US vacations make you traitor.
Having an enemy worse than you typically makes you look significantly better by comparison. Existential threats also force a certain amount of action. Most of the 20th century was in the shadow of communism, and since it was not as easy to get information out of a secretive anything as it is today you could argue it took a long time to confirm that the USSR had not figured out a good way to run an economy. The mood at the time forces some extent of negotiations with the working class, lest your state become the next theatre of a communist civil war. Cold War technological races pump up spending and invigorate a sense of needing highly educated people, especially in the US space race. Conflict, after all, does tend to get things done.
Feel the patriotism burn in your soul. And hope it doesn’t eventually become malignant.
And now as Canadians we border a country half filled with lunatics. To be a bit more fair only about two thirds of the eligible voters cast a ballot in the 2024 US election. So about a third of the country is confirmed lunatics, one third doesn’t care, and one third loves the status quo. This is hyperbole but I don’t feel like giving the US much credit right now.
So today we are Canadians dammit! Better than the US because we haven’t fallen nearly as far. But this is going to be tough to maintain. We don’t have much choice but to negotiate with a lunatic. A lunatic that under modern trade and labour has a huge impact on our economy whether we like it or not. We just scrapped a cool tax idea on big tech who deserve to pay after they have gotten soft on the whole democracy and truth idea, if we don’t get a deal we should bring it back.
Those tech companies don’t actually believe AI will set us free. You will not be getting money for nothing in that future.
Make Them Hurt As Much As Possible
It’s okay to start wishing harm on your enemies… right?
They only know money, this American administration has no concept of soft power. That’s not great because boycotts are typically really hard to maintain if there’s anything you really like about a product of service. Bud Light might be easily replaceable by Coors, but is that Disney World vacation you promised you would take your kids on before they got old and jaded easily replaceable? I guarantee you neither that company or state deserves your money.
I offer my condolences to the good people of Maine, but sort your own country out first before you ask for more tourists. Maine isn’t particularly Republican either but 45% for Trump is a good indication of how low things will go.
Keep the American liquor imports out, find as many items like that with domestic and international supplies that can easily replace them.
Republicans want their people to be poor. Their donors love it, and some of them are true believers that working people to death is the moral thing to do. We can’t chase them to the bottom, they are trying to dig deeper than we can possibly imagine. And if you actually talk to people about how they feel about the super wealthy you might get an idea that a more progressive stance on wealth is warranted. They’ll fight like hell to stop it though.
Be proud of what we can accomplish as a nation, we are to some extent built on ideals that are worth holding onto. The introspection can be a little less this year.
NS Politics 
Leave a comment