Well folks, are you sufficiently tired of this crap yet? Have you had enough of Trump 2.0, his insanity and lies? Have you had your fill of all his broadsides against allies, sucking up to mortal enemies and throwing some of the most vulnerable friends of the United States and democracy under the bus? And if not, how much more do you need to see before you are?
I ask those questions facetiously because even though it hasn’t even been a month of Trump 2.0, it’s already been more than enough, and it continues to escalate at pace. Domestically, we’re seeing Trump ignore court orders about his attempted abuses of executive orders, setting up a constitutional crisis that could potentially end the very rule of law. That all comes after Elon Musk has been marauding through government departments, trying to take control of pay systems and trying to close full departments at the stroke of a pen, which does not appear to be legal in the least. And that only touches the surface as his team moves to consolidate their complete control over the administrative state that mirrors the likes of Orban’s Hungary and Putin’s Russia.
Once you go abroad, you’re seeing all of his threats to take Greenland against the wishes of both the Danes and Greenlanders alike all because “he needs it.” We’ve seen more threats about “taking back” the Panama Canal based on lies about Chinese control over the major waterway. This week we’re seeing Trump’s long expected/dreaded abandonment of Ukraine, by making major concessions to Putin’s Russia and starting “peace talks,” all without including Ukraine itself or even promising to give Ukraine’s leaders a voice in their own future. Hell, Trump even effectively gave Putin a veto over who can join NATO, the world’s strongest military alliance that basically still exists to counter Russian aggression. Can you imagine what the founding neighbours of this alliance would have thought way back when it was founded if the United States decided to give the Soviet Union a veto on who could join their group to protect themselves from the Soviet Union? Well, we would have known all about it because they would have been screaming to everyone who would listen about it.
Needless to say, this is a complete and worrying shit show with major consequences for everyone. But those consequences are likely the largest for us here in Canada. For all Trump’s bullshit and bluster against most of the democratic world, he’s saved special attention, scorn, and shit talk for us. Some of it may have started as something we could take as a joke, prodding or someone attempting some kind of perverse negotiating tactic. He has continued to escalate and escalate, and I would argue we crossed the line from “joke” to “threat” a couple of weeks ago. But still, that escalation hasn’t slowed down in the least. Look at this smattering of words he and his team has had for us just this week.
On Sunday on his way to the Super Bowl, Trump himself told reporters that Canada is “not a viable” country that is not spending enough on military because they assume the US will take care of them. He also re-iterated that he was serious about wanting to annex Canada.
On Monday, Trump Administration Official Kevin Hassett, when asked about Trump’s talk about annexation, answered by saying "When the US was founded, how many states did we have? And how many do we have now? And so, is it outlandish?"
On Wednesday Trump himself said again that “Canada has been very abusive of the United States for many years“ & “We’re not well treated by Canada.”
Later on Wednesday after meeting with a group of Canadian Premiers, one of Trump’s Chiefs of Staff went on Twitter to rebuff BC Premier David Eby to say that “To be clear, we never agreed that Canada would not be the 51st state. We only agreed to share Premier Eby’s comments.” He also stated that we should take Trump at his word.
This afternoon in a rambling press availability in the Oval Office, Trump said that “Canada has really been taking advantage of. If they had to pay just something modestly fair, they wouldn't be able to succeed as a country. That's why I feel they have to become a state.” He did this while also calling Justin Trudeau “Governor” again, while saying that “we'll see what happens, but it just sets up so good for them.”
Everyone, I don’t know about you but I’m seriously tired of this shit from Trump and his coterie. At this point, I also believe it’s abundantly clear that this isn’t a game, this isn’t ribbing or a negotiating tactic or anything benign or non-threatening. He keeps ramping this up and escalating the rhetoric the whole way along. Just look at how he talks about making us the “51st State”. Early on he used language like “it would benice.” That evolved to we “should be a state.” And now today he clearly said that we “have to become a state.”
That’s a long rhetorical road to have travelled in such a short period of time, and once you get to “they have to become a state”, you’re much closer to hearing “they must become a state”, “they will become a state” and “they will become a state by any means.” And given how little time it took him to get to this point, one could easily expect that he’ll get to that much more jingoistic language before too long.
All of that sounds bleak and dangerous, and yes, a lot of it is. But the one thing that we Canadians are not doing is backing down. We’ve already seen a strong resolve here at home and a growing patriotism rise from these threats by the Orange Menace. There has been a lot of talk about measures we should take to fight back against Trump, both here at home and abroad, and that’s all good. It has been heartening to hear all that has come to the table so far from all sides.
But I would argue that if this week is teaching us anything so far, it’s that maybe we aren’t being creative enough or thinking broadly enough about how we push back against this menace to our very existence as a free country. Most of what has been floated so far are good measures to take against an adversary that can be negotiated with and who operates on logic and fact. You can find common ground with those kinds of people, and you don’t need to go right to the bottom of your list of options in order to deal with them.
The problem is that it’s becoming clearer by the hour that Donald Trump is non of those. Most of his actions are not based on objective facts or issues. He’s made it clear that he’s not looking to find compromise or common ground in most cases but instead is looking for capitulation or worse. And he’s not even treating allies with basic respect for democratic nations, either for their people or the very concept of their sovereignty. He’s acting increasingly like his autocratic heroes in the world and no one at home is stepping up to stop him from doing so. Hell, they’re so busy trying to keep up with his destruction act at home, they can’t possibly try to stop what he’s doing to us next door.
So in my mind, we at home here in Canada need to break out the big table. We need that big table because the kitchen table that we’re used to trying to figure out our big problems around isn’t big enough to handle this. We need that extra space to cover all the extra ideas we need to put on it, things that we’ve never really needed to consider digging deep enough to consider. What might those kinds of things be?
Dis-invited Trump from the G7 meetings in Kananaskis in June: As Andrew Coyne aptly pointed out recently, how do we "welcome" on our soil someone who is taking us over and ending our very existence? Plus, with his actions over the past month (and Lord knows what else comes before June) we seriously have to ask ourselves if Trump's America is actually ally of the democracies anymore. The way things are going the agenda for the that meeting will likely be more about figuring out how to contain Trump and the US, and that’s not a conversation you can have with him there.
Break Out the Big National Projects: It’s been almost 100 years since the Great Depression that we’ve needed to reach for this approach but given the stakes here this would seem to be a natural time to do so. Firstly, given that the Americans are moving to try to tariff us into submission, one of the best ways to offset the impact of those tariffs is to keep those products we make here at home inside our borders and sell them here. So Trump announces a big lumber tariff? National Home Building Program. The government has already been reviving the old war home design catalogue, so grab that and get to building homes. Trump tariffs steal? Start building pipelines, national hydro grids, bridges, ice breakers and submarines. If these are the lemons that Trump is determined to give us hoping we will choke on them, lets turn them into the best damn lemonade that we can and make our country that much better at the same time.
Build up a wartime military: Calgary Herald Columnist Don Braid had a great piece on this idea this week, and it’s one that I believe needs to be on the table right now. Yes we need to spend more towards our NATO commitments and yes our military needs major investments. But maybe instead of focusing those investments on issues abroad or solely towards arctic defence (which is sorely needed), we need to turn our focus to defending our entire country, including our southern border with the United States. And not to fight against drugs or stop migrants, but to protect ourselves from the United States. If Trump is true to his word that we cannot count on the US to defend us, then we should act now to ensure that we’re protected against the fastest growing threat to our sovereignty. He likely thinks that he can easily take our country, and by growing our military right away, we can show him just how wrong he is.
Build that new Democratic Coalition: While the Trump threat is uniquely large for us here, we are not alone in facing these threats. While we’ve felt alone this past month, we know there are many potential democratic allies around the globe that are facing threats from Trump and want to protect the liberal democratic order that has served the world so well. We need to build that coalition out further and deepen it. We need to make this an economic and military coalition, where we mutually support each other and trade with one another. Between the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and other potential nations in other parts of the world, which makes for a large market and a large coalition. That’s especially much large than American Alone. So if America is choosing that path, we need to show them the natural consequences that come with that.
And I know there are many other ideas that could/should come forward, but the idea is now is the time for all of them to be put on the table. We don’t get to have the luxury of easing our way into any of this and if we’re going to be successful, we need to step up to the plate and show that we’re for real. As much as I wish this would pass on its own with time, it’s clear that is just not going to happen here. So we need to pull up a chair to this big table and have some tough discussions. Because if we do that now, we’ll not only succeed, but we’ll also be a stronger country for it.