carney implemented three of the promises that Poilievre was running on (ending the carbon tax, stopping the capital gains tax, ending federal oversight of development projects). Poilievre accused the Liberals of stealing his platform, even.

Both the Liberals and Conservatives are talking about limiting immigration and sending migrants out of the country, they're both talking about "encouraging investment" (payouts to business), and they're both talking about balancing the budget.

The reason why they're so similar is that in times of economic crisis, the ruling class has less room to manoeuver. Canada is facing a productivity crisis, runaway deficits, and now the trade war. From the point of view of the ruling class, the main task is to balance the budget. That will necessarily mean making cuts to social spending.

That's the ultimate point of this post: The Liberals and the Conservatives are both enemies, and both need to be treated as such.

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This is a misrepresentation of what happened in Canada, which helps no one.

You can see from the graph that yes, support for the Conservatives dropped, but most of the Liberal's recovery was due to syphoning support from the NDP (the labour/social-democratic party) and the Bloc Quebecois (Quebec nationalist party). The Conservatives gained 24 seats and got their highest share of the popular vote since 1988. Hardly a collapse.

What happened is that that people who were scared of Trump voted Liberal, and the people worried about the cost of living voted Conservative.

The lesson from the Canadian election is that if lefties support the liberals, like how the NDP propped up the Liberal party for the past several years, then they will lose all credibility in the eyes of working class, leaving the road open to right-wing populists.

Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa have all seen their right-wing parties collapse in popularity since Trump took over.

We were headed for a hard-right turn, but this shift is absolutely unprecedented in modern times. The stark reality of a right wing nationalist future really got people to pay attention.

Unfortunately, it's at the cost of the millions of us in the US who will now suffer

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Let's set the record straight about the Canadian election

because I've seen a lot of terrible takes and it's starting to bug me.

Myth 1: This was a huge defeat for the Conservatives

The way this is presented is that while Justin Trudeau was Prime Minister, the Conservatives had a 25-point lead over the Liberals. But then Trudeau resigned, Trump started making threats, and the Liberals made a miraculous recovery to win their fourth consecutive term in government.

This is true. But the Conservatives did not do badly by any stretch of the imagination.

In 2015, when Justin Trudeau's Liberals won a majority government, he won 39.5% of the popular vote. When Stephen Harper's Conservatives won a majority in 2011, they had 39.6% of the popular vote.

In this election, the Liberals won 43.7% of the popular vote. Normally that would mean that they won a crushing majority of seats. But they won a minority. The Conservatives got 41.3% of the popular vote, which also would be enough to win a majority in normal times. And they did pick up 24 seats in the election.

The big story isn't that the Conservatives did badly, because they didn't. The big story is that the NDP (the labour/social democrat-ish party) absolutely collapsed in this election, losing seats to both the Liberals and Conservatives. They went from 24 seats to just 7 seats. They lost official party status.

The Liberals rebounded, not because they won Conservative supporters, but because they siphoned support from the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois (the Quebec nationalist party) (who went from 34 to 23 seats).

That's because there were two issues in this election: Donald Trump and the cost of living.

During the last Parliament, the NDP entered into an agreement with Trudeau's minority government to prop them up in return for some very very limited reforms that the Liberals probably would have done anyways. The NDP kept the Liberals in power through the cost of living crisis, through the genocide in Gaza, through the Liberals repeatedly shutting down important strikes (dock workers, rail workers, postal workers). They took on responsibility for a government that was widely unpopular.

Then Trudeau resigned, Mark Carney reversed his most unpopular policies (Carbon tax, Capital gains tax), and Trump instituted tariffs against Canada. The Liberals were able to revamp their image and appeal to people who were scared of Trump, while the NDP bore responsibility for the previous government. And those who were voting based on worries about the cost of living voted Conservative.

The NDP actually lost more seats to the Conservatives than to the Liberals, including the manufacturing regions that have been hit the worst by the trade war. The NDP usually gets a majority of the support from union members and youth, but this time they lost both of those demographics to the Conservatives. Because the Conservatives were the only ones talking about the working class (opportunistically), and the only ones who seemed to be at all anti-establishment (rhetorically).

And this is not going to be a stable government for the Liberals. They're a minority government, those usually last 18-36 months. And come next election, the Conservatives will be well-placed to win.

As a side note, there's a lot of people talking about how Pierre Poilievre (Conservative leader) lost his seat. And yes, it's funny and satisfying. But also it's been way overblown. He's just going to run in a by-election for a safe Conservative seat, it doesn't change anything.

Myth 2: Pierre Poilievre/The Conservatives are fascists

I honestly feel like I'm in the twilight zone with the way some people talk about Poilievre.

He's just a normal conservative. He's been a parliamentarian his entire adult life. He was a member of Stephen Harper's cabinet. He's an establishment politician who jumped on the right-populist bandwagon at the time of the trucker convoy, and then got a makeover and added a few catchy slogans ("boots not suits" "the have-nots vs. the have-yachts").

Are there extremists who vote Conservative? Yes. But the strategy of the Conservative party when it comes to extreme social conservatives (going back to Harper's day, and Poilievre is a Harper-ite) is to use them for their votes and then tell them to shut up. You see this with Poilievre, that he was winning based on talking about the cost-of-living crisis, so he didn't need to get into culture war stuff, and he avoided it.

And you need to look at who voted Conservative: youth, workers, and immigrants. Poilievre is popular because he (demagogically) talks about the fact that people's lives are getting worse, and everyone is sick of the Liberals.

Myth 3: The Liberals are any better

First of all, let's be really clear about what the Liberals are. They've been in power for most of Canada's history. They're nicknamed "the natural governing pary". They are the preferred party of Canadian capitalism.

They're what in political science is called a "brokerage party". That means that they don't stand for anything ideologically, but operate solely on the basis of what will get them elected. They are not a left party, and have never been a left party.

And the Liberals, being the main party of Canadian capitalism, have presided over some of the worst stuff that Canadian capitalism is responsible for. They were huge supporters of the creation of Israel. They presided over the 60s scoop. Federally, they implemented the worst cuts in Canadian history in the 1990s. Recently, they've shut down every major strike in the past few years. And that's just off the top of my head.

Even under Carney, and he's only been around a couple of months, the Liberals are making massive cuts to Indigenous support programs, and sending weapons to Israel and lying about it.

In this election specifically, Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre's platforms were *extremely* similar. Before the election even got underway, Carney implemented three of the promises that Poilievre was running on (ending the carbon tax, stopping the capital gains tax, ending federal oversight of development projects). Poilievre accused the Liberals of stealing his platform, even.

Both the Liberals and Conservatives are talking about limiting immigration and sending migrants out of the country, they're both talking about "encouraging investment" (payouts to business), and they're both talking about balancing the budget.

The reason why they're so similar is that in times of economic crisis, the ruling class has less room to manoeuver. Canada is facing a productivity crisis, runaway deficits, and now the trade war. From the point of view of the ruling class, the main task is to balance the budget. That will necessarily mean making cuts to social spending, whether it’s the Liberals or Conservatives in government.

That's the ultimate point of this post: The Liberals and the Conservatives are both our enemies, and both need to be treated as such.

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Every time lesser evilism is practiced, it just lays the groundwork for the return of the far right on a stronger basis.

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Lesser evilism doesn't mean choosing your enemy, it means aligning yourself with the enemy.

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Anyone who fights for the establishment is not "left wing"

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Really excellent analysis of the entire war

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The fate of the NDP in the Canadian election is such a clear example of where lesser-evilism gets you.

The NDP is the labour party equivalent in Canada. They had socialism in their constitution until about 15 years ago. The most successful federal election for them ever was in 2011 when people were sick to death of the Liberals and turned to the NDP as the most radical thing available.

Now they've lost so many seats that they've lost official party status. Because they tied themselves to the Liberals, they propped up Trudeau, they aligned themselves with the establishment. So in the election, anyone who wanted the Liberals voted for the Liberals, and anyone who was sick of the establishment voted Conservative.

The NDP lost the youth vote for the first time in forever. The NDP is the party founded by unions, and they lost the union vote. And they lost both demographics to the Conservatives! Because Poilievre was the one actually talking about the working class and the cost-of-living crisis. Now they don't have official party status anymore, which means they lose funding, and they don't get the same rights in Parliament.

Jagmeet Singh, the (now former) NDP leader, said about propping up the Liberals, that he could have brought them down and gained a lot of votes, but that he put the fate of the country ahead of the fate of his party. Insane thing to say. If you actually believe that your party has the right ideas then it's your duty to win the widest layer of the population over to them as possible. He fucked up deeply and destroyed his party for what?

Carney's agenda is virtually indistinguishable from Poilievre. He's going to do the same tax cuts. He's going to carry out the same attacks on social programs. He's already making major cuts to supports for Indigenous communities. He's been sending arms to Israel, while lying about it. He's going to be syphoning money off into the military. The literal only difference between them is that the ruling class is more comfortable with Carney because they know him, while Poilievre used anti-establishment rhetoric to get popular and they weren't a fan of that.

People always argue that lesser-evilism is about "choosing which enemy you'd rather fight." I've seen people say that they have an easier time fighting under the Liberals than the Conservatives. When a) there is so little daylight between the two. b) The Liberals are literally nicknamed "the ruling party of Canada". They've been in power most of the time. They're the preferred representatives of the ruling class and the main enemy.

And c) most importantly. Will the NDP have an easier time fighting after supporting the Liberals? No, they've totally undermined their ability to fight. They've dramatically lowered their capacity to get anything done. Because lesser-evilism is not about "choosing your enemy" it's about aligning with the enemy in the eyes of the people you're trying to win over. You're not better able to fight the establishment because the people who actually want to do that see you as part of the establishment. You've cratered any credibility you might have had as a fighter.

You've sold tomorrow for today, and not for a very good today either.

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I hate these types of posts, they have such a puritanical vibe to them.

The entire working class benefits from the liberation of any section of the working class and oppressed, and vice versa. Full stop. This is both factually true, and pointing it out is the best way to encourage solidarity and focus on who the real enemy is (the capitalists). Whatever """privileges""" members of a group have to give up are nothing compared to what can be gained from solidarity.

Wages are a great example of this. Fighting to end wage gaps does not mean white male workers need to give up a privilege. It means that they take away the bosses' ability to use "I'll just hire an immigrant woman who i can pay less" as a threat that puts downwards pressure on their own wages as well. Everybody benefits.

The banana argument is also really illustrative. Like the approach in the above post is "I'm okay with being deprived of things I enjoy because I am a good person. Suffering equals virtue, and I am in no way reproducing deranged religious thinking."

Like the argument for socialism isn't "accepting that you won't have bananas makes you a good person." It’s that everyone will have reliable access to nutritious food and no one will go starving. Like I guarantee that most people will happy enough about not having to choose between rent and food, and not having to use food banks, and not having to steal baby formula, that they won't care about bananas.

i think you are not going to be able to actively serve and help social justice without first coming to terms with the fact that it might have downsides for you, personally.

helping disabled people sometimes helps able bodied people, yes, but we must accept being inconvenienced, too. feminism can benefit men, but it must also mean relinquishing privilege and changing your behavior. you will not be able to eat bananas and chocolate cheap, year-round, in the northern latitudes.

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The problems that op lists are all problems of class society, that is, of a form of society where one group of people exploits and lives off of the labour of another. They are problems arising out of the means of production being owned privately, instead of being held in common.

to end them, we need to end class society, and since the from of class society that we're currently living in is capitalism, that means ending capitalism.

being an archaeologist in tumblr is so funny because I see so many text posts and go. Imperialism pre-dates capitalism. Rebellion against empires pre-dates capitalism. Money pre-dates capitalism. Social inequality pre-dates capitalism. Misogyny pre-dates capitalism. Wealth inequality pre-dates capitalism. Unilateral rule by oppressive rulers pre-dates capitalism. People’s dependence on their job for their survival pre-dates capitalism. Capitalism as an economic system is about 200-250 years old max but these problems are much, much older, and capitalism supports, entrenches, or exacerbates many of these problems… doesn’t mean it invented them and doesn’t mean they will simply cease to be problems After Capitalism.

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Ethics can move people absolutely, but they are mutable over time and space, and do not provide a deeper understanding of the world, which is what Marxism is about. Ethics are a thing that exists that you can appeal to, but it's far from the most important thing. You suggest that you've read Capital, in which case you should know that it's not an ethical evaluation of capitalism, it's a scientific study of it. Marx called his theories "scientific socialism" for a reason, and he argued against contemporaries whose socialism was based solely on moralistic ideas. The big contribution of Marxism to the socialist movement is that scientific approach.

Science does not mean "disinterested". A surgeon is not disinterested in the life of their patient, but because they care about the life of the patient, they use science as their guide to performing surgery, not morality.

The idea that history is guided by strict universal laws fundamental to reality itself and headed along a linear path of progress to a higher form is an idea of engineers and professionals who want to manage the workers as a class of intellectual political leaders over a mass of employees who carry out directions from the leadership.

What are you talking about here, what does it have to do with what I was saying? The Marxist understanding of progress does recognize that there's fundamental laws guiding reality, but they are in no way linear. Evolution is guided by fundamental laws, but it doesn't operate in a way that's straightforward or linear at all. And yet there is still progress in the development of species, in that each development opens the door to new developments and closes the door to others. The Marxist understanding of history works the same way.

I have no idea where you're getting the second part of that paragraph from at at all. Like I was saying before, ending scarcity is the necessary precondition for ending oppression and exploitation. It's also the necessary precondition for a world where everybody has the ability to participate in the running of society.

I have no idea what the last paragraph of your reply is responding to either. Like, yeah, obviously there's no guarantees? Obviously the working class needs to organize to assert itself in history? Where did I imply otherwise? History having laws does not mean that things are predetermined. It's by understanding those laws that we learn how to change the world. The same way that you need to understand the laws of physics to achieve powered flight. And certainty in those laws means that you're better able to act boldly and decisively.

Marxists are not exactly beating the colonial ideology allegations with their concept of progress (history moves forward = more people working = more stuff = gooder)

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Okay, so your first mistake is thinking that there’s a moralistic aspect to Marxist analysis. There isn't.

The Marxist understanding of history is based on trying to pinpoint what it is that drives change in human society. The force that changes things is class struggle. The thing that shapes class struggle is the level of production. You need to understand that if you want to be an active agent in history.

Your second mistake is treating Marxism like an ideology, when it is actually a science. It is taking a scientific approach to the development of human society.

Higher levels of production are historically progressive not because "more stuff = gooder" but because overcoming scarcity is the material basis necessary for a world where no person has the power to oppress and exploit another. Control over the production and distribution of the necessities of life is the ultimate source of power.

When there is enough for everyone to not just survive, but to lead fulfilling lives, and when everyone has equal access to food, education, housing, health, etc., that's when we can embark on a new stage of history, where people are truly free.

(Also, if by "more people working" you meant "the creation of the proletariat" the main reason that that's historically progressive is that the proletariat is the first class in history that has the capacity to overthrow class society.)

Marxists are not exactly beating the colonial ideology allegations with their concept of progress (history moves forward = more people working = more stuff = gooder)

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I feel like a lot of people have massively lost the plot re what the word "radical" means but whatever. Swarm of locusts attack