politics

No. We are not.

Not really, even if you put aside the big orange idiot, our country is quite fucked.

Fellow Canadian here. The Conservatives in Canada are seeing Trump's success at controlling Republicans and are bringing that to Canada. Just look at Alberta and Saskatchewan politics.. Danielle Smith is like MTG and Scott is like Ron DeSantis albeit not as crazy but they're trying...

No, we haven’t been ok for quite some time, things are coming to a head

It remains to be seen really. Hopefully Trump will be in a jail cell instead of the White House by the end of the year, but there is a group that has been part of the cult for so long that they are ready to give it all away for their dear leader rather than admit they were duped into following a grifter.

Mr Canada Person, here is how Ok we are and how it has literally affected your country, in an example that should hopefully spell this out well.

The QAnon movement started essentially as a PsyOp on 4chan, but there amongst the most vile of internet users it took hold of their conspiracy addled and angry at everything minds, and took on a life of its own as it exploded in popularity astounding quickly for how absurd any of it is.

It was a conspiracy theorists wet dream, a meta conspiracy theory of nearly every other already existing American conspiracy theory all interwoven into a grand narrative that took root as essentially a comprehensive world view for those susceptible to suspending any need for actual evidence, later, for any even basic plausibility whatsoever.

Q's posts carried an aire of mystery, suspense, and gravitas amongst the early adherents. A huge part of why they were so effective is that they seemed plausible to some of those who do actually know some of the vernacular of classified information, which Q used more or less correctly in many instances, but when he made grandiose claims that defied reason or left open ended questions...

... the users of 4chan, having nothing better to do, debated as to what any of what he was saying could be referencing, what he could say and could not, what he was saying was disinfo and what was real.

This giant clusterfuck of speculation and debate grew and intensified to point thata Q Drop was viewed with essentially the same reverence as if God himself was depositing information for the faithful to decipher, and quite literally fairly soon there were already opposing camps of factions of Q adherents clustering around various Q Interpreters.

Eventually Trump realized he could win over this demographic, specifically of internet addicts, by merely referencing certain key phrases and signs and sayings the movement had adopted... and why not?

Much of the Q theories revolved around Trump working in secret, with secret evidence, vastly outwitting his rivals whom he would soon be unleashing a massive wave of arrests of for heinous and despicable crimes.

It did not matter that none of this was true, that nearly none of the crimes claimed had any evidence whatsoever to suggest their occurance, and the few that had even a sliver were vastly blown out of proportion as to their actual value as evidence.

You see Trump had all the info, but it was classified. He had secret emails from Hilary Clinton, he was working in all levels of the government to stop essentially a combination sci-fi political thriller movie plot from destroying the US government and society from the inside out.

Or, so was believed by the Q adherents.

When Trump engaged with this group by dog whistling to them ina few public speeches, photographs, tweets, the Q movement was emboldened, and everyone who was sitting on the fence about it became nearly total true believers.

All these theories reinforced and compounded and dovetailed with general right wing conservative fears, tropes, hatreds and desires in such a way that not long after, it became almost impossible to disentangle the two, to find a self professed conservative who did not believe in significant elements of Q Anon theories.

The popularity of all this grew faster and faster, spreading over Facebook, Terrestrial Radio, In Person, In Churches, On Podcasts, essentially all forms of media.

This all culminated in the Jan 6th Insurrection.

You see, Trump was supposed to have already called down the Storm, the mass arrests of somewhere from thousands to tens of millions of Americans, depending on which Q adherent you asked.

But he could not do that if he was not President.

So he decided he still was.

And personally directed his followers to make this so.

...

The coup attempt, the insurrection failed.

But its effects will be with us for a very, very long time.

Sorry to bury the lead but heres one stupendously stupid but serious and dangerous way this movement has directly affected Canada;

At some point, I think about 3 years back, a woman residing in Canada was taken hold by the Q Phenomena.

Romana Didulo.

Queen, Romana Didulo.

She believes, amongst many other things, that she has been appointed the rightful Queen of Canada by the 'White Hats', the Q name for those within the upper echelons of the US Military and other State Apparati that are working with Trump to arrest all the traitors.

She believes she has the right to make unilateral decrees that all Canadians must follow, including essentially the abolishment of all taxes, the death penalty for anyone who defies her will, and at one point demanded at jet aircraft be made available to her so that she personally could travel to Europe and negotiate peace in the Ukraine conflict... between the US and Russia.

She also believes she is a Reptillian alien, or descended from ones that long ago came to our world, intermixed with and subjugated humans, and that the traces of Reptillian Alien DNA are present in the humans that today comprise many of the ruling class of many societies, powerful and influential people.

But.. she... is a /good/ Reptillian. She knows their ways and has turned on them, for the good of humanity.

Herself and her followers at one point attempted to perform citizens arrests of ... all of the police present at the time in a police station in a city in Canada, cant remember which one. Violence ensued, though to the best of my knowledge no one was seriously injured or killed.

Her and her followers then spent about a year driving around Canada in an RV with accompanying caravan of other followers in cars.

At one point, in another town, a very small town, someone sympathetic to Queen Romana actually legitimately gifted her the deed to an abadoned school, I thinknit was.

Her and her followers set up shop in this old school, and the number of her ... movement... either approaches or exceeds the actual population of the town, who they began harassing, threatening, demanding the mayor and tiny city government step down amd hand formal control of the town to them.

Last I heard the RCMP has been dispatched to this town essentially for peacekeeping purposes.

...

I could not possibly make this up if I tried.

No. Please send help. We're desperate

I know you're just doing the Canadian thing and being polite, but if you need to ask, at this point, you really haven't been paying attention...

If he wins, can I apply for refugee status as a gay Texan?

nope. Can I come visit?

promise to not whine about the winters...