By Sniffles
In October 1970, Canada was having a crisis. A violent separatist group, the FLQ — the initials stand for the Front for the Liberation of Quebec — had spent a few years bombing official and military targets (and if we're remembering this right, a mailbox or two). Then they kidnapped and held hostage a British diplomat, James Cross. Then a few days later, they kidnapped the province's Deputy Premier, Pierre Laporte, from his front yard on the South Shore of Montreal — and killed him.
Fast forward 50 years, and we have the FBI foiling a kidnap attempt by the "Wolverine Watchmen" against Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. The Canadian October Crisis is a chilling reminder of just how badly things could have gone if the Watchmen's plot had succeeded.
What Canada didn't have in 1970, though, was a head of government egging the terrorists on. Au contraire: Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, suspending habeas corpus and arresting nearly 500 people. His actions are still controversial today, but they did manage to put down what his government called an insurrection. Mailboxes stopped blowing up. James Cross was released. And any sympathy the FLQ would have gotten from Ottawa's heavy-handed response was wiped out by chilling photos of Laporte's body in the trunk of a car.
Contrast that with Donald Trump, tweeting "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" back in April and telling the Proud Boys in the Presidential debate just last week to "stand by." As Governor Whitmer said today, "When our leaders...stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit."
The FLQ were domestic terrorists. So are the Wolverine Watchmen. So is Donald Trump. We cats HISS.
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