In a Fox News interview posted to his personal X account on Wednesday, O’Leary appeared to vouch for Canadians, suggesting that citizens are interested in joining forces with its southern neighbours.

“I like this idea and at least half of Canadians are interested,” O’Leary said.

“The 41 million Canadians, I think most of them would trust me on this deal.”

  • kent_eh
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    1 day ago

    Alternate headline: “Canadians are offended by Kevin O’Leary”.

    Just in general.

    • cynar@lemmy.world
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      Unfortunately, we are currently trying to beat the gammons back down with a stick. We had 4 years with an idiotic government, making extremely self-serving decisions. We feel for what you’re going through, but we aren’t in a good place to help.

  • Sunshine (she/her)
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    Making numbers up to make the proposal seem much more popular than it really is, first he says its 50% support then he changes it to 80%, when in reality its only 13%.

  • brax@sh.itjust.works
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    Kevin O’Leary has always been a fuck. I have no idea why anybody gives him any bit of respect ever.

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    I wonder how many people from the States would prefer that the US become a Canadian province.

    • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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      Only the Blues States should be annexed by Canada. The red states can wallow in the shitholes they created.

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      I’ve seen some Canadian hicks. no thanks.

      this whole “thing” screams loudly like a red herring and is only meant to distract from the failures of the incoming administration.

      O’Leary is a pompous sack of shit that’s only preparing the runway for his golden cash cow, Trump.

    • Auli
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      20 hours ago

      He should say hello to Musk first.

    • Chip_Rat@lemmy.world
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      Funny thing is he is such small potatoes it’s ridiculous. That’s like trying to summon Luigi to kill you McDonald’s team lead. Like yeah he’s an asshole and in a position of power so you have to hear him yammering, and yeah would be nice, but it’s almost a waste.

      This is the Canadian “we have CEO’s at home.” Meme. Except I don’t recall of he is even a CEO of anything right now…

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    Don’t fall for MAGA ragebaiting. This was never seriously discussed and posts like this are just feeding the trolls.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      Making Canada the 51st state would make it the largest continental one, usurping Texas. While I wouldn’t support the idea seriously, triggering maga Texans with the idea is hilarious.

    • Yaztromo@lemmy.world
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      Even today amongst a certain segment of Americans they still revere the concept of “Manifest Destiny”, whereby the entirety of North America will eventually be under American (and traditionally, white Christian) rule.

      This wasn’t always envisioned as being done via force; typically it was simply believed that the American system was so perfect and blessed by God that everyone in North America would eventually want to be part of it, and would simply join the US as an inevitable eventuality. To their minds, the entire concept of full American control of North America was ordained by God itself, and so couldn’t be wrong.

      Of course, as with any pseudo-religious prophesies when the expectation doesn’t happen some will want to cause/force it to happen. When their Manifest Destiny doesn’t come to fruition, it’s not because of a fault in the concept (to their minds), but that the Canadians/Mexicans (and now Greenlanders?) are standing in the way of inevitability.

      There are Americans who continue to believe they’ll eventually control all of North America. You can’t just ignore them and pretend they don’t exist.

      • Victor Villas
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        You can’t just ignore them and pretend they don’t exist.

        That doesn’t seem what gp is suggesting, though

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        I’m glad there are still people who remember that the American belief in manifest destiny, and general American exceptionalism has been around for decades.

        And they’ve been slowly and steadily moving on that though commerce, through our increasing branch plant economy and through overwhelming cultural exports since before WW2.

    • Pilferjinx@lemmy.world
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      This is just goading and manipulation to get better leverage on those tariffs, which is real. I don’t know the scam he’s aiming for here. It just feels like everyone is going to suffer an inflationary war.

  • floofloof
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    Kevin O’Leary is a traitor who would sell out his own country to invading fascists for money. These people were called collaborators in the past, and rightly scorned.

  • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
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    This film, A Hidden Life, seems like it could be important to Canada right now as Trump is trying to Anschluss Canada.

    Honestly Trump is doing the same thing the NAZIs did to Austria. Hitler even installed bad faith political influencers into the Austrian government just like Trump is trying to do.

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      It’s not new this time, he’s followed the Nazis playbook since before the first election win.

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    It’s never too early to start collaborating with the occupiers, I guess.

    Like, it’s still mostly hypothetical and this guy is putting his hand up to be a Quisling.

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      God, that’s still over one in ten. I feel like before Trump roughly zero Canadians would like to become Americans. This brain rot is spreading and I don’t know how to stop it and I hate it.

      • Sixty@sh.itjust.works
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        Oh this train wreck will accelerate with P.P. in charge. Carbon tax bad is all that matters according to my dad.

        • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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          It’s really funny talking to my conservative friends who like to say that anyone to the left of them doesn’t understand economics and then they proceed to talk about things like carbon tax in a way that shows they don’t understand economics.

          My other favourite hits from those guys:

          “They don’t actually have a billion dollars, a lot of it is tied up in assets!” (And now I have to explain why wealth and liquid assets are not relevant to the context of the conversation we are having, and that literally everybody understands this, and why having wealth as assets is usually for tax evasion reasons in the guise of fuelling industry, yada yada)

          “You know free healthcare isn’t free! That money has to come from somewhere!” Literally everyone understands how taxes work you brain dead fucking moron. This one actually makes me angry when people say it to me in person. The whole idea is that single payer is actually cheaper because you are cutting out a useless middleman and removing the profit incentive for letting people just fucking die. Nobody thinks that it’s literally magically free.

          • lost_faith
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            With these types try “Basically Free at Time of Access” and “Won’t bankrupt you”

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        I’m willing to consider that the number has grown recently, but it definitely wasn’t anywhere near zero before. There are a lot of areas, often very conservative, that idolize the States.

        For example, in the Bible Belt of Manitoba, I wouldn’t be surprised if close to, if not a majority of residents would support this. There’s a independent streak bordering on libertarian, and many are VERY socially conservative. I didn’t spend all that much time there, but I heard multiple people say how they wish they didn’t have to pay for other people’s healthcare. They’re so close to North Dakota, even doing cross boarder trade and many see the higher mean income (sum of all income divided by number of residents) in the US and ignore the lower median income (50th percentile of income).

      • 1985MustangCobra
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        The problem is that there is nowhere to go. far right goverments are popping up everywhere.

        • Auli
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          Our right and Americans are not the same.

      • kbal@fedia.io
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        At least one in ten people will pick the dumbest answer on any survey just because they think it’s funny.

        • Auli
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          And there is the other way of people chose the least controversial answer when doing a poll.

    • msfroh
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      Remember when Kevin O’Leary considered running for the leadership of the Conservative party, but dropped it because he’s too stupid to speak French? I love the fact that our two official languages saved us from getting our own Trump wannabe.

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      I’m writing this as a quarter-part reply, and 3-quarter-part rant, and it’ll probably hang in the middle of somewhere, as I always do when I rant. Forgive me.

      Fact checks are important and useful, but can only go so far. Truth, laws, norms, and everything really, has no meaning in Trumpism. They are just tools to drive towards some goal, or are avenues for exploitation.

      They’ll say whatever tf they want regardless of facts, because they have enough people that will believe them, and enough people to further spread these disinformation to those who don’t know or care to know about the truth for themselves, and that bolsters their numbers. There’s a quote that goes something like if someone says something false, it’s untrue, but if tens of thousands of people say the same, it becomes ‘true’ to the minds of these people.

      They’ll sue whomever their target is over some batshit crazy claim with no care of the outcome, and only to use the legal process to delay or divert, or simply to cripple someone financially, especially individuals with no access to immense wealth.

      They don’t believe in any higher power, but will use it to further gather support, which is particularly effective in a world where the religious feel like the world is moving away from religion and thus stripping away their legitimacy.

      Trumpism doesn’t play by harmonious social norms. Humans values and emotions are simply tools to them, and they will continue to trample on human dignity as long as it serves their purposes. They’ve learned how to fully utilize the weaknesses and blind spots of our institutions to attack everyone else and keeping themselves safe.

      How do we fight and protect ourselves against a force like this? I don’t know. All I can think of is proper education on critical thinking and instilling people with the will and equipped with the knowledge to seek facts, but that would take decades, and will easily be disrupted by those who are on Trump’s side, and there’s also no guarantee that the process would be effective, given how underfunded our education system is, and how there’s also little to no political will to do anything, as they are more incentivized to seek short-term solutions.

      • Swordgeek
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        They don’t believe in any higher power…

        OK, I take issue with this statement.

        They believe in Musk.

        • Badland9085@lemm.ee
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          I can currently think of two reasons why you say so. Your statement either implies that you think Musk is of a higher power, or that you’re just trying to say that these bastards believe in Musk in jest and wrongly quoted the statement about believing “something”. If it was the first one, then I would have an issue with your statement. I’m going to assume that the second is why I’m seeing your comment.

          But even with the second reason, I’m not sure if I find it funny. I don’t think they believe in him at all, and instead think that they are simply using each other to further their goals, and will gladly cut each other off or even throw each other under the bus the moment doing so outweighs their continued alliance. If that counts as “believing” to you though, then I can see that being funny, though I would fail to see how it fits into this egoistic and maniacal image I have of them.

    • RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com
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      13℅ Canadian is roughly the same as 50℅ American, as they have more people per capita. Or something like that, I don’t really understand American math.

  • Rentlar
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    I’d trust a randomly-picked Minnesotan more than Kevin O’Leary to vouch for Canada.

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      Idk…seems like at least 500 would be needed to get us where we’re going…

      Edit: And so began the clone wars…

  • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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    Lol remember when he said he was going to run for prime minister and everybody thought that was such a stupid idea that he dropped out almost immediately?

    Like bro take the fucking hint and fuck off.

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      He’s a piece of shit so there’s not much I won’t believe about his shitty behavior, but according to the details in that article it’s not exactly shocking that they crashed into a boat with no lights on in the middle of a lake at night.