Grateful to have received this and some other items recently.
"Yea, ere my hot youth pass, I speak to my people and say:
Ye shall be foolish as I; ye shall scatter, not save;
Ye shall venture your all, lest ye lose what is more than all;
Ye shall call for a miracle, taking Christ at his word.
And for this I will answer, O people, answer here and hereafter,
O people that I have loved, shall we not answer together?"
Appreciate your commentary and analysis. I continue to think your analysis is plausible, and the administration is doing what it can to maintain strategic ambiguity for as long as possible. One reason I think this is that there are some people around the President who understand that there is no good long term alternative to what they are trying to do.
I guess there is a window, the size of which is dependent on geopolitics and our own political choices, where it will be possible to make a deal that preserves a sovereign Canada (we would become a lot more sovereign in the process). The window is probably closing, ever since our government did not immediately respond to the President's demand to end the fentanyl industry with an enthusiastic "we agree, we will fucking get it done, brother."
Let's say that is the President's intention. It is unlikely that the idea will have the support of a majority of the Canadian people (which the preferable path) without conditions in Canada getting much worse, relative to the United States. What is the best path that you can see from A to B?
What makes them bullshit weekly accomplishment narratives is that everyone above them in the whole bureaucratic structure is invested in keeping the bullshit circulating, keeping the whole structure of sinecures afloat. Okay, maybe not everyone.
It's different when you try to deploy a bullshit narrative in a no bullshit environment -- there will be many who don't even understand that there is a world without bullshit coming into being.
@sentdefender A not unreasonable exercise. And honestly, someone who cannot produce a reasonable response does not deserve to have a job supported by a lot of other people who have to work really, really hard jobs.
@gaulicsmith Just found your account with this thread, sir. Of course you are right about all of this.
Have you posted somewhere the list of what you would want to have yourself, on a desert island, to educate your own family?
Depending on how things unfold, this may happen organically, although perhaps in some coordinated fashion. Then we would have the interesting phenomenon of the Canadian government jailing young men on the charge of having traveled abroad to participate in terrorist training by networks loyal to the country that provides the nuclear deterrent and much else that keeps Canada "strong and free."
I appreciate your analysis, sir. I have had much the same reflections about the events that are unfolding now and how things could escalate.
The next Canadian election (if there is one) will be a choice between accommodating the demands of the United States, even if they are unreasonable, in the interest of supporting our powerful neighbour as it defends us all from whatever the globalists have in mind. My hope (and prayer) is that there will be some democratic event in which the Canadian people has an opportunity to express its will, one way or the other, before an irrevocable choice is made.
Other scenarios are not inconceivable, of course.
I challenge anyone to say that he truly knows the mind of the President, or possesses a crystal ball in which he sees the course of events to come.
No question the President is a flawed instrument, but the changes he is making in America, as we see when we read his executive orders, is something I would have voted for, rather than the alternative. A lot of us would have.
I hope that he is an instrument of God, in the same way that the ancient Persians were, sent in spite of himself to bring about peace on earth and bring humanity closer to the kingdom of heaven. Depends what kind of eschatology rings most true for you.
If what he truly wants is to dominate and enslave us, which I think a lot of us would attempt to resist, then I guess it will become apparent sooner or later.
Short of that, we should be able to make a deal.
No question that Canada will have to change a lot in the process.
@truckdriverpleb Thank you for bringing this candidacy to my attention. After viewing his interview on Power and Politics I am also inspired to join the Liberal party.
@BillboardChris Congratulations. This is due in part to your own tireless efforts, which have shown so compellingly how a lone, determined, persistent and truthful voice will give courage to others and, in time, overcome a whole infrastructure of lies.
Insightful commentary as always, and I agree with your analysis of how the threat of tariffs or their actual imposition would play in Canadian politics. I initially concluded, when there was no mention of the subject in the President's inauguration and post-inauguration speeches, that he had decided to pause implementation while Canada had an election, rather than give the Liberals the opportunity to run on the narrative of fighting back against the evil American regime.
It seems they have seized that opportunity quite happily, taking the country even further down a dangerous path strategically, including by doing their best to frame the issue in terms of unjustified trade measures that will harm consumers, and not a demand for radical re-alignment of Canadian approaches to migration and national security.
After the President's impromptu comments about tariffs yesterday afternoon, it seems more likely that he just does not think about Canadian politics very much, if at all. His team has probably already considered the costs of tariffs and potential Canadian retaliation to the U.S. economy and determined that those costs would be worth paying, if necessary, especially as their impact will be, over time, greater domestic investment and economic independence for the U.S. However, I think the administration's preference would be to have a more cooperative northern neighbour, with whom to explore the full potential of developing our shared strategic space, rather than engage in a trade war.
Not clear to me that Poilievre will have the courage to state clearly that the President, actually, is right about migration and fentanyl and quite a few other things, and embrace deeper cooperation with the United States. Canadians might respond well, especially if he and people like @shuvmajumdar can articulate the larger geopolitical context in compelling terms.
Otherwise, Poilievre will be trapped in a political box where his platform is to fight back against Trump, just like the Liberals, but not quite as hard. That could be a losing platform, even with the strongly negative sentiment that most Canadians have about the Liberals (but especially about Trudeau).
Otherwise, the longer term beneficiary of these dynamics will be @MaximeBernier, but perhaps not until we are on the other side of a pretty miserable time economically, not to mention a national unity crisis.
Insightful commentary as always, and I agree with your analysis of how the threat of tariffs or their actual imposition would play in Canadian politics. I initially concluded, when there was no mention of the subject in the President's inauguration and post-inauguration speeches, that he had decided to pause implementation while Canada had an election, rather than give the Liberals the opportunity to run on the narrative of fighting back against the evil American regime.
It seems they have seized that opportunity quite happily, taking the country even further down a dangerous path strategically, including by doing their best to frame the issue in terms of unjustified trade measures that will harm consumers, and not a demand for radical re-alignment of Canadian approaches to migration and national security.
After the President's impromptu comments about tariffs yesterday afternoon, it seems more likely that he just does not think about Canadian politics very much, if at all. His team has probably already considered the costs of tariffs and potential Canadian retaliation to the U.S. economy and determined that those costs would be worth paying, if necessary, especially as their impact will be, over time, greater domestic investment and economic independence for the U.S. However, I think the administration's preference would be to have a more cooperative northern neighbour, with whom to explore the full potential of developing our shared strategic space, rather than engage in a trade war.
Not clear to me that Poilievre will have the courage to state clearly that the President, actually, is right about migration and fentanyl and quite a few other things, and embrace deeper cooperation with the United States. Canadians might respond well, especially if he and people like @shuvmajumdar can articulate the larger geopolitical context in compelling terms.
Otherwise, Poilievre will be trapped in a political box where his platform is to fight back against Trump, just like the Liberals, but not quite as hard. That could be a losing platform, even with the strongly negative sentiment that most Canadians have about the Liberals (but especially about Trudeau).
Otherwise, the longer term beneficiary of these dynamics will be @MaximeBernier, but perhaps not until we are on the other side of a pretty miserable time economically, not to mention a national unity crisis.
@RossMcKitrick Excellent analysis sir -- happy to have discovered your voice in this important national conversation. I trust you are contributing to thinking about how a new government could adapt rapidly to the new context.
Where is the landing zone here? Canadians support the very things that have been demanded of us. Tariffs will be damaging to both countries. If you believe that tariffs will drive voters to the Conservative party and that not much more damage can be done before they have an opportunity to elect a new government -- well, I hope you are right.
@jamiljivani@JDVance@realDonaldTrump I guess you have already concluded that there is no alternative to pushing as hard and as far as necessary to achieve that goal. Maybe you are even surprised at how much resistance there is to not unreasonable demands.