Tell me you don’t know Alberta’s history of separatist sentiments without saying it explicitly.
Can we stop pretending this is a foreign astroturf? As someone living in Calgary, this is a very real thing here that people genuinely believe, with some having thought this for decades.
All the evidence is right in front of people’s eyes with Wexit parties being a not-so-distant memory to name the most recent example, and yet we jump to “Russia” or the U.S. as if they’re the main reasons these sentiments exist.
If someone talks about “foreign astroturfing” then give me evidence rather than hit me with this “hunch” people seem to purely base this off.
I didn’t say it was all astroturfing, I said there is a ton of astroturfing going on. There is an open push by american financial conservative magazines to portray a grassroots, Americanization-curious popular movement in Alberta.
If I’m going to be completely fair, I’ve always mainly seen those as targeted for American audiences rather than towards Alberta.
Like you know what I mean, always thought of that as “oh, let’s make this out to be bigger than it is so we can sell it for a quick buck to the MAGA crowd” rather than as something they actually wanted to set a narrative on.
Guess those lines have kinda blurred since it’s become two of the same these days just about, so fair point.
Yeah, you actually see MAGA hats in public here in Alberta. There is absolutely a recent push of foreign influence, but there was already momentum before the push. Hard to say now how much of that previous momentum was an old push, and how much it grew naturally. The only concrete thing I have ever seen them point at is equalisation payments, and they misunderstand them. Otherwise they think our oil should be worth more than it is, or respected more or something. But also that it should be only Alberta’s oil and not help anyone else. “If they wanted part of our prosperity, they should have had their own oil”, or something.
Basically, it’s just selfish greed all the way down, and some disillusion as to what we even have.
Tell me you don’t know Alberta’s history of separatist sentiments without saying it explicitly.
Can we stop pretending this is a foreign astroturf? As someone living in Calgary, this is a very real thing here that people genuinely believe, with some having thought this for decades.
All the evidence is right in front of people’s eyes with Wexit parties being a not-so-distant memory to name the most recent example, and yet we jump to “Russia” or the U.S. as if they’re the main reasons these sentiments exist.
If someone talks about “foreign astroturfing” then give me evidence rather than hit me with this “hunch” people seem to purely base this off.
I didn’t say it was all astroturfing, I said there is a ton of astroturfing going on. There is an open push by american financial conservative magazines to portray a grassroots, Americanization-curious popular movement in Alberta.
If I’m going to be completely fair, I’ve always mainly seen those as targeted for American audiences rather than towards Alberta.
Like you know what I mean, always thought of that as “oh, let’s make this out to be bigger than it is so we can sell it for a quick buck to the MAGA crowd” rather than as something they actually wanted to set a narrative on.
Guess those lines have kinda blurred since it’s become two of the same these days just about, so fair point.
Yeah, you actually see MAGA hats in public here in Alberta. There is absolutely a recent push of foreign influence, but there was already momentum before the push. Hard to say now how much of that previous momentum was an old push, and how much it grew naturally. The only concrete thing I have ever seen them point at is equalisation payments, and they misunderstand them. Otherwise they think our oil should be worth more than it is, or respected more or something. But also that it should be only Alberta’s oil and not help anyone else. “If they wanted part of our prosperity, they should have had their own oil”, or something.
Basically, it’s just selfish greed all the way down, and some disillusion as to what we even have.