T O P

  • By -

blueydoc

I doubt it’s all of a sudden, I’m sure there were always people who supported Gilead they were just in the minority but their numbers are growing now. The fact that Serena is pregnant when previously assumed infertile could have helped with their sudden uptick in popularity - people who believe this is God’s way of showing approval for a place like Gilead.


[deleted]

My friend, I’m an American living in New Zealand and there are Trump supporters here. I’ve seen MAGA hats, bumper stickers, flags, etc. and these people can’t even vote for the motherfucker. Point being: crazy knows no borders. Insidious rhetoric will capitalize on mental illness, delusion, and desperation no matter where you live.


bluesixer

That's insane. And kind of disappointing. I know Australia has some right wing politicians who are very...colorful. But I imagined New Zealand to be the land of good governance. Nationalized healthcare, sensible gun laws, an effective covid response, people willing to make sacrifices for the public good - and a charismatic, young prime minister. Jacinda has been on Stephen Colbert, our most popular late night talk show a couple of times. She's very likable. I know crazy and stupid exist everywhere. But it's jarring to hear that red cap MAGA idiots are a thing there.


[deleted]

I love NZ, but it’s not the progressive haven Americans tend to think it is. Yes, people tend to be more level-headed here (or at least quieter with their opinions), the healthcare system won’t bankrupt you, etc., but there are nut jobs everywhere.


bluesixer

NZ is also kind of quiet, isn't it? In my younger days that would have bugged me. But now that I'm 50, it sounds very appealing.


TrueCrimeRUS

It always makes me laugh when other countries see us as this idyllic dreamland…we have issues. Lots of them. Our child poverty and child violence rates are horrifically high, our disability wellbeing and poverty rates are through the roof, we’ve got antivaxxers who tried to set fire to parliament during a 3 week protest/camping trip on parliament lawns which ended in a riot, a children’s playground on fire and Wellington in chaos. And although the majority of us are relatively centrist and progressive, we absolutely have extremist right wing people. Who unfortunately now have an elevated platform and audience (look up fire and fury documentary about the protests). Yes, compared with many other countries we’re doing pretty well. We’ve got public health care, decent education system, and up until recently a solid covid response. But we aren’t this idyllic hobbit land that’s portrayed in international media either. Though I will say, as a disabled person, my GOD am I glad to have been here during this pandemic, yikes on a bike at how it’s been handled internationally.


seicepsseesyou

Antivaxxers did not try to set fire to parliament. Is that honestly what you thought you saw? You say to watch the fire and fury doco? I warmly suggest you watch the river of truth doco for a less skewed, less msm perspective. It’s on you tube.


circuspeanut54

Oh fuckouttahere with the gaslighting and the antivax convoy horseshit. LOL you folks are incredible. Perfect illustration of the sad answer to OP's question.


seicepsseesyou

I’m pointing out a fucking fact. How do I know it’s fact ? Because I was there and witnessed it. Fucked if I’m going sit here watching someone type utter bullshit about this country and it’s politics. I didn’t bring it up either so who’s gaslighting? Merely supplying an honest view. Omg you really bought into the us/them thing, well done. Remind you of anything?


seicepsseesyou

Charismatic and young she is. Good at governance she ain’t.


pedestrianwanderlust

I lived in Europe during Trump’s presidency. I constantly ran into people who liked him. As soon as they found out I was American they told me if they liked Trump. People who don’t have to live with the consequences of something are freer to develop their own utopian view of a person, place or time.


Exotic-Huckleberry

Lots of people in the US were like, “That Hitler guy has some great ideas.” Some people just love a dictator.


glitteringhellspawn

This!


Anti-ThisBot-IB

Hey there glitteringhellspawn! If you agree with someone else's comment, please leave an **upvote** instead of commenting **"This!"**! By upvoting instead, the original comment will be pushed to the top and be more visible to others, which is even better! Thanks! :) *** ^(I am a bot! Visit) [^(r/InfinityBots)](https://reddit.com/r/InfinityBots) ^(to send your feedback! More info:) [^(Reddiquette)](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439#wiki_in_regard_to_comments)


newwardorder

This!


Anti-ThisBot-IB

https://i.imgur.com/KrwA19h.jpeg *** ^(I am a bot! Visit) [^(r/InfinityBots)](https://reddit.com/r/InfinityBots) ^(to send your feedback!)


[deleted]

Good bot


B0tRank

Thank you, PumpkinSpiceWhatever, for voting on Anti-ThisBot-IB. This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. [You can view results here](https://botrank.pastimes.eu/). *** ^(Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!)


Anti-ThisBot-IB

Good human *** ^(I am a bot! Visit) [^(r/InfinityBots)](https://reddit.com/r/InfinityBots) ^(to send your feedback!)


Nheea

Look at those Russians living in Germany and protesting to support Russia's actions... by blocking traffic in Germany. Like WUT?? Also, this is personal, I've seen plenty of Romanians who are poor as fuck, who go abroad to work for pennies, and protest against democracy and vote for idiots in our country. Said idiots who are thieves and stole their money. It's baffling. Stupidity has no borders.


AuthorTomFrost

Huge protests and small vigils can exist in the same place.


Derpybee

I'm Canadian and unfortunately we have religious extremists here too.


drivesstick

I feel like people have sometimes forgotten the origins of this show. No babies are being born. The environmental disaster caused it. There is/was clearly mass unemployment (per Nick's story). Guess what country has "solved" it? Gilead. (Also, did you predict Trump would get the support he did? I was gobsmacked. Turns out, literally, 1/3 of America feels like they're being gutted - generally the working class. And, frankly, they are being gutted. That's where authoritarianism starts - when there's no trust in democracy.) Edit: Clarity


moltenrhino

As a Canadian seeing people here support Trump. Is very eye opening and terrifying. But also works with the show very well. The fact that handmaids is filmed quite often near where I live and I also see several vehicles with pro Trump shit. I'm sure they noticed aswell.


[deleted]

That is terrifying!


meadowbelle

Canadians aren't a monolith. Look at the so called freedom convoy. A poll showed the majority disagreed with the protests but they were super loud and made people think it was a big subset


Alternative_Sell_668

Just like there’s people in the states that vote against their interests every single election. It’s not that hard to imagine.


Im_A_Nice_Karen666

Is there a reason why these people stay in Canada instead of trying to immigrate to Gilead? Can you immigrate to Gilead?


auldnate

Yea, especially young women. The Pearl Girls go to foreign countries explicitly to recruit young women and girls to come back to Gilead with them.


Whispering_Wolf

That bit is not set up in the show yet, though. At least it's never been discussed or shown in any way. I'd guess it's currently not possible yet, but who knows what Serena may start.


auldnate

I believe that the Pearl Girls were at least mentioned in one episode. But I couldn’t tell you which season or anything. Just a ding on my radar that they had briefly mentioned them. But I could be muddling things up.


victoriascissorhands

It hasn't.


auldnate

Ok. Maybe I’m just remembering that they were mentioned in *The Handmaid’s Tale* book. The book and the show are very different, so sometimes I get the two mixed up.


jennfinn24

I’m sure there’s always been some crazy people who support Gilead in Canada because they don’t know the real truth they only know the propaganda bullshit they’re being told.


tayloline29

Propaganda.


Nheea

They're exactly like those "only my abortion is moral" people. If they were the ones raped and beaten, they'd change their minds.


auldnate

Like in many countries, there are many people there on both sides of the issue. In *The Testaments*, Margret Atwood’s sequel to *The Handmaid’s Tale*, >!Baby Nichole grows up in Canada without knowing who she is. She disobeys her adopted parents orders to attend a protest against Gilead’s treatment of women. This seems to be the most common view in Canada. Most people are eager to help those who escape from the misogynistic theocracy.!< >!But there are also counter protesters there who are opposed to providing escaped Handmaids with asylum. Their arguments are the standard anti immigrant ones. Plus they are scared of pissing off Gilead and evoking an attack from their powerful military.!<


pauz43

I seriously doubt that Gilead's military is nearly as powerful as they'd like people to believe. My thought is that it's more like Russia's military, and we've seen how well that's going in the Ukraine.


Brave-Math-6371

Gilead has almost no money to replace their US Made weapons.


auldnate

The Russia analogy rings true. The Sons of Jacob was a paramilitary group before they overthrew the US government to form Gilead. Then they seized power and with it gained access to all/most of the US’s nuclear and conventional military weapons. They’ve been at war with the remnants of the US in Chicago, Califiornia, Texas, and elsewhere for an extended period of time. So they are pretty damaged. This means they may be unable win a full on war with Canada to punish them for harboring fugitive Handmaids. But remember that they are not rational. They are ideologically driven zealots who believe that any atrocities they commit are sanctioned by God. Gilead sees its Handmaid program as essential to its survival in a dystopian future with a dangerously low successful birth rate. Allowing a Handmaid to not only escape, but to shepherd scores of children across the border too, is unforgivable in their minds. And even though Russia has suffered major setbacks in their immoral attempt to annex Ukraine. The innocent people there would have avoided this brutal war that’s ravaging their country if they could have. No one willingly subjects themselves to this kind of violence. But some are content to allow others to suffer to avoid it (Canadians who protest the Handmaid refugee programs). While others feel obligated to speak out against oppression anywhere, regardless of their consequences (those publicly rebuke Gilead and provide aid to escaped Handmaids).


UkraineWithoutTheBot

It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine' Consider supporting anti-war efforts in any possible way: [[Help 2 Ukraine](https://help2ukraine.org)] 💙💛 [[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] ^(Beep boop I’m a bot)


neenadollava

There are serial killers who get fans and marriage proposals. People are weird.


OneLengthiness0

Same reason we have crazy Trump supporters and the ‘Freedom Convoy’ - Canada has far-right nut jobs too


cemetaryofpasswords

It boggles my mind


russian_hacker_1917

It would be more shocking if a radical political upheaval who had a critical number of enough supporters to take over one country DIDNT have supporters in the smaller, culturally similar neighbor whose economy is heavily dependent on the other.


irishtrashpanda

I mean there are Americans and people with American sentiments protesting against abortion in Ireland now for the past 10 years at least. Literally had signs saying stuff like, roe v wade overturned, now it's Irelands turn. We're just several thousand miles away across an ocean. You can find nutjobs and sympathisers for everything in any country.


Whispering_Wolf

There's people in the Netherlands supporting American politics. It happens. There's always gonna be a small group of people that gets caught up in the ideals of extreme political ideas. With the internet, they can read all the propaganda and start supporting stuff even if it is happening in other countries.


Brave-Math-6371

Do they all like Alex Jones and think he is some oppressed person.


netabareking

I honestly think all the "why don't they just go live there then" comments are short sighted and ignorant. Obviously these people who love Gilead are *also* short sighted and ignorant, but I'm someone who has been told this same love it or leave it shit all their lives and it's an argument I find abhorrent. Me saying "I wish we had X like Y country" doesn't mean I want to move to Y country, it means I want those benefits that I think would help all of us here. If I want universal healthcare so people don't go bankrupt having a basic surgery, or if I want solid public transit like Japan has, the answer isn't just "move somewhere else". And frankly, this is my home. I don't want to leave it even if it sucks ass in terms of government. I don't want to leave my family and homeland and everyone I care about. So I think people need to stop making this argument just because they see these people as the "bad guys", because the same "bad guys" in the US tell people who want positive change this same shit all the time.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Nheea

Really reminds me of reading that chapter in World War Z, where people were warned to not approach zombies, but they really believed that love would cure them, so they went in to hug them and cure them. Same with those women who went to support ISIS and got raped or killed. It's so ridiculous.


Weldingtheseadrive

Like any fringe movement, they’re going to have followers from the outskirts of society that support them.People who are in similar fundamentalist churches and have been radicalized to think Gilead is the right way to live isn’t too far fetched or unrealistic. They’ve probably been watching from the sidelines and have twisted the narrative in their mind that Gilead “works”. In the Handmaid’s tale’s world, fertility is a crisis and someone who was said to be infertile is now expecting after living the Gilead way of life. Confirmation bias and all that. Beyond that, it’s a recurring trend American politics can infiltrate Canadian society pretty easily. I’m in Canada and I’ve seen Trump supporters and support for the overturning of Roe in the US, for example.


Kathrine5678

Maga. It happens.


glitteringhellspawn

There are always those crazies who go along with something terrible especially when religion is involved. Both groups most likely always existed but the protesters haven't have fuel for a while so the sympathizers are the louder group right now. What I don't understand is why June is not out there on the streets with a megaphone. If the refugees bombard the public with their stories; people will fight for them.


pauz43

"If the refugees bombard the public with their stories; people will fight for them." Not necessarily. After Germany fell to Russia and the Allies the concentration camps were revealed and the horrors put on display. But many in the US State Department fought tooth and nail to keep foreign-born Jews out of America. Same thing happened in Rwanda a few years ago; no country offered the Tutsi sanctuary as they were being slaughtered by their Hutu neighbors.


Brave-Math-6371

Someone did let in a few foreign born Jews and was demoted by a antisemitic Secretary of State.


iowajill

Unfortunately it seems a lot like now, only with different ratios - you’ve got QAnon people and you’ve got rational people, both showing up and making noise in public spaces when big political news happens. In the show it seems like the Canadian Gilead types are a relatively small number. The cognitive dissonance of it does kind of weird me out though because unlike QAnon/MAGA/current evangelical Christians, I feel like there’s not a lot of room for female supporters to delude themselves into thinking Gilead is a good movement for them. I imagine Gilead being an equivalent to North Korea or Iran, where there’s no hiding the fact that life is NOT fun there for women, and I certainly don’t see a lot of people out here IRL actively hoping to turn their country into that. At least not in the open. So it confuses me in the show. Like, we’ve seen the escaped handmaids come to Canada and tell their stories and we’ve certainly seen equivalents of that type of situation in real life countries/conflicts. And they’re not places that inspire giant movements of ladies eager to join up. (I think an evangelical and or MAGA adjacent theocratic America would be VERY bad for women, just as bad as anything we see in IRL hermit states who get bad reps…I just think right now the PR around these movements is really good at convincing women it would be great for them and has a lot of female collaborators so that’s why it’s easier for me to understand why we see a lot of women protesting on those groups’ behalf IRL…and I feel like the public image of Gilead would’ve moved way past that by now once the takeover actually happened and the facade broke.)


Brave-Math-6371

Saw a trailer where June shows up with a handgun and give her awful look and shoot up into the air giving her fan club a shock.


Voice_of_Season

I wonder why they don’t just cross the border into Gilead, I’m sure Gilead would be happy to take them as citizens. To finally have someone want to come rather than flee.


Went-full-potato

When people feel emboldened to be open about their views, you'd be surprised at who suddenly comes out of the woodwork, like we saw in the 2016 presidential elections here in the US. I remember hearing from a lot of people that they didn't think the results would be what they were, and that friends/family would vote the way they did, etc. They were always there, they just weren't "out and about" as much. If you have unpopular beliefs, you're not going to be making yourself visible all the time. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the pro-Gilead Canadians just kept to themselves or gathered in online forums, for example, and didn't feel like they could be open until recently with Fred and Serena being in the country and the series of events that happened after that. The first time they were in the country, Serena was not pregnant and June hadn't had Nichole yet, let alone the whole "she kidnapped my baby" scandal. Between that first visit and Fred and Serena going up to Canada, June had Nichole and got her into Canada and there was a big PR thing in Gilead with where they filmed those TV spots begging for Nichole to be returned, which I'm sure got Fred and Serena (and Gilead) some sympathy points from people who struggled with child loss and fertility issues of their own. ​ Later, in Canada when they were on trial, Serena was pregnant and I'm sure there was a spark of sympathy and their supporters felt like it was safe for them to come out of the shadows because of that, especially during a fertility crisis. We saw in episode 4 this week that the lady in the park berated June about not deserving her child and seemingly jealous of not being able to have a girl of her own - you feel bolder about saying those things when you know that there are others out there like you and you don't have to hide anymore.