Standing up to Trump like Carney is doing will definitely attract the eye of Sauron. Trump is obviously not used to this and very much needs Canada's behavior to be punished so it won't spread. Hopefully the author is right and other nations will stand up also. Not doing so will just lead to the dissipation of Western society. No biggie.
"J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Mike Johnson have all sold their souls for power and position." It's chilling to watch old quotes from Vance and Rubio where they warn about the dangers of giving Trump power. They truly have abandoned their principles. Mike Johnson and Hegseth never had any to start with.
The track record of failure, the ("squirrel!!!!) attention span, self-referential reasoning(?) are all on display. I suspect some strategic analysis (a discipline, a process) ... what the kids call game-theory these days, has been applied to decisions.
“Both are right. Sometimes you have to say enough is enough.”
Yes, and other times you must take a sober, introspective look at the situation and stop reacting nonsensically.
The author is a lifetime diplomat, so I think I am safe in assuming he knows that domestic politics and international relations are not mutually exclusive.
I would warn my UK cousin about taking Mark Carney at his word, but I shouldn’t have to, after Mr. Carney’s tenure as the Governor of the Bank of England.
Mr. Carney’s has suggested that Canadians should brace themselves for sacrifice; what if I have nothing left to sacrifice after eleven years of decay, defenestration, diminishment, destruction, and desecration of the Country I once loved?
I don’t have a defined benefit pension. I don’t have extensive government benefits. I can’t elegantly segue my career from diplomacy to consultancy and still keep all of my gathered eggs.
Please tell me what Mark Carney and the Liberal Party of Canada will sacrifice to pursue Mr. Carney’s Trade War.
Will his children have to leave their U.S. universities? Are Canadian universities not good enough?
Will his wife have to give up her no-show job in New York with Eurasia Group? Are there no left-wing think tanks in Canada?
Will Mr. Carney have to give up his American home or his other American assets? Why has he not personally invested in the Country he pretends to lead?
How long & how hard are you and your family members willing to work so that Mr. Carney’s sacrifice nothing?
How long will Canadians allow Mr. Carney’s Trade War to mask the very serious problems we have in this country? We have constitutional, economic, regulatory, bureaucratic, social, healthcare, and lawlessness problems that affect the everyday lives of Canadians. Those problems have only continued to worsen over the last eleven years.
So, before other Countries slip those Elbows Up and tighten the chinstrap, maybe they should take that same, sober second look at the best strategy forward; Don’t be Canada.
So, because you don’t like Canada’s current government, you’re willing to let Canada become a vassal of the US? I agree that the previous government was terrible for Canada, but we remain a country that is worth living in as a sovereign nation.
It is true that you did not state it explicitly, but it implicit throughout your comment. It reads as if Canadians should not sacrifice anything to preserve Canada as a sovereign nation because, in your view, Carney is not sacrificing anything.
Your last paragraph encourages other nations to not be Canada. I interpret that to mean “Don’t be Canada. Don’t stand up to the bully in the Whitehouse”. Perhaps I misunderstood.
“Don’t be Canada” refers to the long list of egregiously bad decisions embraced by Canadians in the last eleven years.
Perhaps we are not the best guide as to how another Country should act.
If you think Mr. Carney’s Trade War is beneficial to the Country, I would add that decision to a long list of mistakes Canadians have voted for over and again.
"Many Americans have a feeling of disillusionment with the world and a belief that the rest of us have taken advantage of the United States over the decades since the end of the Second World War."
Reminds me of a great truth about us humans... we'll exhaust every imaginable cause before looking inward. Americans have been unhappy for a very long time... unhappy people lash out a lot.
It is very reassuring to hear my opinions of what the US has become confirmed. They're gone. Regardless of what happens in at least the next 6 Novembers, the US as we knew it is dead. Whether it can save itself and reestablish the rule of law remains to be seen. Having destroyed the world order, Trump has now set us on a path to seriously damage the global economy. The world has shifted beneath our feet. We aren't ready for what's coming...again.
American political leadership doesn't need to be as stupid, parochial, and short-sighted as it's been in the 21st century. I grew up seeing presidents like Reagan and Bush who understood the values of allies, trade, and international relationships. They put emphasis on those things because they understood that they benefited America in term of security and economic growth. Then along came Clinton, more interested in the navel-gazing of domestic politics while missing important opportunities to lead and shape a post-Cold War world. Bush slipped into more nativist, chest-thumping, unilateral behavior in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. Obama's oddly anti-American view thought that not only did America not have anything special to offer, American efforts to lead were actually the source of a lot of geopolitical discord. And then there's Trump, who views the world as if he's a mafia don dealing with rival mafia dons in China and Russia.
What Americans have been offered by their politicians is either a poorly-articulated case for continuing internationalism that's largely an autopilot-driven extrapolation of the work done by a previous generation of internationalists running through Bush 41, or a short-sighted jingoistic nationalism that's been gaining strength since Pat Buchanan espoused it to challenge Bush 41 in 1992. The consequences of which policy is followed takes a long time to manifest, and the trends are a lot longer than 2- or 4- year American electoral cycles. Americans have been slow to perceive the negative effects of Trump-style approaches, just like the allegorical frog in a pot of water slowly being brought to a boil.
The fact that Canada is standing up to Trump's approach is making Americans notice what's going on. That's potentially useful for a would-be internationalist American leader who can use it to steer away from the Trump approach and back onto a more positive path. In some ways, Canada is staging an intervention for American politics addicted to a toxic populist approach. Hopefully Europe and others join in to make it easier for America to kick the habit before it does too much damage.
The theory is that America has been fubarred by Trump ( true ) and will take a generation to recover. Canada just went through a decade with the worst and most destructive PM in our history, but " magically " in a year we have been put on the right path and saved by Carney. If we can do it in 2 years why can't the US with the election of a SANE POTUS?
“This is the same Liberal Party that looked the Germans in the eye and said there was no business case for East Coast LNG. Energy East, dead. Northern Gateway, dead. Tanker ban on the north coast of British Columbia. One LNG plant got built. Two more are crawling toward the finish line like they are ashamed of themselves. The approved future was a campus, a consultancy, and a Starbucks. Then Donald Trump changed the price of that speech, Washington went hard populist, and Ottawa discovered, overnight, that we live on top of oil. Forgive us if the conversion looks a little convenient. We have seen this church before.”
Trump is a vulgar, egotistical, self-serving, not very bright bully who has exposed the military and moral weakness of the West more by bombast than design. To be fair, take note that the serving members of the Republican Party like serving member of the Liberal Party readily abandon principle in the interests of holding political power. "These are my principles and I have others should you not like these".
I’m glad the author has pointed the disillusionment out. I’ve been wondering about that. Gerson had pointed out before that Trump et al. Act like losers, doing bully things and then playing the victim role when they’re called out for it. If they’re convinced that American grievance against the world is the right rhetorical strategy, why do Americans feel this way?
Canadians have always fashioned themselves as morally superior to Americans, of course. That bothers me. My wife had similar experience at Cornell when other bon-Americans took that tune, while enjoying the Ivey graduate experience, available nowhere else. If I were an American, and I knew how Canadians felt about me, I’d be happy to see them humiliated too. I’ve said we’re lucky they pay so little attention that they think we live in igloos (at least I’ve hoped).
YouTube brought all manner of “documentary film”. America was almost always painted as an evil force along the lines of “confessions of an economic hit man”. On climate too, the US was always the big bad wolf.
I suspect that Americans have been feeling this while they wanted to believe the best in their country’s international activities (military and other). I have no idea if this is close to reality but it does seem like a strong feeling of ingratitude underlies things. “Fine, we won’t spend and die trying to save the world anymore. You try it then. [middle finger]”.
I imagine an alternate reality where Canada leads by celebrating an America day - then pledges NATO spending. That assumes they would notice and would more strongly oppose Trump’s behaviour, and it’s also maybe unrealistic under any circumstance. But it’s an interesting thought experiment as I imagine much of this country would have spat out its coffee at the idea, and well before the first tariff was announced, simply because they agreed with Hillary about the proportion of “deplorables”. The “Not Blame Canada” crowd might be arrogant.
As well, I don’t feel I see enough about America’s revulsion of “Woke” and how that’s made Trump possible. Perhaps Canadians can’t grasp it because the opposition won’t touch it. It’s an “above it all” schtick being put on that looks dumber by the day, although Kenney is saying things I like lately on that front. If Canadians knew the extent of its evil - like removing kids from parents who refuse to trans them - there might be a bit more sense making. On a side note, it’s been interesting to watch the discussion about Alberta separatism in the context of recent German elections on the basis that the right-wing populist view is transnational morphing to fit different institution contexts, while I’ve yet to see much similar talk about woke in the context of rape gangs, etc., etc. Taking this evil seriously is tabu it seems, and that appears to be exacerbating anti-Americanism.
Kenney said yesterday or today (in a way) that only 5% of Canadians still think highly of the US. If that’s where we’re at, I don’t think we’re looking so great, especially while we say “fine, China”, with no mention of the Meng Wanzhou affair - the Michaels, the economic coercion, the wolf warrior diplomacy. I still think high enough of America that I’m willing to play the long game here.
Howard Anglin just reminded us that the US atom bombed Japan and relations have been rebuilt.
I was swayed a long time ago by Peter Zeihan who said that countries without a large Millenial cohort would take concession to keep exports to America going, since so few countries have the demographics to support consumption. Thus, I’m not surprised to hear that everybody else seems to be making deals and getting on with it.
I’m really glad you said that. I think it makes my point very well. I think you’re ignorant of this thing’s true nature, though I couldn’t blame you for that. At least not 100%.
If you’ve been following the “movement”, it really isn’t hard to see this eventuality. For example, here is an article published in the journal of pediatrics arguing that denial of “gender affirming care” is a form of child abuse:
I wonder how many families have been bullied into the process under threat of official intervention?
To make my above point clear, here is a link to a “Trump” letter to states saying that it’s not abuse and no child welfare action is acceptable for this reason.
I’m a father of girls so I completely understand why many Americans would vote for Trump in this context. Terry Glavin recently put it well when he said to Aaron Pete that he’d ask Dems: “How did you lose to a guy like that?”
JK Rowling is a good follow to stay on the up, if you’re interested.
I am not ignorant of the true nature of “woke” in Canada. I am less interested in its manifestation in the US, as I think that the Trump phenomenon owes its existence to much more than a reaction to “woke”.
While I could not read the entire WSJ article (I don’t have a subscription), I did note that it is an opinion piece, not dispassionate reporting. It is not unknown to have opinion columnists be somewhat selective in their facts, though I expect better from WSJ.
I’ve often heard people make the point that things aren’t especially believable unless they’re put out by a large institution’s news desk, rigorously fact-checked, etc.
It strikes me as a cop out each time I hear it. And not that this is a news site, but it is striking that I would hear it in the comment section of a media producer that was founded on the basis that it “rejects bullshit”.
I agree, the Trump phenomenon is not solely a reaction to woke.
Standing up to Trump like Carney is doing will definitely attract the eye of Sauron. Trump is obviously not used to this and very much needs Canada's behavior to be punished so it won't spread. Hopefully the author is right and other nations will stand up also. Not doing so will just lead to the dissipation of Western society. No biggie.
"J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Mike Johnson have all sold their souls for power and position." It's chilling to watch old quotes from Vance and Rubio where they warn about the dangers of giving Trump power. They truly have abandoned their principles. Mike Johnson and Hegseth never had any to start with.
Frodo and Sam defeated Sauron at Mount Doom.
Yes...and it makes a great story.
The track record of failure, the ("squirrel!!!!) attention span, self-referential reasoning(?) are all on display. I suspect some strategic analysis (a discipline, a process) ... what the kids call game-theory these days, has been applied to decisions.
“Both are right. Sometimes you have to say enough is enough.”
Yes, and other times you must take a sober, introspective look at the situation and stop reacting nonsensically.
The author is a lifetime diplomat, so I think I am safe in assuming he knows that domestic politics and international relations are not mutually exclusive.
I would warn my UK cousin about taking Mark Carney at his word, but I shouldn’t have to, after Mr. Carney’s tenure as the Governor of the Bank of England.
Mr. Carney’s has suggested that Canadians should brace themselves for sacrifice; what if I have nothing left to sacrifice after eleven years of decay, defenestration, diminishment, destruction, and desecration of the Country I once loved?
I don’t have a defined benefit pension. I don’t have extensive government benefits. I can’t elegantly segue my career from diplomacy to consultancy and still keep all of my gathered eggs.
Please tell me what Mark Carney and the Liberal Party of Canada will sacrifice to pursue Mr. Carney’s Trade War.
Will his children have to leave their U.S. universities? Are Canadian universities not good enough?
Will his wife have to give up her no-show job in New York with Eurasia Group? Are there no left-wing think tanks in Canada?
Will Mr. Carney have to give up his American home or his other American assets? Why has he not personally invested in the Country he pretends to lead?
How long & how hard are you and your family members willing to work so that Mr. Carney’s sacrifice nothing?
How long will Canadians allow Mr. Carney’s Trade War to mask the very serious problems we have in this country? We have constitutional, economic, regulatory, bureaucratic, social, healthcare, and lawlessness problems that affect the everyday lives of Canadians. Those problems have only continued to worsen over the last eleven years.
So, before other Countries slip those Elbows Up and tighten the chinstrap, maybe they should take that same, sober second look at the best strategy forward; Don’t be Canada.
So, because you don’t like Canada’s current government, you’re willing to let Canada become a vassal of the US? I agree that the previous government was terrible for Canada, but we remain a country that is worth living in as a sovereign nation.
I reread my post, Rob, and I don’t see anywhere that I suggested Canada should become a vassal state of any Country.
It is true that you did not state it explicitly, but it implicit throughout your comment. It reads as if Canadians should not sacrifice anything to preserve Canada as a sovereign nation because, in your view, Carney is not sacrificing anything.
Your last paragraph encourages other nations to not be Canada. I interpret that to mean “Don’t be Canada. Don’t stand up to the bully in the Whitehouse”. Perhaps I misunderstood.
Perhaps I was not clear.
For that I apologize.
“Don’t be Canada” refers to the long list of egregiously bad decisions embraced by Canadians in the last eleven years.
Perhaps we are not the best guide as to how another Country should act.
If you think Mr. Carney’s Trade War is beneficial to the Country, I would add that decision to a long list of mistakes Canadians have voted for over and again.
"Many Americans have a feeling of disillusionment with the world and a belief that the rest of us have taken advantage of the United States over the decades since the end of the Second World War."
Reminds me of a great truth about us humans... we'll exhaust every imaginable cause before looking inward. Americans have been unhappy for a very long time... unhappy people lash out a lot.
It is very reassuring to hear my opinions of what the US has become confirmed. They're gone. Regardless of what happens in at least the next 6 Novembers, the US as we knew it is dead. Whether it can save itself and reestablish the rule of law remains to be seen. Having destroyed the world order, Trump has now set us on a path to seriously damage the global economy. The world has shifted beneath our feet. We aren't ready for what's coming...again.
American political leadership doesn't need to be as stupid, parochial, and short-sighted as it's been in the 21st century. I grew up seeing presidents like Reagan and Bush who understood the values of allies, trade, and international relationships. They put emphasis on those things because they understood that they benefited America in term of security and economic growth. Then along came Clinton, more interested in the navel-gazing of domestic politics while missing important opportunities to lead and shape a post-Cold War world. Bush slipped into more nativist, chest-thumping, unilateral behavior in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. Obama's oddly anti-American view thought that not only did America not have anything special to offer, American efforts to lead were actually the source of a lot of geopolitical discord. And then there's Trump, who views the world as if he's a mafia don dealing with rival mafia dons in China and Russia.
What Americans have been offered by their politicians is either a poorly-articulated case for continuing internationalism that's largely an autopilot-driven extrapolation of the work done by a previous generation of internationalists running through Bush 41, or a short-sighted jingoistic nationalism that's been gaining strength since Pat Buchanan espoused it to challenge Bush 41 in 1992. The consequences of which policy is followed takes a long time to manifest, and the trends are a lot longer than 2- or 4- year American electoral cycles. Americans have been slow to perceive the negative effects of Trump-style approaches, just like the allegorical frog in a pot of water slowly being brought to a boil.
The fact that Canada is standing up to Trump's approach is making Americans notice what's going on. That's potentially useful for a would-be internationalist American leader who can use it to steer away from the Trump approach and back onto a more positive path. In some ways, Canada is staging an intervention for American politics addicted to a toxic populist approach. Hopefully Europe and others join in to make it easier for America to kick the habit before it does too much damage.
The theory is that America has been fubarred by Trump ( true ) and will take a generation to recover. Canada just went through a decade with the worst and most destructive PM in our history, but " magically " in a year we have been put on the right path and saved by Carney. If we can do it in 2 years why can't the US with the election of a SANE POTUS?
From Dan Knight’s Substack:
“This is the same Liberal Party that looked the Germans in the eye and said there was no business case for East Coast LNG. Energy East, dead. Northern Gateway, dead. Tanker ban on the north coast of British Columbia. One LNG plant got built. Two more are crawling toward the finish line like they are ashamed of themselves. The approved future was a campus, a consultancy, and a Starbucks. Then Donald Trump changed the price of that speech, Washington went hard populist, and Ottawa discovered, overnight, that we live on top of oil. Forgive us if the conversion looks a little convenient. We have seen this church before.”
To the author...
Thank you for the kind words, Sir!
Nothing makes standing up to an asshole easier than a friend's support.
"...he seems to admire more than anything else (probably because he hankers after the absolute power their leaders have)."
...so he doesn't have to hear the words, "No, Donny", which cause so much emotional dis-regulation and hurt to the little narcissist inside, lol.
Trump is a vulgar, egotistical, self-serving, not very bright bully who has exposed the military and moral weakness of the West more by bombast than design. To be fair, take note that the serving members of the Republican Party like serving member of the Liberal Party readily abandon principle in the interests of holding political power. "These are my principles and I have others should you not like these".
This is me, applauding your post 👏👏👏
I’m glad the author has pointed the disillusionment out. I’ve been wondering about that. Gerson had pointed out before that Trump et al. Act like losers, doing bully things and then playing the victim role when they’re called out for it. If they’re convinced that American grievance against the world is the right rhetorical strategy, why do Americans feel this way?
Canadians have always fashioned themselves as morally superior to Americans, of course. That bothers me. My wife had similar experience at Cornell when other bon-Americans took that tune, while enjoying the Ivey graduate experience, available nowhere else. If I were an American, and I knew how Canadians felt about me, I’d be happy to see them humiliated too. I’ve said we’re lucky they pay so little attention that they think we live in igloos (at least I’ve hoped).
YouTube brought all manner of “documentary film”. America was almost always painted as an evil force along the lines of “confessions of an economic hit man”. On climate too, the US was always the big bad wolf.
I suspect that Americans have been feeling this while they wanted to believe the best in their country’s international activities (military and other). I have no idea if this is close to reality but it does seem like a strong feeling of ingratitude underlies things. “Fine, we won’t spend and die trying to save the world anymore. You try it then. [middle finger]”.
I imagine an alternate reality where Canada leads by celebrating an America day - then pledges NATO spending. That assumes they would notice and would more strongly oppose Trump’s behaviour, and it’s also maybe unrealistic under any circumstance. But it’s an interesting thought experiment as I imagine much of this country would have spat out its coffee at the idea, and well before the first tariff was announced, simply because they agreed with Hillary about the proportion of “deplorables”. The “Not Blame Canada” crowd might be arrogant.
As well, I don’t feel I see enough about America’s revulsion of “Woke” and how that’s made Trump possible. Perhaps Canadians can’t grasp it because the opposition won’t touch it. It’s an “above it all” schtick being put on that looks dumber by the day, although Kenney is saying things I like lately on that front. If Canadians knew the extent of its evil - like removing kids from parents who refuse to trans them - there might be a bit more sense making. On a side note, it’s been interesting to watch the discussion about Alberta separatism in the context of recent German elections on the basis that the right-wing populist view is transnational morphing to fit different institution contexts, while I’ve yet to see much similar talk about woke in the context of rape gangs, etc., etc. Taking this evil seriously is tabu it seems, and that appears to be exacerbating anti-Americanism.
Kenney said yesterday or today (in a way) that only 5% of Canadians still think highly of the US. If that’s where we’re at, I don’t think we’re looking so great, especially while we say “fine, China”, with no mention of the Meng Wanzhou affair - the Michaels, the economic coercion, the wolf warrior diplomacy. I still think high enough of America that I’m willing to play the long game here.
Howard Anglin just reminded us that the US atom bombed Japan and relations have been rebuilt.
I was swayed a long time ago by Peter Zeihan who said that countries without a large Millenial cohort would take concession to keep exports to America going, since so few countries have the demographics to support consumption. Thus, I’m not surprised to hear that everybody else seems to be making deals and getting on with it.
“… like removing kids from parents who refuse to trans them …” Where has this happened? It seems like right-wing hyperbole.
I’m really glad you said that. I think it makes my point very well. I think you’re ignorant of this thing’s true nature, though I couldn’t blame you for that. At least not 100%.
If you’ve been following the “movement”, it really isn’t hard to see this eventuality. For example, here is an article published in the journal of pediatrics arguing that denial of “gender affirming care” is a form of child abuse:
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/153/1/e2023064292/196236/Prohibition-of-Gender-Affirming-Care-as-a-Form-of
And here is a WSJ documenting the phenomenon I’m talking about:
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/states-rip-families-apart-to-serve-transgender-ideology-4875664e
I wonder how many families have been bullied into the process under threat of official intervention?
To make my above point clear, here is a link to a “Trump” letter to states saying that it’s not abuse and no child welfare action is acceptable for this reason.
https://acf.gov/media/press/2026/acf-defends-biological-reality-parental-rights-letter-50-states
I’m a father of girls so I completely understand why many Americans would vote for Trump in this context. Terry Glavin recently put it well when he said to Aaron Pete that he’d ask Dems: “How did you lose to a guy like that?”
JK Rowling is a good follow to stay on the up, if you’re interested.
I am not ignorant of the true nature of “woke” in Canada. I am less interested in its manifestation in the US, as I think that the Trump phenomenon owes its existence to much more than a reaction to “woke”.
While I could not read the entire WSJ article (I don’t have a subscription), I did note that it is an opinion piece, not dispassionate reporting. It is not unknown to have opinion columnists be somewhat selective in their facts, though I expect better from WSJ.
I’ve often heard people make the point that things aren’t especially believable unless they’re put out by a large institution’s news desk, rigorously fact-checked, etc.
It strikes me as a cop out each time I hear it. And not that this is a news site, but it is striking that I would hear it in the comment section of a media producer that was founded on the basis that it “rejects bullshit”.
I agree, the Trump phenomenon is not solely a reaction to woke.
HEAR HEAR
Our allies will be in lockstep with Canada, as long as it requires no sacrifice and does not risk their trade with the richest market in the world.