You can say that again!

Canadians are generally happy to always aim for marginally better than America.

Copy and pasted from a response to another comment that tried to assert that Canadians aren't bigoted save for US influence:

I think it is very funny to suggest that Canadians would need to be tricked or convinced into being bigoted. Even if that was why, those values can only be promoted through social media algorithms and other media production because a substantial number of Canadians are already bigoted, and therefore feel comfortable with said influence. Transphobia and homophobia can be promoted that way because they are already legible to Canadians.

The US and Canada are not two separate planets, they're cooperative settler-colonial states with a shared interest in maintaining heteronormative hierarchies the same as racialized, gendered, and class hierarchies. It isn't a coincidence that many white supremacist leaders in the US are Canadian, or that the Canadian state invests a substantial amount of money into "heritage" subsidies to produce media which portrays Canada as anything other than a brutally genocidal, extractive enterprise. When people talk about racism in the US, they don't consider Canadian influences despite their effects.

It's true that Canada is subordinated politically and culturally to the US, and honestly, it would be accurate to describe it as a part of the US empire for many reasons. So, it isn't necessarily untrue to say that the US influences political or cultural developments within Canada, but it is distortive to suggest that this is why Canadians subscribe to preexisting settler-colonial values. Why not mention the UK then? They're as foreign to Canadians as the US is. J.K. Rowling alone is largely responsible for the rise in trans genocide rhetoric in the past decade even if just by merit of the wealth transferred by her into the hands of bigots globally; the UK government has readily integrated that rhetoric into policy.

The US dedicates wealth to promoting these values the same way every imperialistic state does, including Canada, because they need them to exist. Yes, it effects how rhetoric is applied and by whom, but it works on Canadians because the Canadian state already socializes its citizens to subscribe to these values.

I think it is very funny to suggest that Canadians would need to be tricked or convinced into being bigoted. Even if that was why, those values can only be promoted through social media algorithms and other media production because a substantial number of Canadians are already bigoted, and therefore feel comfortable with said influence. Transphobia and homophobia can be promoted that way because they are already legible to Canadians.

The US and Canada are not two separate planets, they're cooperative settler-colonial states with a shared interest in maintaining heteronormative hierarchies the same as racialized, gendered, and class hierarchies. It isn't a coincidence that many white supremacist leaders in the US are Canadian, or that the Canadian state invests a substantial amount of money into "heritage" subsidies to produce media which portrays Canada as anything other than a brutally genocidal, extractive enterprise. When people talk about racism in the US, they don't consider Canadian influences despite their effects.

It's true that Canada is subordinated politically and culturally to the US, and honestly, it would be accurate to describe it as a part of the US empire for many reasons. So, it isn't necessarily untrue to say that the US influences political or cultural developments within Canada, but it is distortive to suggest that this is why Canadians subscribe to preexisting settler-colonial values. Why not mention the UK then? They're as foreign to Canadians as the US is. J.K. Rowling alone is largely responsible for the rise in trans genocide rhetoric in the past decade even if just by merit of the wealth transferred by her into the hands of bigots globally; the UK government has readily integrated that rhetoric into policy.

The US dedicates wealth to promoting these values the same way every imperialistic state does, including Canada, because they need them to exist. Yes, it effects how rhetoric is applied and by whom, but it works on Canadians because the Canadian state already socializes its citizens to subscribe to these values.