You're misinterpreting my point. It's not just allowing them to say it, but accepting it as the one truth. That's what "the world as it is" rhetoric accomplishes.

But I'll still ask, do you believe the Carney government is taking the world as it truly is, or is it telling one debatable story, among many viable stories of how the world is, for the purpose of shaping discourse towards political ends?

You can't have it both ways.

If it's just one story among many, then the "we take the world as it is" as the whole thesis of his speech is obviously problematic. You've got to get into the weeds of what "the world as it is" actually means to Carney and why it's being framed that way, because it is a choice to frame it one way rather than another and choices reflect perceptions and priorities. All of that becomes highly debatable.

If someone buys into his framing of "how the world is" in some essentialist way, then they may as well be in a cult.

It's important to remember that Liberal leaders are just harm reduction as we avoid the blue faux-ristocracy. Ideally we would have an orange government or even a strong orange crutch holding up a minority red if we want some progress on things that matter to Canadians.

This guy is here to weather the economic attack from America by strengthening ties with Europe, and build up military and infrastructure so we can survive when America cuts of off from theirs in some fit of juvenile pique.

I count at least three false dichotomies in one comment, that's impressive!

Buddy, people like you are the reason Canada is falling to fascism. Reap what you sow, keep significantly utilizing American services and appeasing American corporations, that goes for Brookfield as well, major conflict of interest. What products have made Canada unique and respected around the world? Oh right, nothing.

What's interesting about this discussion is that all the "good" stuff Carney is supposedly aiming at is entirely hypothetical and rhetorical, and the bad stuff is very real.

40,000 jobs cut in the federal public sector by someone who promised to "cap, not cut" the public service.

Massive cuts to the CBC by someone who promised to increase their funding.

But we should keep trusting him?

I was told that Carney understood climate change and economics, and then he went and tripled down on the same fossil fuels that are causing the current global geopolitical and economic crisis. Oh, and greenwashing is legal again, which is the cherry on top of that shit sundae.

It's been over a year of cuts and deregulation benefitting massive corporations. How long are people prepared to cling to their religious-like faith in a man who has only ever been a friend to the Goldman Sachs/Brookfield class?

His Davos speech did not simply lay out a destination. It laid out a vision for how to walk the path to reach that destination. There absolutely is evidence to demonstrate that he has contradicted his own statements about how to walk the path. He set the pathfinding standard that he's not following. I'm just assessing him on his following the standard he set. The result of contradictions is that it's an incoherent foreign policy, and that's why its being called out and debated by many people in IR and policy spaces.

You're really making the case for avoiding insults and addressing the concepts there.