Why Canadian Conservatives Lose: A Case Study

The Fall of Damon Scrase

This 2024 British Columbia provincial election just took an explosive turn.

Conservative candidate Damon Scrase, running for the Courtenay-Comox riding, has abruptly resigned after a series of mean tweets surfaced, tweets denouncing kids being exposed to BDSM fetishists at Pride parades.

While the mainstream media has yet to catch wind of the story, by tomorrow, it will be headline news across Canada. Here on Substack, however, I can beat the MSM to the punch and show the tweets directly, allowing you to draw your own conclusions rather than relying on the filtered interpretations of whichever newspaper columnist is **describing** these tweets to you.

Three hours ago, Scrase was "cancelled" by Jas Johal, a journalist in Vancouver and former Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. Johal unearthed four, of Scrase’s old tweets, and despite how thin the substance of this political hitjob was, the hit was remarkably effective. These 4 tweets ended Scrase’s political career.

EDIT: It was more than 4 tweets; there were more! For instance: I just found this article from 5 days ago, hitting Scrase for old tweets on abortion. But again, the source of that article was from Jas Johal, so all the same points apply. Responding to Johal on X, the Comox Valley Record newspaper wrote: ‘‘You broke the story and you were the catalyst for his resignation.’’

The first two tweets from two years ago expressed Scrase’s opposition to children attending a drag queen parade. Unfortunately, the original posts he was quoting have been deleted, making it impossible to see the full context.

Scrase’s third tweet was a retweet of Kingsley Cortes, describing furries* as “man-made horrors beyond your comprehension**.”

*I am being told this is actually “pup play”, which is different than being a ‘‘furry’’.

** ‘‘man-made horrors beyond your comprehension’’ is a meme, edgy humour borrowed from a Nikola Tesla quote.

Scrase has a valid point. Men in fetish gear don’t belong around kids. This statement shouldn't be considered extreme, yet in Canada, it has now officially fallen outside the Overton window.

Many of my gay readers (I definitely have thousands) surely agree.

Scrase's fourth tweet in today’s expose was a bit boomer-esque, referring to the LGBT initialism as “LGBTQUA+LMNOPQRSTUV.”

Following the unearthing of these four tweets, Scrase issued a statement disavowing his past beliefs and announcing his resignation. I find it insincere.

I’m a blue-collar guy who never aspired to be a public figure, and certainly not a politician. Like many of us I have made posts on social media years ago that make me wince, which don’t reflect what I think or who I am today.

— Statement from Damon Scrase

It's gross to see him lie about what he truly believes to appease his enemies. Such duplicity is a betrayal of trust and truth; if he were candid, I know he would still strongly agree with the statement: "Men in fetish gear don't belong around kids." This is such an obvious stance; the fumbling is astounding. Just have a spine and stand up for the belief.

The strange thing in this story is the timeline: he gave in immediately. Just two hours after Johal’s thread went live—and despite garnering barely 100 likes—Scrase resigned. This immediate capitulation to such a weaksauce hitjob is remarkable. Perhaps it’s for the best that Scrase is no longer a Conservative politician. He is clearly not a fighter. If you’re going to step down, do so with conviction, not an apology. It’s crazy that Scrase crumbled, apologized, grovelled, and then resigned at the first sign of pressure. Terrible political instincts.

His statement continues.

“I recognized this and deleted them. I do not want my old, unfortunate comments to distract from the important work currently being done to fix our incredible province. As a result, I have informed the Conservative Party of BC that, effective immediately, I will be stepping down as the candidate for Courtenay-Comox. My most sincere possible thank you to everyone who supported me on this journey. It has been quite the education. I leave with high hopes, in good spirit, with deep humility, and gratefulness in my heart.”

— Statement from Damon Scrase

There’s likely more to this story. It’s conceivable that the provincial party pressured him into stepping down, rather than him resigning entirely of his own volition, but that remains unknowable. Either way: he doesn’t have a spine, or the provincial party doesn’t.

This spinelessness is a recurring problem at every level of Canadian conservative politics, spanning all 13 provinces. Conservatives perpetually lose because they perpetually roll over and expose their bellies. They naively believe that adopting a Liberal-lite stance will win over liberal voters, resulting in gradually compromising on all of their core beliefs. This misguided strategy has steadily shifted the rightward edge of the Overton window further to the left, and has led to true conservative candidates being barred from running for office.

Scrase is now a cautionary tale: Don’t sell out your beliefs, or your civilization will crumble, just like Scrase did this afternoon. Freddie deBoer sums up my thoughts perfectly:

Just Stop Apologizing

It’s become abundantly clear that there simply is no value in public apology. Admitting fault only emboldens critics. The mechanisms of social media always reward escalation and never reward calm and restraint. Contemporary progressive politics excuse any amount of personal viciousness so long as the target is perceived to be guilty of committing socme identity crime. The notion of proportionality is totally alien to these worlds, and when people ask for such proportionality they’re accused of supporting bigotry. People who are friendly online shamelessly wage backchannel campaigns against each other, and almost no one on social media has the stomach to stand up for someone else when the mob comes for them. Most importantly, the public can never grant you absolution for what you’ve done; absolution is not the public’s to grant. The strangers on Twitter can’t accept an apology, even if they ever would, and they wouldn't. You can ask the mob for forgiveness, but they have no moral right to grant it, and anyway they never will. They’ll just keep you wriggling on the end of a pin forever. Honestly: how often do people who make public apologies come out ahead in doing so, especially because they’re so often coerced and thus insincere?

— Freddie deBoer