23 February 2022

Canada and the wingnut fantasy world

Reading right-wing blogosphere posts about the anti-vax trucker insurrection in Ottawa and its recent end is like reading dispatches from some bizarre parallel universe.  A belligerent mob which blocked traffic, blasted local residents awake for days with truck horns, and shitted on the porches of people's houses was a "peaceful protest".  Trudeau's scandalously-late action to clear the streets and lift the siege of the capital was a lurch into full-blown fascism which will end with concentration camps unless resisted by armed force.  A tiny group (a small minority of Canada's truckers), trying to intimidate an elected government, was really the voice of the Canadian people, who will now launch a general strike or an armed uprising.

This is what happens when people confine their news consumption entirely to sources which agree with whatever ideology they already hold.  Most likely these bloggers genuinely don't know how the anti-vaxers in Ottawa were actually behaving or how most truckers (and Canadians generally) reacted.  They really believe that it was a peaceful protest and that most Canadians support it.

It's reminiscent of the more unhinged US wingnut rhetoric about the January 6 insurrection and its aftermath, and there are clear cross-border influences at work here.  Among the Ottawa insurrectionists were adherents of the Jericho Marches (found via Hackwhackers), a militant "Christian nationalist" movement with roots mainly in the US.  Beyond Ottawa, right-wing thugs across Canada have been menacing and attacking the press in ways not normally associated with that country, but quite typical of the behavior of intolerant ideological fanatics in the US.

Now a group of American wingnuts, taking inspiration in turn from their Canadian fellows, are planning a similar truck convoy from California to the DC area.  They claim to expect one thousand trucks to join, but historically, actual participation in right-wing events of this kind tends to fall far short of early pronouncements.  The capital city, being forewarned, is making preparations to maintain order.  The US truckers might be well-advised to skip the mass horn-blasting of residential areas.  People who are kept awake for days tend to get very angry, and Americans tend to have guns.

A similar mob of anti-vax goons have been encamped for two weeks in Wellington, capital of New Zealand, and have been violently assholing as the police close in.

It will be interesting to observe the reactions on these same blogs when no mass uprisings (or much of anything) follow from the clearing away of these gangs from the capital cities they besieged.  Most likely they'll just forget about it entirely and move on to whatever appealing violent fantasy comes along next.

[Second image found via Octoberfarm]

6 Comments:

Blogger Jack said...

You are absolutely right about this being what happens when people get their "news" from ideologically pure sources that echo what they already believe and try to stimulate their outrage. This is why I no longer watch Fox News or MSNBC. They strike me as propaganda rather than news.

23 February, 2022 03:50  
Blogger Mary Kirkland said...

I don't have cable anymore so I can't watch the news even if I wanted to. But I have seen some of the trucker saga going on through Twitter and Fb. People have been posting lots of articles about it on social media.

23 February, 2022 11:46  
Blogger Sixpence Notthewiser said...

The amount of f*ckery going on in Canada and the Greek chorus of Fox News-addled wingnuts in the US trying to impose American laws and the such on this is absolutely crazy.
Listening to Candace and her ilk comment on this gives me headaches. And don't get me started with the Repugs.
Do they know ANY history? Geography? Anything?

XOXO

23 February, 2022 15:23  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Jack: I don't think it's possible to avoid bias entirely, but I find it useful to look at a wide range of sources, including those those political orientation is very much at variance with mine. Everybody needs to do that and get out of their bubbles.

Mary K: If you have access to the internet, you have access to news websites. I don't have a TV, but I manage to stay informed.

Sixpence: Apparently they know that the Nazi Gazpacho used to arrest people and put them on covfefe camps. As for Canada, they seem to think of it as a kind of communist Arctic Nebraska.

24 February, 2022 04:49  
Blogger jenny_o said...

Good summary of the goings on across the world. I believe Australia also had some unrest. And I agree, the social media "news" is just messing with peoples' heads. It's designed to give the reader more of what they're already reading. DESIGNED to do it. How can people have a balanced set of facts to weigh when they are using a source designed to give them an unbalanced set of ... alternative facts, as they called them after Trump was elected. I believe Australia has already done some work on this to force social media giants to pay a percentage of revenue toward mainstream media, and Canada is in the process of doing something similar. However, I can't find the article I read today on this. If I do, I'll come back and leave the link.

24 February, 2022 16:41  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

People really desperately need to get out of this bunker mentality of reading only news sources that agree with what they already believe. It's worst on the right, but I see it all the time on the left too.

There's been violent protest (including traffic-blocking) and police action against it for quite a while in Australia. The wingnuts here have been denouncing Australia as a tyranny for months. I get the impression it's died down a bit recently, at least.

24 February, 2022 20:34  

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