Economically dependent on their northern neighbor, business owners in Washington state are laying off employees and shutting their doors.
Economically dependent on their northern neighbor, business owners in Washington state are laying off employees and shutting their doors.
I agree with a chunk of this, but your note about ‘reminding them at large of our value’ is off. Most people I talk to here in Canada look at the issues in the states as basically untenable in terms of stability / trade / geopolitical unity. Supporting Russia, attacking their allies/threatening to militarily annex peaceful democratic areas like greenland, putting up BS reasons for trade tariffs (fent). The USA is a schizo trade partner at best, where for 4 years with the dems it may be ‘normal’, but when it flips repub its suddenly xenophobic dictator land, with less stability in its agreements than a third world military dictatorship – at least those deals tend to last until the next coup, whereas Trumps agreements change based on his dementia; his administration has become comfortable with making up totally fake numbers even, which can change based on how they want to present the fake narrative about why they’re doing whatever stupid crap they’re doing. And there’s no assurance it’ll go back to a ‘stable’ dem setup for four years next time around – the way it’s trending, the dems will be locked up, with all their funding methods declared unamerican by EO, similar to the shakedown of the law firms that’s happened recently as reported by 60 minutes.
If you live next to a family in a mansion, and they suddenly start flying a Nazi flag, beating/deporting their own maintenance staff (sometimes their own family too, by mistake), and screaming about how they’re gonna take your house, you don’t pull back on visiting as a way to ‘remind them’ of your value. You pull back because WTF, no. And if you can’t move, and they were your main contact locally, you start lookin for other friends / buying guns and protection. Again, not to remind them of your value, but because fuck no.
We are going to treat the US more like a different country than ours, even after “normalcy” returns, but there is a way to recognize the fact that of the 300 million people you have at least a few million within them that are victims.
I get what you are saying, but just like ourselves, it’s not realistic to expect every American to be a hero saving the world and themselves from Trump. We are doing our part to avoid American products, so we should expect organization and pushback at a similar level, rather than waiting for vigilante justice or asking everyone to just move away immediately. A general strike is a possibility, but we shouldn’t be going “tsk-tsk” just because it’s not planned right now. There could be the beginning of discussion to separate from the United States, who knows, but that won’t happen immediately either.
When the Nazi’s came to power in Germany, they had less support amongst the public than the republicans do today.
If you think it fair to hold all of Nazi germany accountable for the atrocities that went on, there’s no reason to pretend America is some “special” exception. Germans take responsibility for their past, with things like banning AFD – even if a German can legit say “It wasn’t me gassing those jews”, they still recognise they were responsible for what occurred as a result of their inaction and apathy. In the US, like 30% of them didn’t even bother to show up and vote. Apathy is no excuse, and not worthy of absolution. They literally elected a felon and a rapist.
Regardless, I still stick by the reduction in visits and the on going boycotts aren’t about making them “realise our value” or whatever. It’s a visceral recoil experienced on an aggregate scale, to the vitriolic bile being spewed by the people they elected, targeted quite literally at all of us here in Canada. If someone vomits on you constantly, you move the fuck away – and it isn’t about “wanting to make them miss you”. It’s about the vomit.