If You Don't Hear From Me, It's Because I Don't Hear From You.

In his memoir, former BMO CEO Tony Comper recalled the press conference to announce a merger between two Japanese automobile corporations. Everything was going swimmingly until someone at the presser asked how long would it be before the two corporate cultures fully merged?

One of the CEOs replied without hesitation. “Forty-three years.”

Forty-three years? Why forty-three years? he was asked.

“Because that’s how long it will be until the executives who made this deal are all dead.”

Yes, there are stubborn business cultures. But there are also political cultures that persist against all efforts to convince them they are deluded. People find it hard to change their ways— particularly when they’ve defended them publicly for years. The New Left’s ironclad resistance to reason and debate is a feature, not a glitch. How to reach them in a friendly, inclusive manner?

Good luck. The Right’s challenge is thinking these people will respond to shame or being corrected. Can't be done. Won't be done. They're like Japanese soldiers fighting WW II on a deserted island 25 years after armistice. They'll die repeating the Donald Trump Bleach meme to themselves.

This Gallup poll sheds light on how American (and Canadian) cultures can be blissfully unaware of some huge stories and obsessed by other narratives that fit their mindset. It shows that from 1972-2022 that GOP trust of media has plummeted from 41 percent to under 10 percent, while independents have gone from 53 percent to under 36 percent trust. IOW, their former favourite news sources don’t jive with their everyday reality.

But Democrats in the poll have vaulted from 64 percent to 76 percent in trust of media. Why? One reason probably lies with being told the narratives that please them. That give them comfort. These consumers allow legacy media’s fact checkers to sort out what they should know from “disinformation” without getting their hands dirty with the original story. 

How pervasive was the scrubbing? The recent Missouri v. Biden recognized that federal government officials had been interfering with social media companies that digressed from the “accepted” line. An appeals court ordered them to stop. In another case, FBI was bribing reporters and scientists to change their opinions on the origin of the Covid-19 virus, sanitizing stories before they are doled out to the Woke. 

“The Science” is supposed to be an ongoing vigorous debate with few settled laws. Yet, most cult scientists refuse debate, preferring to dismiss opponents as conspiracy nuts or— as they did with vaccines— dangers to society. When Al Gore allows himself to be cornered by questions, he rolls his eyes, sighs theatrically and asks his followers how anyone could deny The Science. 

Gore’s climate apocalypse culture has morphed within a generation from the few fighting pollution to a global dogma of CO2 poisoning nature . Attempts to talk sense on carbon emission obsession, plastics prohibitions, aversion to the nuclear option, Greta Thunberg beatification have all proven futile in the face of an End Oil Now cult that makes Scientology look like the Boy Scouts.

It was the same for the #RussiaHoax, #FinePeopleHoax, #BleachHoax and now Hillary Clinton’s “real war on truth, facts, and reason”. These liberal road-tested canards persists to this day. Here’s Biden on a rare cogent day this summer repeating the #FinePeople hoax that has been debunked years before. Even the Washington Post has had enough, listing Biden’s Top 100 fabulist claims since becoming POTUS.

The latest cult cleansing is Biden’s patently false denial of any contact with son Hunter Biden’s Shakedown scheme. The denial is awarded first position beside #climateemergency on search engines and nightly newscasts. Famously, 51 former security directors and officials claimed, without evidence, that Hunter’s infamous laptop was Russian disinformation. Case closed, said MSNBC. No wonder so many consumers of legacy media in this echo chamber can blithely claim there is no substance to any of the Hunter stories documented by the competition and chronicled on his own hard drive. 

The Canadian equivalent of denial culture came with the magic “cure-all” vaccines. Rather than publicly confront the Truckers Convoy on their refusal to take Covid-19 vaccines (which are now accepted as being flawed ), Trudeau hid in the Rideau Cottage calling truckers “an insult to science”. To make sure they never got a chance to question him he sent the cops after them, arrested them, suspended their civil liberties and finances and subjected them to show trials. 

And he was supported by the purchased Canadian media who vilified the protesters— for lack of armed insurrection or rioting— for staying too long in their protest. Many promoted false stories of arson and foreign financing of the convoy. This media Trudeau then tried to reward with Bill C-18— designed to make Meta, Google and other large tech sources pay to prop up failing Canadian media. In response, Meta has blocked all news links in Canada and cancelled existing deals with Canadian news outlets. The blocked links cover both Canadian and foreign news in light of Bill C-18.

And the same newspaper lobby that largely gave him a free pass on declaring a national emergency now wants the $595 million “temporary” bailout to be extended with double the subsidies (seeking government tax credits equal to 35% of labour costs.) The bailout meant to aid transition to digital is now instead a Trudeau lifeline in the Toronto Star’s bankruptcy. In the meantime, writes Michael Geist, “investment in the publishing sector has ground to a halt, Canadians have lost access to news on social media, and small and independent media are particularly hard hit. Avoiding the Canadian outcome is a now a top policy priority in other countries looking at media legislation.”

All this as the federal government prepares an online hate speech law— hate to be defined by themselves. 
Many are just hoping that a Liberal loss in the next election will cease the encircling madness. That sanity will prevail. But the Japanese car manufacturers are telling us not to get our hopes too high. Trudeau Nation is quite prepared to got to its grave before ever admitting its copious mistakes. 

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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx