Huey Long was the authoritarian governer of Louisianna in the 1930s The way he combined support for rich people while receiving support from sturggling blue-collar and pink-collar workers is similar to Trumps two-faced presidential campaign in 2024.
Danielle Smith appears to be trying to follow Huey Long's grip on power in <louissianna in the 1930s.
for example an article describing Long's "putsch" (military coup) of city hall power in New Orleans says this
"Long, whose mayoral candidate (the editor of Long's propaganda mouthpiece) had lost the election that January, was trying to strip Walmsley of power over the police department and to establish his own tax assessment entity."
And we see Smith calling for a provincial police force and a provincial income tax regime. Oh what power they would give her.
The article goes on to say one of Long's poltical kingpins was found to be taking state-owned materials for his own home rconstruction.
And we see Smith on the grill for attending a hockey game for free in a corporate box owned by a business magnate who sold drugs to Alberta government health services, drugs that turned out to be useless.
Having power is great but it does go to one's head. Without democratic balance in the Legislature, there is little accountablity. and government not only go crazy against what opposition there is but also disregard controls regarding immoral and unethical activity.
(Smith's UCP have about 80 percent of the seats in the Legislature although taking just a bit more than half the votes. This kind of disproportional result is common in elections where single-member districts and winner-take-all electon systems are used. But that is a feeble excuse - let's change the system!)
In Louisiana, the exposure of the politician's shenanigans resulted in the "Louisiana scandals", which put a real kink in Huey Long's government.
Perhaps Smith's invocation of the Alberta god HOCKEY may save her from a deeper reckoning. (Or exactly how much self-serving activity will her "Take Back Alberta" base swallow?)
One can hope that Danielle Smith does not take her antipathy against NDP-voting Edmonton and her greed for power to the extent Huey Long did.
as the article described
Long, claiming corruption was rampant in the city, stationed an estimated 2,500 ste-controleld Natonal Guards soldiers in New Orleans, some at the Soule Building, where the voter registration office was located, and others to Jackson Barracks.
Meanwhile, the city deputized a force of about 500 special police officers, armed them with submachine guns and stationed them outside City Hall.
A tense standoff ensued.
(During the military occupation, Natoinal Guardmen were sometimes/often out of control. A New Orleans newspaper photographer and a reporter "were attacked by National Guardsmen that August while trying to cover a shooting by a drunken Guardsman inside a restaurant on St. Charles Avenue." according to the article.
One might have predicted that stationing bored and restless armed soldiers in a large city would lead to such social troubles.
There was either no law, or the law was what the soldiers wanted it to be...)
Finally a new city election was held, and under more or less martial law, Long's designate was elected.
Long was assassinated the following year, according to the article
There is much on Huey Long and other U.S. fascists in Maddow's book Prequel An American Fight Against Fascism, (Cown 2023) although the book predominantly concerns the noble fight of O. John Rogge and others to expose the inter-relationship of the German Nazi propaganda machine, U.S. right-wing militia groups, U.S. authoritarian influencers and U.S. elected representatives.
talk about foreign influence...
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