A Canadian right-wing nut is peddling a satirical meme about a diagonally-shaped North American superstate. Needless to say, much of the country’s intellectual class is terrified.
Last month, Pierre Poilievre, the populist front-runner in the race to become leader of Canada’s federal Conservative party, was photographed shaking hands with Jeremy MacKenzie, a former soldier facing weapons and harassment charges. MacKenzie is an odd duck who combines a penchant for extremist right-wing rhetoric with a predilection for ironic Internet memes. But almost no one in Canada knew his name until that now infamous handshake. As for Poilievre, he says he didn’t recognize MacKenzie, or form any particular memory of having met him—a claim that even progressive journalists have admitted is entirely credible.
