Busy Tuesday: Carney budget shows his low-key pizzazz; Democrat Mamdani shows his stuff in New York

I was searching around for some worthwhile comments on the Canadian budget to share tonight, and mostly I found shallow "takes" about d'Entremont crossing the floor and about how dull the budget was. What, from Carney they expected bread and circuses? 

It was low-key pizzazz. really. 

But this summary by CBC business reporter Peter Armstrong was good:

And I did find this good column by Justin Ling: 

Justin Ling / Toronto Star(gift link)

Make no mistake, this is Mark Carney’s Trump budget. It’s also missing one big thing
...The budget, tabled Tuesday, takes Trump’s big beautiful bill head-on with a plan to make Canada a better investment destination than the United States. One part of the plan even has an appropriately Trumpian name: the “Productivity Super-Deduction.”
It may be wonky tax policy, but it is the opening salvo of active economic competition between Canada and America.
....this budget is fundamentally about America and the very strong likelihood that things are going to get worse. Canada has a very short runway to boost productivity, lift up domestic industry, find new trading partners and entice investment before we face the possibility of a much deeper decoupling.
Next year, Washington and Ottawa will meet to talk about our Free Trade Agreement — negotiations that the budget charitably calls “a likely complex review.” Left unsaid is that Trump is determined to force sectoral tariffs into that agreement, meant to protect American manufacturing, and that he may exit the deal if he doesn’t get his way. Either way, the demise of our big, beautiful trade deal could unravel supply chains and drive economic degrowth in a way that we have not seen in quite some time.
With that in mind, every page of this budget fits into the context of this looming threat...
....In many ways, Carney has many of the same objectives as Trump — reboot manufacturing, recapitalize our military, reverse declining productivity, win strategic competition, master new technologies, and so on. Trump wants to achieve these things by shaking down his investors and kneecapping his competitors. We want to do it through playing by the rules.
It’s the right strategy in the long term. Trump’s gangster economics will eventually lose their lustre, and Canada should play the altruistic foil. But in the short term, Trump will probably succeed. And missing from this budget is an acknowledgment of that fact.
As the eternally-cheery Champagne wrapped up his remarks, he offered a bit of analysis that seems at odds with the state of the world. “We’re going to be OK,” he proclaimed. He then repeated it again as he tried to convince the country — and perhaps himself. “We’re going to be OK.”

And Scrimshaw is happy too:
Scrimshaw Unscripted

Budget 2025 Reaction: A Good Budget
On The Shockingly Good Budget
...the Conservatives are fucked by this budget, because it is quite good, and it is taking a lot off the political table. The Conservatives have been basically begging for a deficit in the hundreds of billions so they can run against it, they’ve been setting up the emissions cap as the big issue of the day assuming we wouldn’t back it, and it has become an easy win for the Government. But most of all, this is a budget that is impossible to run against.
The Liberals did what they promised to do - they’re meeting the moment with some big swings that they promised to do in the budget (namely the Housing and defence elements), but they’re also moving in moderation. A Conservative government would have annihilated the public service, while Carney rightsized it to where it should have been if not for JT’s lack of fiscal rigour. The emissions cap is a loss, but the maintaining of the industrial carbon tax in return is a win, and a reasonable compromise for businesses looking at Canada. And it’s about as good as we can expect in these times.
The complaint against this budget is obvious, but stupid - it’s not good in an objective sense. The deficit is too high and the growth numbers are bad. But those are not the fault of Carney, they’re the fault of the previous administration and much more so the fault of Donald Trump....
...The Liberals did their job today with a good budget that will do the job. The Opposition will make a lot of noise about this, but this is a budget that will be terrible to go against in an election. Which is why the NDP won’t vote against it, and Canadians will be spared an election....

I thought this was good, too:

🤡 Conservative Clown Clan 🤡 Part 16 🚨BREAKING: Live from Ottawa. Conservatives spotted heading to parliament for the budget 2025 announcement. ❤️🍁🇨🇦TEAM CANADA FOREVER🇨🇦🍁❤️ ❤️🍁🇨🇦VIVE LE CANADA 🇨🇦🍁❤️

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— 🍁🇨🇦Team Canada Forever🇨🇦🍁 (@teamcanadaforever.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 2:47 PM

Moving on, there were lots of city and state elections in the US today, and basically the Democrats won across the board:

Everyone is hope scrolling now

— Erica Ifill (@wickdchiq.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 9:24 PM

the entire twitter and group chat poisoned elite of American society who decided Trump winning an election by 1.5% heralded a thousand year reich may have miscalculated a bit

— Micah (@rincewind.run) November 4, 2025 at 9:50 PM

In New York, Zohran Mamdani won decisively:

I knew that Mamdani had it; he had the people and did the work, and has been the clearest and most lucid in rejecting the untenable current state of things. But the vile, bigoted shit against him was so constant, and I am conditioned to that working better than I want. This feels like an exorcism.

— David_j_roth (@davidjroth.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 9:45 PM

I don’t get it, Mamdani didn’t go on Rogan or post any solo work out videos that I could find, he just walked around town telling voters about his ideas to help them

— Daniel Kibblesmith (@kibblesmith.com) November 4, 2025 at 9:47 PM

It was, actually, a little bit more than that -- here is an outstanding article about Mamdani's video team. Here is one of his best videos, done for the June primary:

It is going to be fascinating to watch how this plays out - he is taking on Trump and the whole "establishment" with both barrels.

Terrible scenes just minutes into the new socialist regime in New York as literally hundreds of billionaires discover mamdani already living rent free in their heads

— Pwnallthethings (@pwnallthethings.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 9:18 PM

View on Threads

AOC was interviewed at Mamdani's celebration party about all the Democrat victories:

AOC: I think that Americans are appalled by what they are seeing coming out of this administration. They are appalled by the cowardice of congress, by these Republican majorities… I think that they are they see Donald Trump now for who he is, which is a handmaiden to billionaires

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 9:35 PM

AOC: We know that Donald Trump has not only been convicted of committing crimes, but that the supreme court has given him a blank check to continue to commit crimes while in office. So we cannot underestimate the threat and the danger of this moment. But we cannot respond to that with cowardice.

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 9:21 PM

AOC: I have to tell you, in my traveling across the country, I am hearing and have been seeing consistent things from everyday people. And it is that they are terrified, they are frustrated, they are angry, and they are shocked by a president violating the values that we hold dear

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 9:17 PM

AOC: We have a future to fight for, and we're either going to do that together or you're going to be left behind. It's not about Progressive. It's not moderate, it's not liberal. This is about do you understand the assignment of fighting fascism right now? And the assignment is you come together…

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 9:24 PM

Mamdani's speech was all about fighting Trump.

Mamdani: So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 10:43 PM

It struck me that Mamdani - like Newsom, Pritzker, AOC, Obama - has realized charismatic Democrats can achieve a national audience by fighting back against Trump at every opportunity. They are actually turning Trump's best weapon - his egotistical bombast -- into a way to make him look foolish, ineffective, a failure.

The factional grifters will hate this, but the Mamdani-Spanberger-Sherrill axis actually suggests the outlines of a broad, emerging Dem coalition organized around both anti-Trump *and* affordability politics, not a party bitterly divided against itself.

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— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 8:48 PM

Trump is already hysterical:

Trump just took a giant dump on his own party, blaming them for the shut down.

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— Tea Pain (@teapainusa.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 9:58 PM

I wonder if Trump realizes he is never going to be on a ballot ever again?