We can't all be traitors
On horseshoe theory.
Are you familiar with the term “Horseshoe theory”?
First attributed to French philosopher Jean-Pierre Faye in the mid-20th century, it posits that the extremes of the political spectrum, both the far left and the far right, often resemble each other more closely than they do the centre — much like how the ends of a bent horseshoe nearly meet. Proponents have argued this manifests in authoritarian tendencies, simplified worldviews, and intense polarization.
Canada too often feels like a nation off its political axis, and a nation that took apparent leave of its senses in and around the time the clanging of pots and pans echoed through suburbs now for seniors, seemingly never to return. We excused Charter abuse, disposed of our own flag, legalized crime and disorder, saddled the children we’re barely having with unimaginable guilt.
I vividly recall coming across a sign while covering and engaging with the Freedom Convoy that stated, “Our problems aren’t left or right, they’re up and down. And Justin Trudeau is a downer.” That was an imperfect kind of bromide, sure, but that fascinating hodge-podge of truckers, crunchy granola moms, French Canadian musical-festival-enjoyers, and the immigrants who felt a chill in their bones that wasn’t just -30 with the wind chill, they were correct in their intuition that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. They chose to no longer live by lies. We may not like or agree with all who were involved in that madding crowd, but the instincts were there.
It’s in this moment of discourse, in this continued afterglow from denigrating, conflating, and all but radiating our sense of civic nationalism — including years and summers where we even cosplayed a genocide — that I’m not surprised we have yet to firmly return to the political axes that best serve who we once were, and can be again, if we were to just get out of our own way.
That horseshoe may be dangling crooked on the hoof, but that’s little excuse for those in our discourse infrastructure to become all but indiscernible from one another, or to miss the clear and obvious warning signs from movements without foundational principles.
Jason Kenney is not a traitor.
Canada’s former immigration minister was recently pilloried as such, by a group of young men, mentioned here before, who have taken to moderating their views before certain cameras, revealing their baser instincts to others, and who continue to support an open-ended call for “remigration,” while committing a deliberate sin of omission, in that the “who” and “as of when” fluctuate depending on the audience.
I have previously expressed sympathy for the alienation that brought them here. Those Covid years, the “fiery but mostly peaceful” summers, the decision to destroy Canada’s once venerable immigration system to chase low-wage economic replacement, to moonshot real-estate prices, and make it look like Canada’s economy was on anything but life support, it’s the worst policy decision in this country’s history. The bulk of ‘Fraser-wave’ temporary workers, the foreign extortionists who claim false asylum to stay their deportations, they need to go. Temporary needs to mean temporary. There’s no recovery for rents or Canada’s failing infrastructure without it.
If they are children of that atom, of that Trinity Test that was dropped on Canada’s under-40s, we should all be able to appreciate that idle hands, unemployment, sky-high rents, a collapse in social order and public trust, and deliberate government ostracization are the devil’s plaything. But to continue to refuse to come in from the cold deserts of Los Alamos is a destructive choice in and of its own. And it’s getting late in the day to have any sympathy for the black-balaclavas-on-overpasses crowd, and to have much empathy for those unable to spot the spikes on the Geiger counter when they draw near.
There are those doing actual work to fix Canada’s undeniable problems with broken immigration, and then there are those who seek credit for that, and risk becoming both a real problem and the government’s excuse to disregard the supermajority of Canadians who demand reform — and those demanding reform include immigrants.
This is also a movement, while tacitly “far-right,” that appears unmoored from anything resembling conservative principles. Conservative commentator and OneBC staffer Wyatt Claypool has argued the Dominion Society is inherently “woke right,” with its founder having self identified as a “collectivist.”
Be they collectivist, or identitarian, that makes such movements more like ultranationalist football fans — or “ultras” — than anything tied to one party.
Similar problems can be glimpsed, and the same can also be said, over on the far reaches of “elbows up,” after the revitalization of ‘Tru-Anon’ following the black-swan electoral miracle created by President Trump’s interference into Canadian affairs.