Paul Johnson

@News reporter, filmmaker; musician; British Columbian

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

So it turns out the Lime Scooter installations that are deleting parking spaces for working class renters in Vancouver are owned by Uber, Alphabet and assorted big Silicon Valley investors. So much for Elbows Up. Who on City Council is fronting for this?

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

So here's a possible solution to the Great Vancouver Scooter Controversy: Install scooter bays on boulevards and places that don't displace existing parking. For many people going without a car is not currently not a life option. Why make it harder for them?

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

3rd and Trafalgar in Vancouver's Kitsilano neighborhood. Uproar after 4 street parking spaces just lost to a scooter installation. Many people here are 50's and up and need their cars for work. Do they think these people are going to start riding scooters to work?

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

Serious injury from the Covid vaccine: Rare. Getting ignored by government contractors: apparently too common. Jan's story on Global News Thursday:
https://t.co/LmgBhSfsdb

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

The long lost collaboration between Chrome Dolphin and Mile-High Mafia drops today. Turn it up!
https://t.co/1TQ4bmvCjL

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

New Chrome Dolphin drops this week: Turn it up!

https://t.co/bPMngYUzDE

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

A couple of these guys live on my street:

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Very well written essay on the MAGA voter. This is what we are up against.

Sam is 61 years old and lives in a town where the Applebee’s closed in 2014 and people still mention it like it was a natural disaster. The old factory shut down years ago, but Sam keeps his faded employee badge in a kitchen drawer because he considers it proof that America peaked sometime around 1987, right between the release of Top Gun and the invention of low-flow toilets. He firmly believes the country began collapsing the moment they stopped letting people smoke in restaurants and started putting kale in things.

He wakes up every morning at 5:12 a.m., not because he has anywhere to be, but because decades of shift work, untreated sleep apnea, and permanent low-grade outrage have hardwired his body into a permanent state of agitation. He shuffles into the kitchen wearing camouflage pajama pants and a T-shirt that says “I Stand for the Flag” even though he has not stood up quickly without groaning since 2009. He pours himself coffee strong enough to power farm equipment and settles into his recliner to begin his daily ritual of becoming personally offended by things happening hundreds or thousands of miles away. Within half an hour, he is enraged about crime in Chicago, drag queens in Seattle, wind turbines in California, and a college professor in Vermont he has never heard of and never will again.

Sam spends most of his time marinating in an ecosystem of Facebook memes, talk radio, Fox News, chain emails, YouTube clips, and badly designed websites with names like Patriot Eagle Freedom Truth News. By noon, he has shared seven posts warning that America is under attack by socialists, immigrants, vegans, pronouns, electric stoves, and people who use the phrase “lived experience.” He believes every story because every story confirms what he already feels: that the country has been stolen from people like him and handed over to people he does not understand.

Sam is absolutely convinced he is one of the last remaining “real Americans,” despite living in a county entirely populated by people who also think they are the last remaining real Americans. He misses the America of his youth, which in his memory was a magical place where every man had a factory job, every woman made tuna casserole, every child respected authority, and nobody had tattoos, gluten allergies, or opinions about gender. He is nostalgic for a version of the country that mostly exists as a combination of old pickup truck commercials, Toby Keith songs, and stories his grandfather exaggerated after three beers.

His truck is the size of a military vehicle and has never once carried anything heavier than mulch and emotional baggage. His pickup truck is so large that small birds alter their migration patterns to avoid it. The truck has never hauled lumber, gravel, or equipment, but it does haul an enormous amount of political anxiety. The back is covered in bumper stickers warning that he is armed, angry, and deeply suspicious of the federal government, except for when it comes to Medicare, Social Security, highways, farm subsidies, police funding, veterans’ benefits, and keeping its hands off his lawn. He likes to tell people he is “not political,” which is impressive considering his entire personality has become an endless loop of cable news grievances.

He cannot attend a barbecue, church picnic, football game, or grandchild’s birthday party without eventually bringing up inflation, Hunter Biden, gas stoves, “the border,” or how nobody can say Merry Christmas anymore even though literally everyone still says Merry Christmas.

Then Trump arrived, descending from his golden escalator like a casino-themed prophet sent by God to sell steaks and grievance. Sam had finally found his perfect candidate: a billionaire from Manhattan with multiple mansions, gold-plated bathrooms, and a private jet, who somehow convinced Sam that he understood the pain of a man screaming at the self-checkout machine in Walmart.

Trump was loud, angry, theatrical, and constantly under investigation, which only made Sam admire him more. Every lawsuit, scandal, or indictment was not evidence of wrongdoing. It was proof that Trump was fighting the deep state, the media, the elites, the globalists, the FBI, the Democrats, the RINOs, and possibly the ghost of George Soros.

Every scandal, every lawsuit, every indictment, every accusation became proof that Trump was fighting the corrupt establishment on behalf of “real Americans” like Sam.

At this point, Sam does not support Trump because of policy details. He supports Trump because Trump has become the human embodiment of his anger, nostalgia, confusion, and Facebook feed. Trump says the world Sam remembers can come back, that the people Sam dislikes can be punished, and that all of Sam's frustrations are someone else’s fault.

To Sam, Trump is no longer just a politician. He is a lifestyle brand. He is a martyr, a warrior, a stand-up comedian, a victim, a patriot, and the lead singer of a traveling grievance festival. Sam owns at least three Trump hats, two Trump flags, a Trump coffee mug, a “Never Surrender” T-shirt, and a giant “Let’s Go Brandon” sign in the garage that he insists is “not political, just funny.”

For Sam, that is not politics. That is therapy. Trump is not just a candidate anymore; he is an emotional support billionaire.

He is a spray-tanned security blanket with a private jet. He is the gold-plated, fast-food-fueled mascot Sam clings to whenever the modern world feels confusing, threatening, or insufficiently patriotic.

Trump gives him a ready-made explanation for every disappointment in his life: it is not aging, bad luck, economic change, or his own choices; it is the immigrants, the liberals, the media, the globalists, the vegans, the people with pronouns, and whoever is ruining Christmas this week.

Supporting Trump lets Sam believe there is still someone out there fighting for him.

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

New Chrome Dolphin drops this week.
Turn it up!
https://t.co/l3xFzs1Ihw

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

Who would throw one of Canada's best pieces of farmland into uncertainty? Well, the Fed. Gov. apparently:
https://t.co/UBRs3Js82o

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

Trumpism initially rose on this kind of angry sentiment....it may fall because of it as well.

[Power to the People ☭🕊 @ProudSocialist]

This American teenager gets it:

“We don’t have money for universal healthcare or to make sure kids don’t go hungry in this country, but apparently we have $11.3 billion fucking dollars to burn in 7 days to start a war nobody ask for to bomb innocent school children, twice.”

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

One more week to catch "That 90s Music Doc" for free...Tell me what you think!...Write a review!
https://t.co/xPujf0M1LF

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

The "Hegstand." Epic SNL:
https://t.co/n0YKoNrVF1

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

2 more weeks to catch our new film about the great decade of music that was the 90s:
https://t.co/A8bqS4O0OW

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

Iranian - Canadian demonstrators are increasingly calling on one leader to intervene and help topple the Ayatollahs. Hint, it's not Carney:
https://t.co/hpVb2qFqK3

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

Our new 90s Music Doc. Film is streaming on YouTube for free for the next month..How's that for a deal? Check it out:
https://t.co/BzdrTpfKhy

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

the "Battle of Minneapolis"

[Interesting things @awkwardgoogle]

Tom Morello plays Killing in the Name Of at Minneapolis benefit concert, and the entire crowd absolutely loses it.
https://t.co/v4ssEJ8spW

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

With Trump rampaging many British Columbians think the Province has some leverage as a net energy supplier to the U.S. Think Again:
https://t.co/LPdGsgqBh6

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

Agreed!..."Melania" might make it to the Red Carpet yet...

[Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @NotHoodlum]

Malaria, last time they made a movie about a sex worker who moved to NY and shacked up with a con man — it won Best Picture. Never give up. 💪

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

Fun Activity! Run Professor Robert Hare's quick Psychopath Checklist on Donald Trump..we did it and he got the same score as Ted Bundy:
https://t.co/4mnBiY7EWT

[Paul Johnson @PJReporter]

As the BC Gov. backtracks on Hard Drug Decriminalization its worth pointing out that years ago they were advised about a world class study on addiction and crime that they not only ignored, but ordered destroyed:
https://t.co/n5xFJ1gvzm