the way that trudeau uses the term "diversity" is actually quite similar to the way that upper-class, white southerners, usually democrats, always racist, would use the term "colour" before the 1960s.

kenney has problems with the gays, but his racism is actually quite subtle, as he fully realizes that the kind of socially conservative immigrant that he wants comes from the religious societies in asia and africa, and not the liberal countries of europe or south america. he may be unlikely to accept a coalition with non-white leadership, but he's more open to the ideas that immigrants bring in with them, because they're not very different from his own ideas. so, kenney sees the immigrant as an ally in his quest for a more conservative world, even if he wishes to retain power for himself and his own kind - it's racism lite, a subtler way to be white.

trudeau's racism is more visceral, which is ever the more obvious given that he fucks up every once and again with outbursts of disdain and superiority. there's a list of pretty brutal comments, at this point. the jig is up, really. so, he hides his hate in these choreographed displays of "diversity", using clinical language out of a marketing class. his white supremacy is more absolute, in that he's happy to parade as many different-looking people around him as he can find, but he doesn't have the slightest interest in listening to a word that they actually say, or offering up any kind of position of real authority. how about the bizarre reaction to the raybould resignation/firing, which really had nothing to do with race: diversity only works when it is rooted in trust. what the actual fuck does that even mean? it may appear as incomprehensible word salad on first glance, but it really reveals a fundamentally racist world view: she really was just a token indian in cabinet. so, trudeau sees the immigrant as a voter to control at a distance within a class hierarchy with a white, liberal elite at the top. it's racism with a smile, and you just don't talk about it, because it's not polite.

while the reality is that trudeau is probably defaulting to this because he wants to create a wedge issue with minority voters and can't figure anything else out, that by vilifying kenney as a racist he's essentially acknowledging that he can't compete with him on ideas with immigrant voters and is stuck trying to scare people instead, what you're going to get out of trudeau on this is a lot of projection. most of what trudeau is going to throw out there about his opponents is going to be more true of himself than of them, and it's exactly the reason he's going to throw it out there.

and, a part of the reason that the tories tend to win the immigrant vote in canada is because immigrants can see through this clearly enough. the conservatives are actually willing to accept them for who they are and reflect their actual values; the liberals just pander to them for votes with fake appeals to togetherness, while then passing laws that they stringently oppose.

the liberals are at a dead-end with this. they've tried to build a party around cultural inclusion, only to find out that majorities in all of these different cultures would rather live in a christian society than a secular one, and that the path to multiculturalism is through the destruction of liberalism, rather than the elevation of it. in the mean time, they've alienated swaths of white voters, who are actually liberal and secular in their beliefs.

but, trudeau doesn't live in reality, he lives in a bubble that is curated by his advisors. and, he could very well spend the next six months tilting at these aforementioned windmills, slaying the monster that is the projection of his own inner, racist demons.

and, just to be clear: justin trudeau and jason kenney are both racists, but justin trudeau is way more racist than jason kenney is.

jason kenney is actually the architect of the immigration policies that trudeau likes to take credit for. so, if they want to make the election about "diversity", which is such a ridiculously clinical and racist way to take about immigration from the start, it's the language you hear in a $500/plate fundraiser with a bunch of upper-class old money white people that are trying very hard to hide their racism, i'm going to go out of my way to throw that in their faces.

immigration levels are historically higher under conservative governments, who have been using the process as a way to shift the population to the right and solidify their own voting base, and recent immigrants to canada should support kenney over trudeau - they agree with him more on core governing issues, and kenney likes them better than trudeau does, too.

so, when i looked through all of these polls and saw that the ndp and conservatives were barely separated by the margin, and there were 15% undecided, a number larger than the spread, it seemed clear enough that the election was almost in play - that they had some chance of keeping the conservatives to a minority, if those undecideds were located in calgary and leaning slightly left, and not reporting it due to a bradley effect (being afraid to tell people they weren't conservatives).

but, now that the numbers have come in, it seems more likely that the bradley effect was on the right, and it was the closeness of the election that was an illusion. it seems like it was former wildrose supporters that didn't want to tell pollsters that they were considering bailing, and that the real takeaway is that infighting on the albertan right may continue to make elections competitive there.

that was some sleep. needed that. and, i woke up to some clarity of thought.

i will repeat that a shy tory effect makes no sense in alberta, but there is another party to their right called the alberta freedom party that is one of these faux right-libertarian parties. they believe in freedom of thought, so long as you're a christian; they believe in private property rights, so long as they don't end up excluded, and etc. it's really a "status quo" party, that uses these vague appeals to liberal ideology in order to justify their own dominance. i have a lot of sympathy for libertarians in principle, when they're honest they're the real liberals, but it's so hard to find any that actually are honest and consistent about it, or that even realize their own contradictions. some of my favourite arguments have been with right-libertarians, partly because we're able to better focus on the actual underlying issues - which is so frequently how we address property in this society.

anyways.

in the last election, there were two major parties on the right - the old "progressive conservative party" (which i claim is a redundancy rather than an oxymoron), the tories, and the wildrose party, which was a bunch of these upstart, pro-christian fake libertarians. between the two of them, the tories and the libertarians won a clear plurality, but, in a fitting outcome for the capitalist parties, their competition destroyed each other, and the ndp were able to come up the middle. now, that wouldn't have mattered had ndp turnout not been stronger than expected, but notley would not have won against a united right, and everybody knows that.

so, i might have actually made the same mistake i've been so carefully warning against for so long. i've been yelling for years that when you look at national polls, "undecided" usually means "undecided on the left", rather than "undecided in the centre", and i've cited actual polls that indicate as much, through direct querying. you will no doubt see the same kind of polling come up over the next few months, that asks people if they're undecided, then who they're leaning towards, then who they won't vote for, etc in order to try and build a set of causal inferences around it. caveat: the liberal majority may have thrown a wrench into this, as the opposition is no longer united against the government, and i'm not going to carry this forward, a priori. we'll see what evidence appears about this. but, the logic is nonetheless sound enough: when the tories are in power, the undecided vote comes up on the left, because we're predominantly a liberal society.

but, alberta is a conservative society, and the ndp were in power. so, these high numbers of undecideds and uncommitteds may have actually been wary about the conservatives not being faux christian libertarian enough, and sitting between the conservatives and the freedom party. in the end, they made a pragmatic choice to remove the government, even if they'd prefer a more right-wing option.

it would make the data both consistent and sensible, at least.

and, i have made it home from toronto. my plan to type on the bus was ruined by a migraine; it's bad circulation on the bus, or something. reviews when i wake up, even if it's just a nap.

so, it turns out that that big swing of undecideds went disproportionately to the conservatives in alberta. if you look at the numbers, it comes up to a 90% swing in the undecideds. that should be tempered slightly - i suspect they probably made sure they were going to win in calgary, whether it changed the results or not. but, it's still a pretty hard swing in a scenario where you wouldn't expect a bias in the data of that sort. alberta is such a conservative society, that you don't expect a shy tory effect there; you expect that to work the other way around, for everybody to honk around at church in their pickups by day, but maybe go home and secretly think something else. i might rather suspect that the ndp are going to analyze their data and realize there was low turnout - they couldn't get their base out. there's some evidence of this in edmonton, where a tighter than expected outcome would be more likely representative of apathy than conversion.

well, she governed like an oil despot. it's easy to understand a level of deflation. i mentioned previously that it was a lesser catastrophe calculation, rather than a lesser evil one. and, while the political reality in alberta is different now, notley may have seriously damaged the party's long term ability to attract left-wing voters.

to be clear: i'm sure there was excitement about the conservative party and everything, but the quick crunch is that the dominant factor was most likely low turnout on the ndp side. that's how you get these inflated conservative numbers in the undecided swings.

it was a hard task, and nobody gave her a chance, and rightly so. but, the data did suggest some possibility of a minority outcome, if the undecideds leaned that direction. they didn't, apparently. i think a little oddly.

and, were people just legitimately undecided until the last minute? i'm not sure what about. kenny himself?

whatever it was, it's not surprising, if even not as disturbing as it should be. the ndp largely governed like conservatives.

if the numbers come back as i suspect them to, the ndp in alberta are going to have a lot of contemplating to do, as it would mean that their base abandoned them for the sin of governing, and it might be hard to get it back.