GOP Rep. Mike Turner, chair of the House Intel Committee, tells CNN that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his #Republican colleagues.
"We see directly coming from #Russia ... communications that are anti-#Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor."
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.)
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.)
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.)
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.)
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.)
Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas)
@GottaLaff
The enemy within. I'm starting to think the red baiting of the 50s was not so bad after all. A few Joe McCarthys would be pretty useful now.
@Deembe It is quite ironic that such a sentence comes from someone who is on a very shielded and heavily censored mastodon instance (you on mastodon.social).
You cannot have an informed opinion while being in a sheltered bubble.
Let's see if this comment can even reach your eyes, there is a little chance.
@GottaLaff this has been known now for what, 9 years? 10 years? And it's taken this long for the GOP to realize they're losing voters enough to finally say something? Even worse is here in Canada where our #Cons are speeding face first into MAGA at a time when MAGA is dying
@GottaLaff@MikeImBack
if the #CPC comes back into power in Canada -- which the polls indicate is likely -- things will be similar to the years when Stephen Harper was Prime Minister. Opinions vary about how good or bad the federal government was then, but it was not much like the Trump presidency.
@mpjgregoire@GottaLaff@MikeImBack Hmm I'm not sure that assertion has much guaranteed behind it. Conservative politics in Canada has changed drastically since then, especially out West here, in fact it's hard to imagine any relatively culturally moderate and economically consistent figure from here rising to power like Harper did. His particular breed of Western Tory, which filled out his admin, has all but vanished.
(I say this as broadly a hater of the Harper Admin—but his CRTC was good.)
@keithzg
Oh? My impression is that the Conservatives are basically the same people as they were ten years ago. Policies have changed a bit, since the situation has changed, but the underlying ideas are broadly similar. Danielle Smith is no Jason Kenney, to be sure, but Mr. Kenney would probably still be premier if there'd been no pandemic.
@mpjgregoire Well for one, I don't remember ten years ago mainstream Western conservatives endorsing anti-queer fearmongering rallies! It was a lot more coy. Maybe the animosity towards renewable energy is about the same, but in a way that's a major regression too since for a while things were at least slowly getting better on the Tory side in that regard.
From what I've observed, a big part of the change is the adoption of American media into a central role in conservative culture. Friends' parents who have always voted Tory are these days imbibing tons of Fox News if not outright QAnon. Public meetings and internet comments seems to really bear this out.
You're making a mistake if you're seeing Smith as an aberration — and remember that even Kenney's party was in many senses catering to her side. He only got into power by merging back with the Wild Rose, and Alberta conservative politics changed seemingly irrevocably in the process—his admin tried to hold a wider coalition together but Covid broke that, and it was mostly a thin sheen of respectability overtop of grievance politics anyways. The shift to stuff like blatant transphobia and similarly scaremongering claims of the downtowns of our cities being apocalyptic hellscapes, while passing rules that ban renewable energy projects from wide swathes of the province (while of course still allowing coal and gas in those areas)? None of that would have felt out of place under Kenney, it just would have been a bit less openly gleeful.
@keithzg
> From what I've observed, a big part of the change is the adoption of American media into a central role in conservative culture.
Could be true. I don't see that from where I am, but Tories aren't really thick on the ground here, and I'm not very tapped in these days. On the other hand, the Sun News Network failed nine years ago so maybe there's not much demand for that sort of thing in Canada.
@keithzg
Regarding trans issues, I expect that a Poilievre ministry will mostly try to avoid them. Mr. Poilievre himself is more of a libertarian than a social conservative, and the most directly relevant government programmes are education and health care, both provincial jurisdictions.
Finally, regarding AB politics, you have more direct knowledge than I do, but my take on it is that the rise of Wild Rose was a factional struggle about who would be in power, not ideological.
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