Canadians worry US democracy cannot survive Trump's return to White House, poll finds - Reuters - eviltoast

OTTAWA (Reuters) - About two-thirds of Canadians surveyed this month said American democracy cannot survive another four years of Donald Trump in the White House, and about half said the United States is on the way to becoming an authoritarian state, a poll released on Monday said.

The November U.S. election is likely to pit President Joe Biden against Trump, who is the clear frontrunner to win the Republican nomination as voting in the presidential primary race kicks off in Iowa on Monday.

Sixty-four percent of respondents in the Angus Reid Institute poll of 1,510 Canadians said they agreed with the statement: “U.S. democracy cannot survive another four years of Donald Trump.” Twenty-eight percent disagreed.

The Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill by Trump supporters seeking to block certification of Biden’s 2020 election win shocked many Canadians, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly blamed Trump for inciting the mob.

Trump has vowed if elected again to punish his political enemies, and he has drawn criticism for using increasingly authoritarian language.

Three times as many Canadians say a Biden victory would be better for Canada’s economy (53%) than a Trump win (18%), according to the poll which was seen exclusively by Reuters. The poll, taken between Jan. 9-11, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points

  • Stamets@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Well, yeah. You’d have to be an absolute fucking idiot to say otherwise. The dude tried an insurrection. He routinely violated American democracy. It’s almost like if you elect a wanna be dictator he’s gonna, you know, become a dictator

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Dealing with Republicans is like talking to the dumb computer scientist in a Star Trek plot, “I know the last fifteen of these we tried betrayed us and killed millions, but we should totally give control of all our ships and weapons to my new AI program… Hm? Oh, yes, it is a new uniform, thank you for noticing. Yeah, my tailor said it matched the color of my blood.”

      • Stamets@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I always saw the Vulcans as Republicans, in all honesty.

        They are aggressively xenophobic and use ‘logic’ as an excuse to berate, bash, ignore, and forget anything that they don’t like. They claim to be bowing to ideals set by their predecessors but their predecessor would likely be rolling in their grave at what they’ve been doing. They don’t make any real advancement or go further, they’re happy to stay exactly where they’re at with the status quo. They abhor anything that’s different and see giving any sort of space to that difference as a gracious gift to be given and one that the different thing better be grateful for. They lord themselves high and mighty above everyone else but routinely miss the big picture and end up putting themselves into positions of failure due to it. They put far too much into what are mostly superstitious and religious beliefs and those beliefs often impact everyone. When they have a child with someone who isn’t part of their group, they try to raise the child in such a way that the child is permanently torn and confused. When teenagers are confused, frightened and upset instead of allowing them to embrace these feelings and figure out how to control them, they instead root out all compassion and hints of emotion to further what they think is the best.

        • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Ha, this created an unexpected mixture of emotions for me. I never would have thought of this because a lot of my favorite characters are Vulcan crew members who tell non-Vulcans to stop being so emotional and trying to blast their way out of problems or whatever, but yeah, come to think of it pretty much all of those characters had to fight against Vulcan society a ton, so you’ve kinda got a point…

          … Which is really annoying, because I’m in the middle of hate-watching Enterprise for the first time and I can’t stop seeing Archer as Rick Berman’s fantasy version of a George W Bush and the Vulcans as stand ins for Europeans and The Democratic party and anyone else who thought we couldn’t solve the problem of international terrorism by just " standing up to bad guys " (which back in our reality translated into conducting drone strikes on civilians and stuff)

          • Stamets@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Yeah… Enterprise is hard for me to watch because it often feels like Team America Space Police. Not as bad as fucking Stargate mind you. That shit is intolerable…

        • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          It comes up a lot, off the top of my head I definitely remember episodes in lower decks and Discovery and the original series that dealt with this, but I honestly think I’m forgetting a few

    • saltesc@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Aw I dunno. It’s been a while since we’ve had a good ol’ fashioned US President assassination.