Hey, America: L'il help?
As Donald Trump makes almost daily threats to Canadian sovereignty, it would be nice if a few more Americans pointed out how crazy this is
Honestly, this newsletter post was going to be about Severance. Great television show. Bit of a weird second season. I have thoughts!
But then I caught a bit of Donald Trump’s comments to media in the White House yesterday, and I became mad all over again. Which led to me thinking: why aren’t more Americans mad about this? As in, why aren’t the people who consider themselves part of the anti-Trump resistance making a bigger deal of what is, objectively, an insane part of his current thinking? It’s not like this just a little joke anymore, even if it started off as one in his addled mind. He is, whenever the subject of Canada comes up, tossing off statements like “Canada only works as a (U.S.) state” and the border between our countries is “an artificial line” drawn on a map.
These are the thoughts of a person who has completely lost touch with reality. Canada has been a functional country with a big economy for a long time. There was a centennial celebration and everything! It feels kind of stupid to be even pointing this fact out, like water is wet, but Trump is saying the opposite. He’s claiming that the sky is, in fact, not blue.
The President of the United States, on back-to-back days this week, talked about the border as though it was a fake line scrawled on a map with a pencil. It was like he had no idea that this is how the vast majority of borders work. Is the border between Ohio and Michigan fake? Why wouldn’t Florida just become part of Georgia since the top part of it is all so weird and squiggly on a map? It’s all just so fundamentally nuts that I think, if I were an American who wanted to point out that Trump is behaving like a lunatic mad king, there would be no better example than his recent Canada tirades.
And, look, I get it: There is a lot of crazy shit going on down there. Elon Musk is running around with a chainsaw, figuratively and literally, trying to fire tens of thousands of federal workers in a mad rush and before anyone can figure out how to stop him. Trump is launching trade wars with everyone, the stock market is tanking, and he is all but playing kissyface with Vladimir Putin while abandoning Ukraine and basically upending the largely peaceful world order that has existed for 80 years. Oh, and he’s trying to do an end-around on the courts and Congress to rule as a dictator. It’s a lot to deal with.
But to the extent that there is any coverage in the mainstream U.S. media of Trump’s annexation threats masked as a trade war, mostly it’s in stories with headlines like “Canadians angry about Trump threats.” That’s fine, but the story here isn’t the Canadian reaction to what Trump is doing, it’s that the President has turned on his closest ally — for absolutely no reason — and no one in his circle is pushing back at all. Even his opponents aren’t saying much.
Pieces like this one, in Vox, are at least a start. Yes, it’s in the What Canadians Think About Trump genre, but it’s long and detailed and the Canadian in question, Vox journalist Zack Beauchamp, is dead-on accurate:
Canadians are so insulted, so infuriated because they have their own real sense of nationhood. One of the pillars of Canadian national identity is being not American, is that Canada is different from the other country near them. To say “You should just become part of the US” is to assail one of the foundations of what makes Canada Canada.
Correct. More of this, please.
Speaking of trade wars…
For the Toronto Star, I wrote about Doug Ford’s big salvo, which turned out to be a bit of a wet firecracker. Is he going to have the stomach for a painful fight? Note: That is a non-paywalled link, which appears to be a new Star feature. Handy!
Crisis in Leafs Nation
Well, not really. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. But the Mitch Marner non-trade has given the coming playoff run juuuuuuust a little more urgency. I considered all of this in my latest for theScore. (Also not paywalled, but you knew that.)
Thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend!
'Dear American Athlete - Imagine you are a 12 year old kid. Playing sports with your pals and dreaming of a 9th inning home run, buzzer beater basket, interception in the end zone or gold medal goal. But you are also listening to your parents talk about your home, in Canada. They are scared. They are talking about the U.S. President who is threatening to take over Canada. You are 12. How does that make you feel? Wondering why all the American athletes you love to watch are acting like it’s ok to threaten Canada.
American athlete please say something. Right now and before the Olympics. American athlete, if you wear that flag, you wear that threat. Canadians are your friends. Please stop.'
https://trkingston.substack.com/p/dear-american-athlete