The thing that's really striking about being back in Scotland after 4 years in Canada is how similar the exceptionalism bubbles are, and how vulnerable it's leaving us to the slow creep of fascism.

A justifiably para thread

Post Brexit and Trump, the prevailing narrative in Canada was one of natural resilience to far right populism. I even had politics profs who would present this notion of immunity to extremes as a baked in feature of Canadian voters.

Sound familiar to Scots? Scotland, like Canada, defines itself in opposition to its larger southern neighbour. Like Canada before Doug Ford and Jason Kenney, Scotland imagines itself as far too savvy to fall for the same tricks as the English/Americans.

It's already here though, isn't it? Dankula, an emboldened OO, Wings, whatever the SDL fash morphed into (not to mention a base of nearly 800,000 Tory voters). They seem like disparate groups now, but someone WILL swoop in on those potential voters.

Someone WILL figure out the key issues that unite bigots in Scotland, and we'll have our own Ford/Trump/Farage to reckon with.

Unless we get our heads out of our arses and stop pretending "we don't vote Tory!" isn't a backdoor to fascism, we're ripe for it. Do more than just believe Scotland is inherently good, make it safer by actively looking for the threats.

It always sneaks up while liberal democracy is patting itself on the back.

Anyway that's that. Here's Oi Polloi with an important public service announcement.