I'm not sure how far I would generalize this to Americans at large, but the attitude that the Trump administration has had toward Canada and most or all of its allies is one that's recognizable to anyone who has ever dealt with a tyrannical boss, a toxic family member, or an emotionally abusive partner. Really anyone hell-bent on abusing a power differential in their favour.
The standard for you is one of deliberately impossible perfection. Anything short of that is cause for a total over-reaction as an excuse to abuse power and inflict pain on you for its own sake. Which makes sense because the goal is to both have you cater to their every whim, and also constantly remind you of the power imbalance. Only a veneer of a reason is required, and what that is, is decided purely by them. If they can't find anything, they just increase the standard until something appears, and the reaction is the same.
Meanwhile they have no standard for their own behaviour toward you, because you don't matter. They are allowed to do and say the most egregious shit, behave in the dumbest and most irresponsible fashion, and you just have to silently take it. Push back even a bit, regardless of how restrained or polite you are, or point any of this hypocrisy out, and the abuse just gets worse.
How right you are. Had a brother like that. “Derived pleasure from other people’s pain. Usually inflicted by him.” Spent my childhood ducking,running or hiding from him. Till I got big
The problem with that suggestion is that in making it, Mr Potter is making the same mistake of which he is accusing Americans, taking the whole instead of more closely examining the parts of the whole.
There are indeed many Americans, including the current president who can indeed stand so accused. But there are also many who do understand at least a good bit of what is happening, the problems with it, and the impact it is having on the rest of the world.
America is the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted. As such it is both a vast hope and, to some extent, an internal contradiction. It is also a remarkably new experiment. It took over two thousand years for any group larger than a big village to try anything like it, and another two thousand before a bunch of white guys in funny suits and weird whigs decided to try to make a nation based on the idea that human beings en masse might be able to rule themselves from the bottom up.
The American story is thus both relatively short and immensely complex, and it is perhaps not to be wondered at that they have ‘gotten it wrong’ at least as often as ‘they have gotten it right’.
No nation in the world has ever had entirely clean hands, although some have certain been far cleaner and some far dirtier than others. But the project upon which we were the first nation on earth to set ourselves is, as Tom Paine noted, to begin the world anew, and the whole world became then part of it
Though, I would amend: America did not invent the concept of democracy. We don't have to go back to Athens to observe that the Republic evolved out of the more incrementally democratic principles of the mother colony that founded it. And for proof of that, we need only look to Canada, Australia and basically the entire Anglosphere to see how those basic democratic principles manifested themselves over time. America was revolutionary in its imagination and implementation -- and I would even grant that some of the other Anglo democracies became more independent and freer in response to the success of that experiment -- but, it did not invent the world anew. It iterated. And while the Anglosphere as a whole is undeniably in a funk, I think it's also worth noting that other parallel democratic structures have managed to resist structural illiberalism more effectively than our dear experimental Republic to the south. At least, at present. There's some lesson validating a deeply Burkean worldview in that.
Also, while I'm quite amenable to an argument that leaves open the possibility of continued iteration and change in the midst of a still young and experimental democratic project, I'm not willing to extend that grace indefinitely or forever. There are standards that we can and should hold the present moment to. At a minimum: "Is what the country is doing working -- in the sense that the country's leadership has identified a strategic win condition that it is successfully working toward? And is that win condition a positive one that serves the nation's long-term interests as well as the interests of its short-term leaders?"
America is falling well short on both questions.
We can also hold a nation that identifies itself explicitly by its morals and values by those very morals and values. It's all fine and well and good to note that no country has gotten everything right or has perfectly clean hands. Because at the end of the day, we're all angry evil little monkeys doing the best we can in the face of an indifferent universe. We all fail. We all get a few mulligans. But America defines itself as unique and exceptional in the world. It isn't a nation that is based on shared ethnicity, as most nations are. It is a nation built on a set of ideals. Ideals, we should add, that have, in combination with extraordinary natural resources and geography, made it the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. Ideals that have become the basis upon which many other nations have chosen to place trust in it and look toward it for leadership and guidance. In short, America has to hold itself to the extraordinary standard that it sets for itself, especially if it wishes to consider itself a standard bearer of those ideals, and a leader in the world.
Here, again, America is falling short by its own self-determined standards. And we don't need to wait for the judgement of history to acknowledge what's happening, plainly, and in front of us, in real time. We also don't - and cannot - justify that failure according to a post hoc assumption that everything will out all right in the long run. It turns out all right for whom? And by whose accounting? Who makes it turn out all right but ourselves, working blindly today for the hope of a better tomorrow? All any of us can do in the current moment is to work for the future good. We can only hold ourselves to the standard of the moment because the future is always beyond our control.
I've said on the podcast a few times now: It's America's God-given destiny to lead humanity through the modern age in culture, science, government.
America was founded via black powder and lead shot. America has lasted 250 years under the a very old written constitution but democracy has to be fought for and it's currently under siege.
I'm not sure anymore if Americans recognize who they once were.
While I very much appreciate your long commentary in reply, I would argue that at bottom, the fact that the mother country that founded us was still, despite Magna Carta and all the rest, still partially stuck in a very ancient mode, begun when ‘the kingship descended from Heaven' in ancient Sumer. Also, of course, England’s treatment of the colonies under the economic theory of mercantilism was hardly an act of democratic impulse. We were there to be used to England’s benefit. That’s not to deny the long history of English parliamentarianism or the concepts whose origins were expressed in Magna Carta, but it cannot be forgotten that Magna Carta was itself hardly a model of democratic thought, only a means by which nobles who had no concept of democratic ideals attempted to curb an autocrat and his myrmidons.
Far more relevant is the tale of the Athenian experiment, which was done in by some of the same forces we now face – military adventurism, an overdependence of undifferentiated and unregulated individuality, hubris, imperialism, and cunning demagoguery. The fact that such occurred against the background of perhaps the most extraordinary half century of advancements in human social, political, artistic, architectural, philosophical, medical, and educational invention and thought only highlights the depth of the subsequent fall. It was as if we simply couldn’t handle both successfully.
Yes, we are falling short. We always have. Of course one could argue that applies to all human being as well as to nations, which are, after all, made up of human beings.
At the risk of entering into an even deeper area, however, I don’t believe our destiny, whatever it may be, is at all God-given.
Shakespeare put into McBeth’s mouth that famous phrase about an idiot strutting about on a stage, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I wouldn’t be prepared to go anywhere near that far. Indeed, I often try to balance it with Keat’s observation that “
Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty
That is all ye need to know on earth
And all ye need to know.
I do believe it is that is some form of that beauty we seek, despite the fact that we have often formulated versions of it so malformed and terrible that we later have trouble believing that any one or more of us could actually have done such things.
But to return to McBeth. What was the sound and fury which was heard upon that stage? To me it was the combination/contradiction of our humanity – an often very awkward mix of the animal, the poet, the builder, and the would-be god - the cacophony of our fears, our dreams, our tools, and our hubris.
In the end, we have yet to solve our most crucial problem, bequeathed to us by the Agricultural Revolution. What the hell do we do with all these people?
In your first paragraph, you note that England's colonies were there to be used to England's benefit.
For all American high-mindedness concerning their own ideals, and even granting that their first 250 years yielded impressive results that benefitted the larger world, is it not self-evident that American leadership today views most of the rest of the world as their de facto colonies that mainly exist to stay humble and thankful towards the USA , and to serve America's interests simply BECAUSE she is so great?
I think that's (one) point Andrew makes about America in his column, and Jen makes in her comment above.
America over the last 250 years has come full circle from their founding revolution to gain independence from stagnant, arrogant, bloated late-stage imperialism to become an even more grotesque version of that which they broke from.
You have not proposed anything that my post did not mention by implication if not by fact. I have nowhere suggested that we have achieved what our Framers set us to do. But your post ignores much of what we have achieved.
We remain that experiment, what one of the best Americans who ever lived called ’the last best hope of earth’. And the rest of the Western world and some in the east as well have taken up versions of that experiment in our wake. That remains our greatest contribution, and the fact that so many have sought something similar makes my case beyond any doubt. The fact that we ourselves have not fully honored that promise does not make the promise any less valuable.
We have our share of those who seem only to wish to denigrate us from within, often led by Donald Trump himself despite all the MAGA balderdash. And our last half century has clearly been marred by our four futile military adventures in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran.
And yes, some of our own have over time have sought to economically ‘colonize’ outside our borders. But you significantly overstate your case in making that the whole measure of us. You ignore what we did in two world wars and later during the Berlin Airlift. You ignore the Marshall Plan that helped to rebuild Europe afterwards. You ignore what we did to help contain communism around the world. You ignore what USAID and all its predecessors were doing in many places. And that is just a partial list.
As I said, no nation has clean hands. But no other nation on earth has been founded on an ideal, an ideal which remains before us all if we choose to grasp it.
Sir, I did, in fact, acknowledge the contributions of America to the wider to the wider world in my comment.
Please do not mistake me for a reflexive Anti-American Canadian; nothing could be further from the truth.
My professional career has taken me around the US in over half your states for four decades, and I have often a chosen to explore your wonderous country as a tourist.
Some of my most dear friends and colleagues are American, and love their country and its ideals as you do.
There have been periods of shame in my own country (most recently during the Trudeau II decade of decline) where I openly considered moving to the US, reaching out to the aforementioned friends and colleagues for their assistance in pursuing a life in America.
I didn't, and the main reason is that I realized in horror that the majority of Americans lost their own plot in electing a corrupted, self-important federal gerontocracy to represent and govern themselves over the last decade or more.
For 50 years I've vociferously defended America to Canadians who were reflexively Anti-USA. I did so through Trump I and Biden. After nearly two years of Trump II, my insistence to my friends and colleagues that Americans are not necessarily represented by the President elected by roughly a third of the US electorate is not even listened to politely any longer. Canadians, and much of the rest of the world, simply won't believe it in the face of the evidence before them.
America has become a victim of their own success and hubris. The America of my youth and young adulthood would have never elected a Joe Biden as President, let alone a Donald Trump - not once, but twice. They never would have let a Nancy Pilosi dominate and cling to power as long as she did. They never would put power-mad frat boy imbeciles as the civilian head of their military. Trump II is Nero fiddling while Rome (USA) burns. I could go on and on. Your national indebtedness should be a source of national emergency, but regardless of party the party rages on in America.
I desperately want to be wrong in my despair for your country, but your electorate replaced one addled corrupt 80 year old President with another from the other brand of the UniParty. I see no one in the Democratic Party worthy to course correct. Kamala Harris ? Please. Gavin Newsom? Please. The GOP counters with JD Vance or Ron DeSantis? Please, just stop.
The best medicine for America would be a massive and sustained dosage of humility for at least a decade and likely two. I believe it's on the way.from combined forces from within and beyond America, but too late to allow it to recover to what it once aspired to be. I'm not happy about the prospect in the least, but as ever, and alas I fear for the USA, pride will have preceeded the fall, and the world may be torn asunder as a consequence.
You appear fixated on a vision that is only half true. There are far more candidates and ideas bubbling up down here than Newsom. And no one can say what a Harris presidency might have been. Pelosi did far more good than not. Even Biden, for all that he never should have sought a second term, accomplished far more than is generally acknowledged.
Trump is a test we had to have. Our own complacency demand it, and here it is. I cannot say how we will emerge from it. But I do know that there are many working to make that emergence a far more positive road than you may suppose.
In answer to your last question. I would say let them all industrialize as with that comes a demographic shift and decline. I would think the lack of self discipline to anticipate that trend by creating entitlement’s based on perpetual growth will be our bigger problem soon.
That doesn’t answer the question, which has to do with governing. We’be been tinkering with ways of doing that for just over five thousand years, and we haven’t got it quite right yet.
The United States is really big. Hard to understand how big and diverse it really is. Nevertheless it has a government, that for whatever its flaws, acts on behalf of its people. And it is currently acting like a Karen.
This isn't like North Korea. If the American people think they're getting a bad rap because of the actions of their government... they can change the government so it acts differently. But even if they do, some judgment is appropriate for what has happened in the interim.
No one judges America more harshly than some Americans do. Our own right wing is constantly accusing our left wing of ‘hating America’. It isn’t true, but the truth has always been a variable quantity when it collides with politics.
Whatever happens because of our current administration, many of us understand how far wrong it has gone, but to suggest that it is acting on behalf of its people is not the case. In fact, it is currently acting only on its own behalf. The problem is that many of us have so sunk themselves in the belief that it is acting on their behalf that they find it really hard to admit otherwise.
Our political process is a complicated one. Like our legal system, it does tend to give more room for error than it might, and because of it, our legal and electoral system can take what may seem an ungodly amount of time to self-correct, even assuming that it can.
But what is happening down here is something unlike anything in our history since our Civil War. An increasing number of us are realizing that we had taken the strength and stability of our republic for granted, not understanding how fragile it is. I honestly don’t know how, or even if we can ger ourselves out of this morass. Nor am I trying to excuse what this administration, often with the complicity of far too many of us, is doing both nationally and internationally. But lumping us all together is as futile an effort as would be lumping all the citizens of any nation all together.
What people ought to be doing then, while looking at our example, is taking stock of their own systems with the understanding that any governmental system can go either well or not well, depending not just on those running it, but also on all the rest of the nation.
As the English poet John Dunne noted, “Therefor do not send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”
I think Jen covered this well in our recent dispatch — we understand, James, that not every American is causing this problem. But we also understand that even those Americans, the ones who aren't causing the problems, also aren't doing anything to stop them or help us. You're inert, at best. And that's fine. Just don't expect too many hosannas for being the sociological and political equivalent of argon — present, but irrelevant.
I'm also fascinated to see how long until we're just unironically seeing people describe themselves as the Good Americans.
I think you've also hinted at how the current American administration views most of the rest of the world - as a periodic table in which the USA is Carbon, and all other nations (elements) exist only to be subservient to and offer themselves to help The Great Carbon to build compounds that demonstrate its greatness.
You don’t seem to have a clear idea about what’s going on down here. That’s partially because of the differences in our governmental systems and partially because it is hard to understand all the goings on down here. But inertia is not the problem.
I think I have a better-than-average understanding of what's going on, but that's not even the right metric. This is the usual input-output problem. I'm less interested in what's happening than I am in what it's accomplishing. On the metrics that matter for most U.S. allies, things are not getting better, or even stabilizing. They're getting worse.
The most discouraging feature of current American politics is that neither party seems interesting in appealing to a majority of Americans. Instead, they’re both obsessed with fixations of a political fringe and seek to eke out election wins with a base mobilization strategy. It’s a choice between toxic, economically illiterate, brain-dead right wing populism and toxic, economically illiterate, brain-dead left wing populism. It seems destined to stay that way because most Americans have ceded control to the minority of extremists who will actually bother to show up for primary elections.
"We *will* have a female person of color president even if we have to lose 100 elections to extremely flawed and otherwise easily defeatable criminally corrupt idiot Republicans whose entire platform is to set the world on fire. If Americans won't vote for our diversity hire candidate the consequences are on them. Also we want to ban and confiscate all your guns and don't believe in borders."
That is an exceedingly simplistic, one-sided analysis of what is actually happening here.
It is true that our ossified binary political party system is responsible for much of what has gone wrong here, but you may have overlooked that the majority of Americans are now becoming Independents, feeling that neither party structure answers the national needs. This is a healthy movement, although it remains to be seen what effect it will have.
It doesn’t matter if most Americans are becoming independent. The candidates selected by the parties and only certain politically motivated people vote in primaries.
It is extremely rare for an independent to win a seat in Congress.
I’m identifying one partial derivative of a complex political topology, but it’s an important one. Meanwhile, growing numbers of people declaring themselves as independent hasn’t changed the fact that they continue to lean towards one party consistently. A 3rd party would be an interesting development, but it’s challenging due to systems that have been set up to favor the incumbent parties at both national and state level. I suspect what’s most likely to happen is for a new party to rise up as one of the existing parties dies, just as the Republicans replaced the Whigs 150 years ago. However, even that’s complicated by the fact that activists are driving both parties off the cliff.
Not all ‘activists’ are cliff hunters. Yes, there is a stochastic political event happening down here, but much of what is bubbling up is actively seeking improvement. This is entirely natural in a democracy under siege. After all, it was just such a ‘bubbling up’ that designed us in the first place.
Clearly I can’t say where or how it will end, if it does. But being an historian, even if an amateur one, gives me a very long view.
'Leaning toward’ one party or another is not the same as seeking better answers regardless of what one party or another may seem to stand for.
No, we aren't. The world will adapt to an American dictatorship. Nothing changes when Trump dies. Until proven otherwise, the world as we knew it is gone. The US is no longer a reliable friend or ally, so we're in the process of pivoting to other economic options to try and save ourselves. It's going to be ugly because it's necessary. Trump wants the US to be an island that everyone pledges fealty to. That's not going to happen. China is horrible to deal with, but they're pragmatic. The current US is irrational. No one can work with that. So we adapt.
The world we knew, eh. Which world was that? The one immediately following WWII. The world following Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The world in the midst of the Cold War? The world after 9/11? The world after the theocratic takeover in Iran? The world after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? The world in which fascism is on the rise and democracy on the defensive?
No matter what Trump or any other national leader wants, no nation is or can be an island anymore. He’s already finding that out. As is Putin. As is XI. And god only knows what the world wil become once AI becomes even more influential than it already is.
If our history since the end of WWII proves anything, it is that there is no stasis, no matter how much one might wish for it. The NATO ‘umbrella' was never really tested, and there’s no telling what might have happened if it had been.
In the end, there is one question we’ve never been able to answer satisfactorily, at least not since the Agricultural revolution gave us the power to multiply beyond the natural capacity of the earth to sustain us. - What the hell do we do with all these people?
> America is the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted.
Oh good grief.. .no it is not.
That's the self-agrandizing "we are the most special people EVAH!!!" mythology the Americans feed themselves.
Amen. James is a wonderful writer, but perhaps a little caught up in his prose. It has always been easy to wax eloquently about the unique qualities of the world’s current hegemon, but when they have their boot on your neck they all look kinda’ the same.
Actually it is. And if you can actually prove otherwise based on history and the ideas of the Framers and the nature of the Constitution, I’d be interested to hear it.
You’ll note that I said nothing about how well the experiment is going.
You've made a faith claim, not a serious. "It's the most crucial experiment human society ever!" This is a value claim akin to "my values are the best values". "Riskiest"? Classic catastrophizing.. If something goes wrong in America, it's the biggest disaster to befall humanity.
This isn't a serious claim, it's a faith/myth/identity/value/narrative statement. It's the Americans own version of mythology that a people tell themselves about the identity they project onto themselves and as is typical of all such narratives, it's aggrandizing.
The United States is a rich and powerful country. The richest and most powerful single country so far. It's a democracy that has some unique features and some features in common with other countries.
But what makes the US "special" is very simple. It's what I said earlier. MONEY. The US is rich and geographically secure which has made it powerful. (Both largely come from it's geography, but not exclusively.)
It's really that simple.
Culturally, they've got some hangups, (as we all do) and one of theirs has been a persistent idea that their constitution is sort-of scripture and their founders are sort-of prophets of old. You see this most clearly when Americans publish special versions of the Bible that include their constitution. (Just think over for a moment about how deeply ludicrous it is to do that...)
But this isn't new. It's long been gets mixed in with Christian ideas of God's providence, a chosen people, a divinely mandated nation and it gets regurgitated as "most special ever!!".
This mixing of Scripture and Politics you reference is brilliantly explored in Tim Alberta's book The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory, which Jen Gerson recommended and which I thoroughly enjoyed and was horrified by reading.
Unfortunately we have quite a bit of the same tendencies described in that book here in Alberta, and perhaps elsewhere in Canada.
I guess I’ll argue that outside of the Roman Republic, there has been nothing close in known human history politically, economically and influentially to the USA. It’s a democracy and free market economy of 350M people. I think the free market economy is maybe what makes it most unique (and powerful) - just the scale and diffusion of it. Even Europe (where the economic ideas came from to start) hasn’t come close to what the US has achieved on this front. It’s the general freedom and social and economic mobility of its populous which makes it unique in human history in my view. The capacity for general merit based wealth creation by its population. I think that’s what makes it most unique in history.
It seems to me that the British Empire along with kicking off the industrial revolution seems rather significant. ;-)
> It’s the general freedom and social and economic mobility of its populous which makes it unique in human history in my view.
Not unique. Those are pretty common. And it's worth noting.. the Americans clinging to slavery long after it was outlawed elsewhere and then their backsliding into Jim Crow and all of that puts a rather big asterisk next to that achievement.
But yes, it was an achievement. It was. It's just not as special as Americans tell themselves.
I think the true magic of the US economy appeared post 1939, although you could argue the turn into the 20th century too up until the Great Depression.
I don’t think GB’s success is of the same nature. Their empire’s wealth and power was brought about morseo from successful colonial endeavors rather than personal economic freedom and ingenuity. I still argue the breadth and success of US personal economic freedom, and the power, wealth and innovation that’s generated, stands alone in history.
The other item I’ll note - which I’m not sure is unique in history, but admirable nontheless, was the founding fathers - victors of the revolutionary war, formulating a constitution and form of government that ensured they would not and could not hold power in perpetuity. And the fact that (despite that government’s now obviously warts) it has stood the test of time. Whatever your political stripe, that founding document still seems to unite and inspire US citizens and beyond, imperfect as its execution may be in action.
Respect is to be earned,humility is a virtue. Psycho analyze all you like,but none of us like being ridiculed,talked at like we are idiots. Yeah,they have done some good things. But so have we. What’s so wrong with standing up for ourselves. Oh wait,drop a knee! Works everytime! Not!!
Profound sense of American exceptionalism noted. Sincere question, in multiple replies you keep alluding to "things going on down here ... for the better". What "things" are you referring to? From up here there is nothing good or beneficial happening.
I am by formal training a pre-historian and by inclination an amateur historian of both the US and the world, so I have a long view of things. Keep that in mind as you read this.
There is not space nor time to delve into all of it. Suffice to say that we (at least most of us) have been severely shaken up by what we’ve stumbled into, largely through a combination of our own complacency, our ignorance of our history, our misunderstanding of the full nature and complexity of the experiment upon which our Framers launched us, and the emergence (not for the first time, but for the most successful time) of a cunning demagogue who knew just how to play on the grievances (real and imagined) of nearly half of us.
Like a sleeper awakening, more and more of us are reacting to that shaking. The result is a bubbling up of a number of possible solutions, whole where possible, but mostly initially partial to the problem posed by all of that.
What will come of it I cannot say. But at the core of it is the understanding that ‘American exceptionalism’ is not a state we had ever achieved, but rather, as Martin Luther King once called it, a promissory note.
There will not be any concrete proof of where this awaking will lead us until the November midterm elections. Our system was not designed for significant change in the moment. It was also necessary for a sufficient number of Trump’s supporters to realize that he was doing them as much harm as they thought he was doing to the rest of us. Fortunately, he is working very hard (albeit not intentionally) to bring that realization about.
Ideally the results of the midterms will be to achieve a fine balance between the nation we want to become and making sure that Trump and his myrmidons pay a price for their depredations. That is a large demand, and I don’t know if we will achieve it.
Several very competent American historians believe our Framers would be surprised that we had lasted this long as something at least akin to what they had in mind. It was, after all, only a first attempt at something new under the political sun, and as such flawed in both inception and design. It was and remains a fragile thing, fraught with potential misunderstanding and misapplication. Yet we have survived for 250 years (not long as history goes, but not entirely incidental either). And the impetus for our creation goes back a very long way in human history. So we will see.
appreciate your reply. Hmmm, not sure I agree 100%, as I dont think his election was an accident or that he hood-winked anyone. It was plain as day how deplorable a human he was, and he was voted in. I think sadly for you/for me/for all the world, he is a reflection of the American soul right now. Individualism in the extreme, steal and grab all you can, ignore the rules and principles and laws that were created to regulate society, if you can just scam fast and hard enough. I think his rapid destruction of all the checks and balances, and appointment of grossly unqualified loyalists who are all collectively on the take, and are therefore scared of him has revealed how fragile the American structures are. The US is a ganster state right now, totally lawless at the top. The founding fathers would be rolling in their graves. I love love your optimism, and I dearly hope you are right. Im not so sure the midterms will be as significant as you hope. I sadly suspect it will play out longer and more painfully. I do worry very much how the ship rights itself. I think the right wingers are too entrenched in their beliefs and hatred to admit they were wrong and are the problem.
"as I dont think his election was an accident or that he hood-winked anyone”
It certainly wasn’t an accident, and I wouldn’t say that he hoodwinked everyone who voted for him, but there can be little doubt that a substantial majority did believe that he had their interests at heart, which he certainly did not. And one has to take into account the four years of propaganda that he had his echo chamber manufactured to substantial his ‘victimhood’ as well as those Republicans who have so completely sold their souls to him.
The internet has ushered in an entirely new political atmosphere in which many seek to find (and all too many are happy to provide) simple answers to problems both national and international that are anything but. The complexity and interconnectedness of the modern world leave many (and not just in the US) confused and often frightened, unable or unwilling to attempt to understand it.
One also has to take into account our Supreme Court who granted him a partial ‘get out of jail’ card in Trump v USA without which he would almost certainly now be in jail.
Biden and the Democrats who backed Biden until they couldn’t anymore were also partially to blame.
To call us a gangster state, while in some respects accurate at this moment does ignore the exceptional diversity and complexity of our political life and the slow pace of our legal and constitutional order.
I know it would be easy to suggest that I’m trying to make excuses for us. I’m not. I’m horrified at what he’s doing and deeply ashamed of those of us who are so enabling him, especially those who know who he is and what he wants and still refuse to oppose him. At the same time, it is most crucial that more of us understand what’s really going on here and how both our history and our politics have led us to this point.
The world is, I believe at one of its major tipping points, not helped by some of the technological advances that are already upon us, but not yet fully realized. Yet it is inhabited and ‘controlled’ by an intelligent yet highly parochial species, some essential parts of whose genetic makeup is still back in it’s primate past.
Many Americans don’t know much about the world outside America. They’re a huge country that has outsized cultural, economic, and political influence - it’s easy to navel-gaze. Combine that with a notion of American exceptionalism that’s curdled into simple chauvinism, and you get the Ugly American.
These people think America is the best at everything; where things are different, they’re either silly or wrong. Where America isn’t winning, others must be cheating because tautologically Americans are always winners. Donald Trump is their exemplar and champion.
I’m afraid I see some of the same traits among a lot of Canadians, a smug certainty of superiority. You see it in Torontonians who think they’re the Centre of the Universe, you see it in Albertans who think they’re a unique conservative and free enterprise paradise. The solution is pretty simple: pull your head out of your own butt and learn more about the world around you, and be open to changing your mind.
It could be argued that by the definition in the article Canada is a nation full of Karens all with some perceived status of victimhood which varies according to which particular tribe of Karens they choose to align with.
-the decline of the manufacturing industry wasn't due to poor competitive, rather Dutch Disease brought on by the resource boom
-a decade of stagnant productivity was due to Orange Man Bad rather than Red Party Bad
-Federal civil servants are victims of poor working conditions and can't go into the office even though they are amongst the most entitled workers given their absolutely job security and defined benefit pensions
The article while it makes some valid points seems to me to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Canada’s army (ok, militia) of entitled real estate owning pension indexed elbozo boomers is a match for any American Karenocracy. And mocking US accents is no different than the Montreal tourists pullulating Hollywood Florida in the winter complaining “why dey honly speak da Henglish ere?” IMO The caste of matrons from Rosedale and Rockliffe (and their Vancouver and Montreal equivalents) are Canada’s equivalent to US Karenocracy. The sad issue is that both groups dominate politics to an extent far above their numbers or the merits of their argument. And the mainstream parties are so afraid of losing electoral seats that they filter prospective candidates ( more obviously in Canada than the US) to ensure nobody will rock the boat or challenge party dogma. So elections generally result in a choice between a blue soyboy or a red soyboy (or their female equivalents). Not a recipe for progress is it?
It daily becomes harder to differentiate Americans from their government. "We didn't vote for him to do this" is another utterly exhausting deflection from reality. The conversation usually ends when it is mentioned that only Americans chose him and the rest of the world didn't get a vote.
Billionaires don't understand the consequences of their actions because they've never experienced the suffering they cause. They're just lines on a spreadsheet.
Americans did this to themselves and to the world. I don't care what gets put back on the shelves...the only way I'll buy it is if there is no other option. I haven't been in a Home Depot since 2015. Whether they understand it or not, they have declared economic war on us. The time for pleasantries has passed. And I really don't care what happens to them anymore. We'll find out in November if they care about their country. Until then, they don't, so I don't.
Your broad thesis of America, in general, and Trump and his cronies in particular consistently playing the victim and weaponizing the act as a negotiating tool is right on and brutally infuriating for Canadians who are paying attention. It's as if we're all in the car on a family trip and big brother is bored so he pokes little brothers buttons until all hell breaks loose and we're forced to pull over. Except with Trump there's no adult in the car and no escaping this highway.
Canadians have had enough of the play acting from the states. They are victims of their own arrogance and ignorance. There's no escaping the USA for us. Take solace in the knowledge that Trump is heading fast for lame duck status.
Good points including some of the comments. I would add that in addition to some fires from WA State crossing the border there is a huge amount of American fire smoke crossing the border during the fire season — always. Apparently Yanks are unaware of this?
Great article! Been there. Arrived early to one of half a dozen side terminals at YEG,Edmonton,private flights to Fort McMuck,AB area UpGraders. Standing outside,by myself,in the Smoking Zone. This American steps into the Yellow Zone(painted tarmac) and without any prompting tells me what’s wrong with Canada. No matter how much shuffling away I attempted,he got louder and closer. I’m guessing he’s never been ‘Cowboy Slapped’, or warned of not minding his mouth. “We (Canadians) are letting in all kinds of people…” I cut him off,looked him in the eye and said “Yeah,we sure are!” As I flicked my cigarette butt at him. Totally against my ethics,I hate litter bugs! hahahaha! Another TFW,insulator! Is that even a trade? lol
This article may be an otherwise intelligent piece, possibly well researched and written, but the writer lost me with their tiresome use of “Karen” to describe a certain element of our world. I suggest that this writer (and others) could “do better” with their words, but suggesting an improvement with this overused phrase has become as cheap, common and overused, as the slangy references to “Karen”.
In case this writer and The Line Editors don’t have any real life Karens in their world, please know that adults, teens and children who were given the name Karen at birth do exist and are real people.
Can some great writer out there create a new English word or phrase to describe this type of individual?
"Karen" is a derogatory term for older white women. It is racist, sexist, and ageist. It stereotypes an entire group. If derogatory terms for some ethnic groups are unacceptable, why is "Karen" OK? And why are people you are denigrating likened to older white women?? Think about it. Please find a better term that does not stereotype and insult a whole group of people.
They demand we do something about forest fires. I can only hope that the Americans are making plans to ensure that Mt Saint Helen’s does not blow up again…..and the resulting effect on Western Canada….?
Are they seeking reparations from the Icelandic volcano of 2010 that shut down North Atlantic air space for approximately a week?
I 100% agree with the article BUT as someone whose name is Karen, I'm really looking forward to the day when my name is no longer a synonym for ignorant, entitled asshole. :-)
I'm not sure how far I would generalize this to Americans at large, but the attitude that the Trump administration has had toward Canada and most or all of its allies is one that's recognizable to anyone who has ever dealt with a tyrannical boss, a toxic family member, or an emotionally abusive partner. Really anyone hell-bent on abusing a power differential in their favour.
The standard for you is one of deliberately impossible perfection. Anything short of that is cause for a total over-reaction as an excuse to abuse power and inflict pain on you for its own sake. Which makes sense because the goal is to both have you cater to their every whim, and also constantly remind you of the power imbalance. Only a veneer of a reason is required, and what that is, is decided purely by them. If they can't find anything, they just increase the standard until something appears, and the reaction is the same.
Meanwhile they have no standard for their own behaviour toward you, because you don't matter. They are allowed to do and say the most egregious shit, behave in the dumbest and most irresponsible fashion, and you just have to silently take it. Push back even a bit, regardless of how restrained or polite you are, or point any of this hypocrisy out, and the abuse just gets worse.
This is really well put together. Thanks!
How right you are. Had a brother like that. “Derived pleasure from other people’s pain. Usually inflicted by him.” Spent my childhood ducking,running or hiding from him. Till I got big
The problem with that suggestion is that in making it, Mr Potter is making the same mistake of which he is accusing Americans, taking the whole instead of more closely examining the parts of the whole.
There are indeed many Americans, including the current president who can indeed stand so accused. But there are also many who do understand at least a good bit of what is happening, the problems with it, and the impact it is having on the rest of the world.
America is the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted. As such it is both a vast hope and, to some extent, an internal contradiction. It is also a remarkably new experiment. It took over two thousand years for any group larger than a big village to try anything like it, and another two thousand before a bunch of white guys in funny suits and weird whigs decided to try to make a nation based on the idea that human beings en masse might be able to rule themselves from the bottom up.
The American story is thus both relatively short and immensely complex, and it is perhaps not to be wondered at that they have ‘gotten it wrong’ at least as often as ‘they have gotten it right’.
No nation in the world has ever had entirely clean hands, although some have certain been far cleaner and some far dirtier than others. But the project upon which we were the first nation on earth to set ourselves is, as Tom Paine noted, to begin the world anew, and the whole world became then part of it
Though, I would amend: America did not invent the concept of democracy. We don't have to go back to Athens to observe that the Republic evolved out of the more incrementally democratic principles of the mother colony that founded it. And for proof of that, we need only look to Canada, Australia and basically the entire Anglosphere to see how those basic democratic principles manifested themselves over time. America was revolutionary in its imagination and implementation -- and I would even grant that some of the other Anglo democracies became more independent and freer in response to the success of that experiment -- but, it did not invent the world anew. It iterated. And while the Anglosphere as a whole is undeniably in a funk, I think it's also worth noting that other parallel democratic structures have managed to resist structural illiberalism more effectively than our dear experimental Republic to the south. At least, at present. There's some lesson validating a deeply Burkean worldview in that.
Also, while I'm quite amenable to an argument that leaves open the possibility of continued iteration and change in the midst of a still young and experimental democratic project, I'm not willing to extend that grace indefinitely or forever. There are standards that we can and should hold the present moment to. At a minimum: "Is what the country is doing working -- in the sense that the country's leadership has identified a strategic win condition that it is successfully working toward? And is that win condition a positive one that serves the nation's long-term interests as well as the interests of its short-term leaders?"
America is falling well short on both questions.
We can also hold a nation that identifies itself explicitly by its morals and values by those very morals and values. It's all fine and well and good to note that no country has gotten everything right or has perfectly clean hands. Because at the end of the day, we're all angry evil little monkeys doing the best we can in the face of an indifferent universe. We all fail. We all get a few mulligans. But America defines itself as unique and exceptional in the world. It isn't a nation that is based on shared ethnicity, as most nations are. It is a nation built on a set of ideals. Ideals, we should add, that have, in combination with extraordinary natural resources and geography, made it the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. Ideals that have become the basis upon which many other nations have chosen to place trust in it and look toward it for leadership and guidance. In short, America has to hold itself to the extraordinary standard that it sets for itself, especially if it wishes to consider itself a standard bearer of those ideals, and a leader in the world.
Here, again, America is falling short by its own self-determined standards. And we don't need to wait for the judgement of history to acknowledge what's happening, plainly, and in front of us, in real time. We also don't - and cannot - justify that failure according to a post hoc assumption that everything will out all right in the long run. It turns out all right for whom? And by whose accounting? Who makes it turn out all right but ourselves, working blindly today for the hope of a better tomorrow? All any of us can do in the current moment is to work for the future good. We can only hold ourselves to the standard of the moment because the future is always beyond our control.
I've said on the podcast a few times now: It's America's God-given destiny to lead humanity through the modern age in culture, science, government.
It's Canada's destiny to survive America.
We're both falling short.
-Jen G
America was founded via black powder and lead shot. America has lasted 250 years under the a very old written constitution but democracy has to be fought for and it's currently under siege.
I'm not sure anymore if Americans recognize who they once were.
While I very much appreciate your long commentary in reply, I would argue that at bottom, the fact that the mother country that founded us was still, despite Magna Carta and all the rest, still partially stuck in a very ancient mode, begun when ‘the kingship descended from Heaven' in ancient Sumer. Also, of course, England’s treatment of the colonies under the economic theory of mercantilism was hardly an act of democratic impulse. We were there to be used to England’s benefit. That’s not to deny the long history of English parliamentarianism or the concepts whose origins were expressed in Magna Carta, but it cannot be forgotten that Magna Carta was itself hardly a model of democratic thought, only a means by which nobles who had no concept of democratic ideals attempted to curb an autocrat and his myrmidons.
Far more relevant is the tale of the Athenian experiment, which was done in by some of the same forces we now face – military adventurism, an overdependence of undifferentiated and unregulated individuality, hubris, imperialism, and cunning demagoguery. The fact that such occurred against the background of perhaps the most extraordinary half century of advancements in human social, political, artistic, architectural, philosophical, medical, and educational invention and thought only highlights the depth of the subsequent fall. It was as if we simply couldn’t handle both successfully.
Yes, we are falling short. We always have. Of course one could argue that applies to all human being as well as to nations, which are, after all, made up of human beings.
At the risk of entering into an even deeper area, however, I don’t believe our destiny, whatever it may be, is at all God-given.
Shakespeare put into McBeth’s mouth that famous phrase about an idiot strutting about on a stage, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I wouldn’t be prepared to go anywhere near that far. Indeed, I often try to balance it with Keat’s observation that “
Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty
That is all ye need to know on earth
And all ye need to know.
I do believe it is that is some form of that beauty we seek, despite the fact that we have often formulated versions of it so malformed and terrible that we later have trouble believing that any one or more of us could actually have done such things.
But to return to McBeth. What was the sound and fury which was heard upon that stage? To me it was the combination/contradiction of our humanity – an often very awkward mix of the animal, the poet, the builder, and the would-be god - the cacophony of our fears, our dreams, our tools, and our hubris.
In the end, we have yet to solve our most crucial problem, bequeathed to us by the Agricultural Revolution. What the hell do we do with all these people?
An interesting comment.
In your first paragraph, you note that England's colonies were there to be used to England's benefit.
For all American high-mindedness concerning their own ideals, and even granting that their first 250 years yielded impressive results that benefitted the larger world, is it not self-evident that American leadership today views most of the rest of the world as their de facto colonies that mainly exist to stay humble and thankful towards the USA , and to serve America's interests simply BECAUSE she is so great?
I think that's (one) point Andrew makes about America in his column, and Jen makes in her comment above.
America over the last 250 years has come full circle from their founding revolution to gain independence from stagnant, arrogant, bloated late-stage imperialism to become an even more grotesque version of that which they broke from.
You have not proposed anything that my post did not mention by implication if not by fact. I have nowhere suggested that we have achieved what our Framers set us to do. But your post ignores much of what we have achieved.
We remain that experiment, what one of the best Americans who ever lived called ’the last best hope of earth’. And the rest of the Western world and some in the east as well have taken up versions of that experiment in our wake. That remains our greatest contribution, and the fact that so many have sought something similar makes my case beyond any doubt. The fact that we ourselves have not fully honored that promise does not make the promise any less valuable.
We have our share of those who seem only to wish to denigrate us from within, often led by Donald Trump himself despite all the MAGA balderdash. And our last half century has clearly been marred by our four futile military adventures in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran.
And yes, some of our own have over time have sought to economically ‘colonize’ outside our borders. But you significantly overstate your case in making that the whole measure of us. You ignore what we did in two world wars and later during the Berlin Airlift. You ignore the Marshall Plan that helped to rebuild Europe afterwards. You ignore what we did to help contain communism around the world. You ignore what USAID and all its predecessors were doing in many places. And that is just a partial list.
As I said, no nation has clean hands. But no other nation on earth has been founded on an ideal, an ideal which remains before us all if we choose to grasp it.
Sir, I did, in fact, acknowledge the contributions of America to the wider to the wider world in my comment.
Please do not mistake me for a reflexive Anti-American Canadian; nothing could be further from the truth.
My professional career has taken me around the US in over half your states for four decades, and I have often a chosen to explore your wonderous country as a tourist.
Some of my most dear friends and colleagues are American, and love their country and its ideals as you do.
There have been periods of shame in my own country (most recently during the Trudeau II decade of decline) where I openly considered moving to the US, reaching out to the aforementioned friends and colleagues for their assistance in pursuing a life in America.
I didn't, and the main reason is that I realized in horror that the majority of Americans lost their own plot in electing a corrupted, self-important federal gerontocracy to represent and govern themselves over the last decade or more.
For 50 years I've vociferously defended America to Canadians who were reflexively Anti-USA. I did so through Trump I and Biden. After nearly two years of Trump II, my insistence to my friends and colleagues that Americans are not necessarily represented by the President elected by roughly a third of the US electorate is not even listened to politely any longer. Canadians, and much of the rest of the world, simply won't believe it in the face of the evidence before them.
America has become a victim of their own success and hubris. The America of my youth and young adulthood would have never elected a Joe Biden as President, let alone a Donald Trump - not once, but twice. They never would have let a Nancy Pilosi dominate and cling to power as long as she did. They never would put power-mad frat boy imbeciles as the civilian head of their military. Trump II is Nero fiddling while Rome (USA) burns. I could go on and on. Your national indebtedness should be a source of national emergency, but regardless of party the party rages on in America.
I desperately want to be wrong in my despair for your country, but your electorate replaced one addled corrupt 80 year old President with another from the other brand of the UniParty. I see no one in the Democratic Party worthy to course correct. Kamala Harris ? Please. Gavin Newsom? Please. The GOP counters with JD Vance or Ron DeSantis? Please, just stop.
The best medicine for America would be a massive and sustained dosage of humility for at least a decade and likely two. I believe it's on the way.from combined forces from within and beyond America, but too late to allow it to recover to what it once aspired to be. I'm not happy about the prospect in the least, but as ever, and alas I fear for the USA, pride will have preceeded the fall, and the world may be torn asunder as a consequence.
You appear fixated on a vision that is only half true. There are far more candidates and ideas bubbling up down here than Newsom. And no one can say what a Harris presidency might have been. Pelosi did far more good than not. Even Biden, for all that he never should have sought a second term, accomplished far more than is generally acknowledged.
Trump is a test we had to have. Our own complacency demand it, and here it is. I cannot say how we will emerge from it. But I do know that there are many working to make that emergence a far more positive road than you may suppose.
In answer to your last question. I would say let them all industrialize as with that comes a demographic shift and decline. I would think the lack of self discipline to anticipate that trend by creating entitlement’s based on perpetual growth will be our bigger problem soon.
That doesn’t answer the question, which has to do with governing. We’be been tinkering with ways of doing that for just over five thousand years, and we haven’t got it quite right yet.
Fwiw, I quite like this comment. JG
The United States is really big. Hard to understand how big and diverse it really is. Nevertheless it has a government, that for whatever its flaws, acts on behalf of its people. And it is currently acting like a Karen.
This isn't like North Korea. If the American people think they're getting a bad rap because of the actions of their government... they can change the government so it acts differently. But even if they do, some judgment is appropriate for what has happened in the interim.
No one judges America more harshly than some Americans do. Our own right wing is constantly accusing our left wing of ‘hating America’. It isn’t true, but the truth has always been a variable quantity when it collides with politics.
Whatever happens because of our current administration, many of us understand how far wrong it has gone, but to suggest that it is acting on behalf of its people is not the case. In fact, it is currently acting only on its own behalf. The problem is that many of us have so sunk themselves in the belief that it is acting on their behalf that they find it really hard to admit otherwise.
Our political process is a complicated one. Like our legal system, it does tend to give more room for error than it might, and because of it, our legal and electoral system can take what may seem an ungodly amount of time to self-correct, even assuming that it can.
But what is happening down here is something unlike anything in our history since our Civil War. An increasing number of us are realizing that we had taken the strength and stability of our republic for granted, not understanding how fragile it is. I honestly don’t know how, or even if we can ger ourselves out of this morass. Nor am I trying to excuse what this administration, often with the complicity of far too many of us, is doing both nationally and internationally. But lumping us all together is as futile an effort as would be lumping all the citizens of any nation all together.
What people ought to be doing then, while looking at our example, is taking stock of their own systems with the understanding that any governmental system can go either well or not well, depending not just on those running it, but also on all the rest of the nation.
As the English poet John Dunne noted, “Therefor do not send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”
I think Jen covered this well in our recent dispatch — we understand, James, that not every American is causing this problem. But we also understand that even those Americans, the ones who aren't causing the problems, also aren't doing anything to stop them or help us. You're inert, at best. And that's fine. Just don't expect too many hosannas for being the sociological and political equivalent of argon — present, but irrelevant.
I'm also fascinated to see how long until we're just unironically seeing people describe themselves as the Good Americans.
I think you've also hinted at how the current American administration views most of the rest of the world - as a periodic table in which the USA is Carbon, and all other nations (elements) exist only to be subservient to and offer themselves to help The Great Carbon to build compounds that demonstrate its greatness.
You don’t seem to have a clear idea about what’s going on down here. That’s partially because of the differences in our governmental systems and partially because it is hard to understand all the goings on down here. But inertia is not the problem.
I think I have a better-than-average understanding of what's going on, but that's not even the right metric. This is the usual input-output problem. I'm less interested in what's happening than I am in what it's accomplishing. On the metrics that matter for most U.S. allies, things are not getting better, or even stabilizing. They're getting worse.
Accomplishment follows what’s happening. It doesn’t precede it.
The most discouraging feature of current American politics is that neither party seems interesting in appealing to a majority of Americans. Instead, they’re both obsessed with fixations of a political fringe and seek to eke out election wins with a base mobilization strategy. It’s a choice between toxic, economically illiterate, brain-dead right wing populism and toxic, economically illiterate, brain-dead left wing populism. It seems destined to stay that way because most Americans have ceded control to the minority of extremists who will actually bother to show up for primary elections.
"We *will* have a female person of color president even if we have to lose 100 elections to extremely flawed and otherwise easily defeatable criminally corrupt idiot Republicans whose entire platform is to set the world on fire. If Americans won't vote for our diversity hire candidate the consequences are on them. Also we want to ban and confiscate all your guns and don't believe in borders."
That is an exceedingly simplistic, one-sided analysis of what is actually happening here.
It is true that our ossified binary political party system is responsible for much of what has gone wrong here, but you may have overlooked that the majority of Americans are now becoming Independents, feeling that neither party structure answers the national needs. This is a healthy movement, although it remains to be seen what effect it will have.
It doesn’t matter if most Americans are becoming independent. The candidates selected by the parties and only certain politically motivated people vote in primaries.
It is extremely rare for an independent to win a seat in Congress.
The past is prologue, but only prologue, not a prediction.
I’m identifying one partial derivative of a complex political topology, but it’s an important one. Meanwhile, growing numbers of people declaring themselves as independent hasn’t changed the fact that they continue to lean towards one party consistently. A 3rd party would be an interesting development, but it’s challenging due to systems that have been set up to favor the incumbent parties at both national and state level. I suspect what’s most likely to happen is for a new party to rise up as one of the existing parties dies, just as the Republicans replaced the Whigs 150 years ago. However, even that’s complicated by the fact that activists are driving both parties off the cliff.
Not all ‘activists’ are cliff hunters. Yes, there is a stochastic political event happening down here, but much of what is bubbling up is actively seeking improvement. This is entirely natural in a democracy under siege. After all, it was just such a ‘bubbling up’ that designed us in the first place.
Clearly I can’t say where or how it will end, if it does. But being an historian, even if an amateur one, gives me a very long view.
'Leaning toward’ one party or another is not the same as seeking better answers regardless of what one party or another may seem to stand for.
Prove you care in November. Anything less than a Democratic Senate supermajority in the end means you don't. The experiment will be over.
I do appreciate your understanding the situation. Only you broke it. Only you can fix it. The rest of the world will adapt...with you or without you.
Adapt to what?
You do know, as the old saying goes, that we are all in this together. The world is far too interconnected to think otherwise.
No, we aren't. The world will adapt to an American dictatorship. Nothing changes when Trump dies. Until proven otherwise, the world as we knew it is gone. The US is no longer a reliable friend or ally, so we're in the process of pivoting to other economic options to try and save ourselves. It's going to be ugly because it's necessary. Trump wants the US to be an island that everyone pledges fealty to. That's not going to happen. China is horrible to deal with, but they're pragmatic. The current US is irrational. No one can work with that. So we adapt.
The world we knew, eh. Which world was that? The one immediately following WWII. The world following Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The world in the midst of the Cold War? The world after 9/11? The world after the theocratic takeover in Iran? The world after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? The world in which fascism is on the rise and democracy on the defensive?
No matter what Trump or any other national leader wants, no nation is or can be an island anymore. He’s already finding that out. As is Putin. As is XI. And god only knows what the world wil become once AI becomes even more influential than it already is.
If our history since the end of WWII proves anything, it is that there is no stasis, no matter how much one might wish for it. The NATO ‘umbrella' was never really tested, and there’s no telling what might have happened if it had been.
In the end, there is one question we’ve never been able to answer satisfactorily, at least not since the Agricultural revolution gave us the power to multiply beyond the natural capacity of the earth to sustain us. - What the hell do we do with all these people?
This is not a commonly held view in your country.
> America is the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted.
Oh good grief.. .no it is not.
That's the self-agrandizing "we are the most special people EVAH!!!" mythology the Americans feed themselves.
Amen. James is a wonderful writer, but perhaps a little caught up in his prose. It has always been easy to wax eloquently about the unique qualities of the world’s current hegemon, but when they have their boot on your neck they all look kinda’ the same.
Actually it is. And if you can actually prove otherwise based on history and the ideas of the Framers and the nature of the Constitution, I’d be interested to hear it.
You’ll note that I said nothing about how well the experiment is going.
You've made a faith claim, not a serious. "It's the most crucial experiment human society ever!" This is a value claim akin to "my values are the best values". "Riskiest"? Classic catastrophizing.. If something goes wrong in America, it's the biggest disaster to befall humanity.
This isn't a serious claim, it's a faith/myth/identity/value/narrative statement. It's the Americans own version of mythology that a people tell themselves about the identity they project onto themselves and as is typical of all such narratives, it's aggrandizing.
Deny it as you will. But if you can find another experiment of even half that potential value in human history, do let me know.
I’d be interested in hearing your counterpoint?
Sure.
The United States is a rich and powerful country. The richest and most powerful single country so far. It's a democracy that has some unique features and some features in common with other countries.
But what makes the US "special" is very simple. It's what I said earlier. MONEY. The US is rich and geographically secure which has made it powerful. (Both largely come from it's geography, but not exclusively.)
It's really that simple.
Culturally, they've got some hangups, (as we all do) and one of theirs has been a persistent idea that their constitution is sort-of scripture and their founders are sort-of prophets of old. You see this most clearly when Americans publish special versions of the Bible that include their constitution. (Just think over for a moment about how deeply ludicrous it is to do that...)
But this isn't new. It's long been gets mixed in with Christian ideas of God's providence, a chosen people, a divinely mandated nation and it gets regurgitated as "most special ever!!".
This mixing of Scripture and Politics you reference is brilliantly explored in Tim Alberta's book The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory, which Jen Gerson recommended and which I thoroughly enjoyed and was horrified by reading.
Unfortunately we have quite a bit of the same tendencies described in that book here in Alberta, and perhaps elsewhere in Canada.
I guess I’ll argue that outside of the Roman Republic, there has been nothing close in known human history politically, economically and influentially to the USA. It’s a democracy and free market economy of 350M people. I think the free market economy is maybe what makes it most unique (and powerful) - just the scale and diffusion of it. Even Europe (where the economic ideas came from to start) hasn’t come close to what the US has achieved on this front. It’s the general freedom and social and economic mobility of its populous which makes it unique in human history in my view. The capacity for general merit based wealth creation by its population. I think that’s what makes it most unique in history.
It seems to me that the British Empire along with kicking off the industrial revolution seems rather significant. ;-)
> It’s the general freedom and social and economic mobility of its populous which makes it unique in human history in my view.
Not unique. Those are pretty common. And it's worth noting.. the Americans clinging to slavery long after it was outlawed elsewhere and then their backsliding into Jim Crow and all of that puts a rather big asterisk next to that achievement.
But yes, it was an achievement. It was. It's just not as special as Americans tell themselves.
I think the true magic of the US economy appeared post 1939, although you could argue the turn into the 20th century too up until the Great Depression.
I don’t think GB’s success is of the same nature. Their empire’s wealth and power was brought about morseo from successful colonial endeavors rather than personal economic freedom and ingenuity. I still argue the breadth and success of US personal economic freedom, and the power, wealth and innovation that’s generated, stands alone in history.
The other item I’ll note - which I’m not sure is unique in history, but admirable nontheless, was the founding fathers - victors of the revolutionary war, formulating a constitution and form of government that ensured they would not and could not hold power in perpetuity. And the fact that (despite that government’s now obviously warts) it has stood the test of time. Whatever your political stripe, that founding document still seems to unite and inspire US citizens and beyond, imperfect as its execution may be in action.
Respect is to be earned,humility is a virtue. Psycho analyze all you like,but none of us like being ridiculed,talked at like we are idiots. Yeah,they have done some good things. But so have we. What’s so wrong with standing up for ourselves. Oh wait,drop a knee! Works everytime! Not!!
Small picture thinking. See my second response above.
Small picture thinking eh? I’ll use bigger words next time and go on and on and on…
Until you get it right, you mean?
Of course they think we are idiots. We are allying with China.
Agree
Profound sense of American exceptionalism noted. Sincere question, in multiple replies you keep alluding to "things going on down here ... for the better". What "things" are you referring to? From up here there is nothing good or beneficial happening.
I am by formal training a pre-historian and by inclination an amateur historian of both the US and the world, so I have a long view of things. Keep that in mind as you read this.
There is not space nor time to delve into all of it. Suffice to say that we (at least most of us) have been severely shaken up by what we’ve stumbled into, largely through a combination of our own complacency, our ignorance of our history, our misunderstanding of the full nature and complexity of the experiment upon which our Framers launched us, and the emergence (not for the first time, but for the most successful time) of a cunning demagogue who knew just how to play on the grievances (real and imagined) of nearly half of us.
Like a sleeper awakening, more and more of us are reacting to that shaking. The result is a bubbling up of a number of possible solutions, whole where possible, but mostly initially partial to the problem posed by all of that.
What will come of it I cannot say. But at the core of it is the understanding that ‘American exceptionalism’ is not a state we had ever achieved, but rather, as Martin Luther King once called it, a promissory note.
There will not be any concrete proof of where this awaking will lead us until the November midterm elections. Our system was not designed for significant change in the moment. It was also necessary for a sufficient number of Trump’s supporters to realize that he was doing them as much harm as they thought he was doing to the rest of us. Fortunately, he is working very hard (albeit not intentionally) to bring that realization about.
Ideally the results of the midterms will be to achieve a fine balance between the nation we want to become and making sure that Trump and his myrmidons pay a price for their depredations. That is a large demand, and I don’t know if we will achieve it.
Several very competent American historians believe our Framers would be surprised that we had lasted this long as something at least akin to what they had in mind. It was, after all, only a first attempt at something new under the political sun, and as such flawed in both inception and design. It was and remains a fragile thing, fraught with potential misunderstanding and misapplication. Yet we have survived for 250 years (not long as history goes, but not entirely incidental either). And the impetus for our creation goes back a very long way in human history. So we will see.
appreciate your reply. Hmmm, not sure I agree 100%, as I dont think his election was an accident or that he hood-winked anyone. It was plain as day how deplorable a human he was, and he was voted in. I think sadly for you/for me/for all the world, he is a reflection of the American soul right now. Individualism in the extreme, steal and grab all you can, ignore the rules and principles and laws that were created to regulate society, if you can just scam fast and hard enough. I think his rapid destruction of all the checks and balances, and appointment of grossly unqualified loyalists who are all collectively on the take, and are therefore scared of him has revealed how fragile the American structures are. The US is a ganster state right now, totally lawless at the top. The founding fathers would be rolling in their graves. I love love your optimism, and I dearly hope you are right. Im not so sure the midterms will be as significant as you hope. I sadly suspect it will play out longer and more painfully. I do worry very much how the ship rights itself. I think the right wingers are too entrenched in their beliefs and hatred to admit they were wrong and are the problem.
"as I dont think his election was an accident or that he hood-winked anyone”
It certainly wasn’t an accident, and I wouldn’t say that he hoodwinked everyone who voted for him, but there can be little doubt that a substantial majority did believe that he had their interests at heart, which he certainly did not. And one has to take into account the four years of propaganda that he had his echo chamber manufactured to substantial his ‘victimhood’ as well as those Republicans who have so completely sold their souls to him.
The internet has ushered in an entirely new political atmosphere in which many seek to find (and all too many are happy to provide) simple answers to problems both national and international that are anything but. The complexity and interconnectedness of the modern world leave many (and not just in the US) confused and often frightened, unable or unwilling to attempt to understand it.
One also has to take into account our Supreme Court who granted him a partial ‘get out of jail’ card in Trump v USA without which he would almost certainly now be in jail.
Biden and the Democrats who backed Biden until they couldn’t anymore were also partially to blame.
To call us a gangster state, while in some respects accurate at this moment does ignore the exceptional diversity and complexity of our political life and the slow pace of our legal and constitutional order.
I know it would be easy to suggest that I’m trying to make excuses for us. I’m not. I’m horrified at what he’s doing and deeply ashamed of those of us who are so enabling him, especially those who know who he is and what he wants and still refuse to oppose him. At the same time, it is most crucial that more of us understand what’s really going on here and how both our history and our politics have led us to this point.
The world is, I believe at one of its major tipping points, not helped by some of the technological advances that are already upon us, but not yet fully realized. Yet it is inhabited and ‘controlled’ by an intelligent yet highly parochial species, some essential parts of whose genetic makeup is still back in it’s primate past.
Just couldn’t resist,to go on and on and on… beacause you are right? In your mind you mean. Explain it to us again,didn’t get it the first time
Perhaps because you had no intention of trying to.
Many Americans don’t know much about the world outside America. They’re a huge country that has outsized cultural, economic, and political influence - it’s easy to navel-gaze. Combine that with a notion of American exceptionalism that’s curdled into simple chauvinism, and you get the Ugly American.
These people think America is the best at everything; where things are different, they’re either silly or wrong. Where America isn’t winning, others must be cheating because tautologically Americans are always winners. Donald Trump is their exemplar and champion.
I’m afraid I see some of the same traits among a lot of Canadians, a smug certainty of superiority. You see it in Torontonians who think they’re the Centre of the Universe, you see it in Albertans who think they’re a unique conservative and free enterprise paradise. The solution is pretty simple: pull your head out of your own butt and learn more about the world around you, and be open to changing your mind.
so well said!!!
It could be argued that by the definition in the article Canada is a nation full of Karens all with some perceived status of victimhood which varies according to which particular tribe of Karens they choose to align with.
I prefer “Caste” to tribe. It captures the Canadian culture of entitlement.
Examples:
-the decline of the manufacturing industry wasn't due to poor competitive, rather Dutch Disease brought on by the resource boom
-a decade of stagnant productivity was due to Orange Man Bad rather than Red Party Bad
-Federal civil servants are victims of poor working conditions and can't go into the office even though they are amongst the most entitled workers given their absolutely job security and defined benefit pensions
The article while it makes some valid points seems to me to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Canada’s army (ok, militia) of entitled real estate owning pension indexed elbozo boomers is a match for any American Karenocracy. And mocking US accents is no different than the Montreal tourists pullulating Hollywood Florida in the winter complaining “why dey honly speak da Henglish ere?” IMO The caste of matrons from Rosedale and Rockliffe (and their Vancouver and Montreal equivalents) are Canada’s equivalent to US Karenocracy. The sad issue is that both groups dominate politics to an extent far above their numbers or the merits of their argument. And the mainstream parties are so afraid of losing electoral seats that they filter prospective candidates ( more obviously in Canada than the US) to ensure nobody will rock the boat or challenge party dogma. So elections generally result in a choice between a blue soyboy or a red soyboy (or their female equivalents). Not a recipe for progress is it?
It daily becomes harder to differentiate Americans from their government. "We didn't vote for him to do this" is another utterly exhausting deflection from reality. The conversation usually ends when it is mentioned that only Americans chose him and the rest of the world didn't get a vote.
Billionaires don't understand the consequences of their actions because they've never experienced the suffering they cause. They're just lines on a spreadsheet.
Americans did this to themselves and to the world. I don't care what gets put back on the shelves...the only way I'll buy it is if there is no other option. I haven't been in a Home Depot since 2015. Whether they understand it or not, they have declared economic war on us. The time for pleasantries has passed. And I really don't care what happens to them anymore. We'll find out in November if they care about their country. Until then, they don't, so I don't.
Brilliant metaphor as ongoing customer service complaint.
Your broad thesis of America, in general, and Trump and his cronies in particular consistently playing the victim and weaponizing the act as a negotiating tool is right on and brutally infuriating for Canadians who are paying attention. It's as if we're all in the car on a family trip and big brother is bored so he pokes little brothers buttons until all hell breaks loose and we're forced to pull over. Except with Trump there's no adult in the car and no escaping this highway.
Canadians have had enough of the play acting from the states. They are victims of their own arrogance and ignorance. There's no escaping the USA for us. Take solace in the knowledge that Trump is heading fast for lame duck status.
Good points including some of the comments. I would add that in addition to some fires from WA State crossing the border there is a huge amount of American fire smoke crossing the border during the fire season — always. Apparently Yanks are unaware of this?
That's different. That's 'freedom' smoke being shared with us poor benighted Canadians. /s
Great article! Been there. Arrived early to one of half a dozen side terminals at YEG,Edmonton,private flights to Fort McMuck,AB area UpGraders. Standing outside,by myself,in the Smoking Zone. This American steps into the Yellow Zone(painted tarmac) and without any prompting tells me what’s wrong with Canada. No matter how much shuffling away I attempted,he got louder and closer. I’m guessing he’s never been ‘Cowboy Slapped’, or warned of not minding his mouth. “We (Canadians) are letting in all kinds of people…” I cut him off,looked him in the eye and said “Yeah,we sure are!” As I flicked my cigarette butt at him. Totally against my ethics,I hate litter bugs! hahahaha! Another TFW,insulator! Is that even a trade? lol
This article may be an otherwise intelligent piece, possibly well researched and written, but the writer lost me with their tiresome use of “Karen” to describe a certain element of our world. I suggest that this writer (and others) could “do better” with their words, but suggesting an improvement with this overused phrase has become as cheap, common and overused, as the slangy references to “Karen”.
In case this writer and The Line Editors don’t have any real life Karens in their world, please know that adults, teens and children who were given the name Karen at birth do exist and are real people.
Can some great writer out there create a new English word or phrase to describe this type of individual?
Thanks for listening.
"Karen" is a derogatory term for older white women. It is racist, sexist, and ageist. It stereotypes an entire group. If derogatory terms for some ethnic groups are unacceptable, why is "Karen" OK? And why are people you are denigrating likened to older white women?? Think about it. Please find a better term that does not stereotype and insult a whole group of people.
Funnily enough.. "Karen" is also we imported from the DEEPLY race-obsessed country that is the United States of America.
Indeed. A country in which it is totally OK, apparently, to stereotype and denigrate older white women, using an ethnic slur. Should we do the same?
Well said!
They demand we do something about forest fires. I can only hope that the Americans are making plans to ensure that Mt Saint Helen’s does not blow up again…..and the resulting effect on Western Canada….?
Are they seeking reparations from the Icelandic volcano of 2010 that shut down North Atlantic air space for approximately a week?
Only blame others….never look in the mirror….
Canada has long wished America would notice us. Careful what you wish for.
Thank you. ‘Karen’ is the perfect description for which I’ve been looking.
I 100% agree with the article BUT as someone whose name is Karen, I'm really looking forward to the day when my name is no longer a synonym for ignorant, entitled asshole. :-)
I can only imagine. Do what you can to prove the stereotype wrong.
Always :-)