cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59455315
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura says the people of his state should consider leaving the United States. In an interview on the SpinSisters podcast that premiered Saturday, Ventura pitched his plan by saying that it’s clear President Donald Trump doesn’t want the state.
“How about since Trump dislikes Minnesota so bad and we’re so out of control, let’s join Canada. Instead of Canada becoming the 51st state of America and lose their healthcare… I’d like to see Minnesota, all of us become Canadians,” Ventura said. Make this part of Canada, because it’s obvious Donald Trump don’t want us. It’s obviously he’s ready to fracture the whole country for his own folly."
We don’t want it. Minnesota voted 47% for Trump, and the Democrats are a right-wing party too from Canadian perspective, a massive block of far-right voters like this joining Canada would be devastating.
Americans need to sort their own shit out, not come crawling to Canada to do it for them. We’ve got our own issues to deal with.
Yeah, no thanks. Every American who moves up here brings their stupid gun toting baggage with them.
The whole thing is silliness to make a point…like Alberta separation. But…
…I wouldn’t be so sure with this positioning of Minnesotans, or any Americans, so far right of Canada. The American system has been gerrymandered and moved away from democracy in various ways…to the point where the actual people might be more aligned with Canada than you believe.
The only hardcore sticking point, in my estimation, would be guns. It would be a non-starter for too many on both sides.
That 47%-for-Trump figure cannot be explained by gerrymandering, it’s a state-wide figure.
Frankly, I’m trying to make a point here too. I’m pointing out how even when Americans are supposedly being “nice” they’re often still grounding their niceness in unspoken assumptions of American exceptionalism. A bit of America going “we’ll just go join Canada and surely Canada will want to have us” has the same underlying feeling that obviously everyone would like to be American and join America if they could.
Sure it can…Minnesota and US-wide. Even though voter turnout in that state is relatively high…the last federal election saw higher than average Republican turnout and lower than average Democrat turnout.
Furthermore, voting intentions for Trump have fallen dramatically in Minnesota for obvious reasons…while voting against him has seen almost the same rise.
Additionally, voting for Trump isn’t the same as being conservative…there’s are very large cohorts of people who were for example: low information/previously apolitical, the Trump left, and independents and libertarians…it was a motley coalition.
I’d put actual hard conservative support in Minnesota in the 30-35% range. There are far too many people who would benefit from cheaper and higher quality healthcare and education immediately to maintain a number anywhere near 47%.
It’s not a secret that Republicans and conservatives in general can win elections with these low numbers…and round we go.
The point made above though is that anyone voting Democrat is extremely conservative by Canadian politics too; how many Minnesotans are currently willing to vote independent?
I think the reason that Democrats are in trouble is because they don’t represent their voters. There’s a chasm between policy and opinion. That, and they need to win elections by at least 3 and up to 10 points because of how corrupt the US “Democracy” is.
I’m Canadian and I’ve spent some time down in the US…I don’t consider myself to have radically different views…even from many American conservatives…except on a couple wedge issues. The problem, as I see it, isn’t that we’re different…it’s that there are people paying big bucks to convince us that we are.
The fact you don’t at all hnderstand why we wouldn’t want you, aren’t understanding what this person is saying, and seem to want to tell us what the problem is despite us laying out why we don’t like you in very clear language is exactly the kind of bullshit that makes us want to stay far, far away from that garbage.
The US sucks, and even at its best it’s nowhere near even the mediocrity that is Canada. We do not need to tip the scales even further right, we do not need to throw gasoline on the fire.
You didn’t engage with anything I wrote and just ranted about what you wanted to reply to.
I’m Canadian…and I stayed no opinions in my reply, just the lay of the land as I see it. I agree that the US sucks, agree that Canada is mediocre and getting worse, and I absolutely do not want Americans joining us…especially the gun nuts, fundamentalists etc.
All I was saying is that we’re a lot closer to each other than all this hyperbole and combative rhetoric would have us believe…Minnesota and isn’t some monolith of conservative boogeymen…they’re mostly nice and reasonable people, and there’s many who would appreciate what makes us better than them.
You really think the only sticking point is guns? Seriously? I mean, us Canadians are largely politically quite ignorant and most of our knowledge is vibes-based parroting of things our parents said when we were children so fuck it, sure, whatever, dude. And hey, we’re already dumb enough that we see the US and still vote nearly half for PP so there’s that. Maybe MAGA actually would be welcome.
No, I dont think that. Are you just trying to find things to argue about? Sounds like we generally agree but you want to fight?
I wouldn’t say “Canadians are quite ignorant”, speak for yourself…or maybe just conservative Canadians.
You said that you wouldn’t put the US super far right of Canada. At first I argued but honestly, with our level of ignorance despite the facts screaming at us, it’s pretty correct to say that we are largely a center-right nation right now and only getting further from progressiveness.
I’m speaking for the country as a whole since that’s the level of generalization this conversation already started with(state-wide in Minnesota’s case). We, meaning Canadians as a whole, are quite ignorant of politics, generally just doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result because learning about new things is harder than just stereotyping the branding of our ideas of each party. Has all the energy of Conservatives genuinely believing that the Liberals are woke progressives just for the majority of the country.
Not Minnesota, no. It’s not in the Bible Belt…they love hockey…they endure the cold. I think there’s more in common there with much of Canada than there are differences. It’s not the only difference…but we couldn’t just move the border because we’d get flooded with guns…and half of them would literally revolt if they had to follow our gun rules. It’s a small state…but there’s 6 million of them and they’d overwhelm us.
Yeah…Canada has pretty much lost sight of it’s roots of being distinct and different from the US. We slide more and more into a capitalist hellscape. Most of our stores are American…Canadians consume less and less media that’s culturally Canadian…our right wingers tend not to differentiate themselves from American right wingers…and an increasing number of them prefer American right wingers to Canadian left wingers…and vice versa. It’s happened mostly in my lifetime and it’s depressing. Very recently…20-30 years ago Canadians understood your message: that American left wingers are to the right of Canadian right wingers…but that’s all changed…I don’t know exactly when it happened…but we’ve become more homogenized.
Everybody in my circles is educated about politics, and we generally understand it better because of our education and complicated party system…but yeah…we’re miles from being educated enough
They love hockey and endure the cold? Bro I very clearly tried to come around a little bit but holy shit if that’s what you go to first for similarities and not major cultural differences, like the fact that much of the state actually voted for Donal Trump, then this conversation is not going to move at much of a pace.
And yea, there’s been a change but to be honest it’s been the classic people not paying any attention. We still voted Liberal in the past despite them always being very similar to how they are now, and their trend right-ward has always been there. They’re always elected because they try to scare people out of voting NDP, not because they actually offer anything that special. It’s literally why they went back on the voting reform they ran on in 2015.
Also “…” are not replacements for periods.
Bleeding Kansas