rc2 🇨🇦

@rc2squared.bsky.social

760 Followers 892 Following

Refs in the WNBA are unironically the worst refs I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been watching FIFA.
Mamdani and Platner are clearly men of different temperaments. But the men also represent different paths for the Democratic party’s insurgent left wing, as left-populist candidates ride a wave of voter outrage and base anger at Democratic party leadership to pose serious challenges to the party’s mainstream. In Mamdani, what seems to be a genuine political talent has emerged: his uncommonly disciplined message focuses on affordability issues without shying away from pluralist values or seeming to mimic a more rugged, domineering form of masculinity. But in Platner, some pundits and members of the consultant class seem to have found a vehicle for their own project for the party’s reform, one that is less about policy outcomes than about transforming the Democratic party’s image to embrace men, masculinity and a vision of a rugged, rural whiteness.
Belanger has a point, though. The Alberta that he, Rath and the rest of their movement yearn for isn’t compatible with most other cultures. Or, indeed, with reality. The separatists envision independence not for the Alberta that currently exists, but for an Alberta of their imagination. An Alberta spooned from a churning cauldron of conspiracy theories and right-wing fantasies.
They don’t even bother to lie badly anymore. I suppose that’s the final humiliation.
While democracy faces an existential threat, pundits and strategists remain stuck in the past.