• PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    7 months ago

    Yeah, California and Texas have been talking about seceding for decades too. I’m not saying Danielle Smith invented it. I’m saying that it clearly sounds like some let’s-fuck-up-Canada’s-politics bullshit, and oh look! Down below in the comments you can find that she’s super convinced that NATO started the Ukraine war, they had secret biolabs, the separatist regions should govern independently, and Ukraine should be “neutral” (which I am guessing means they are forbidden to get help defending themselves when someone starts blowing up their apartment buildings, power stations, and citizens.)

    That’s new. The coincidental overlap between the people who say weird bullshit which inflames internal tensions (or tries to), and the people who really suddenly feel strongly about all these foreign policies that are coincidentally overlapping the exact precise shape of what geopolitical enemies of the US/Canada would like to see, is very much new. No one who was talking about California secession also felt like Osama Bin Laden was provoked and we needed to let the trade center decide on its own whether it wanted to fall down and not interfere.

    • Binzy_Boi@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      Look, I really don’t want to come off the wrong way here and look like a jerk, but just with how people always seem to be so quick to associate things with Russian interference, in my mind it just feels like a repainted version of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories where “the Jews” are pulling the strings on everything. Like it feels like the more we immediately jump on the idea of Russian interference being involved, the less it feels like we separate Russians from the Russian government.

      Like this isn’t to say “Russia good” or that Russia’s government isn’t doing disinformation campaigns, but the connection of Smith’s thoughts on Ukraine being tied to Alberta’s separatist movement is iffy at best. She’s stated she feels backed into a corner of needing to make this move, and while it seems stupid at first, it actually checks out with the landscape of Alberta politics.

      I made a comment on another post few days ago outlining things here. It just seems weird that Russia would target Smith and Albertans specifically? It’s more likely the case that her thoughts on Ukraine are completely separate from the separatism stuff and just a result of her consumption of American conservative media outlets more likely to have disinformation campaigns on like the Daily Wire and FOX News, which she seems to enjoy based on her meeting Carlson and Shapiro.