Its important to note that I decided that of course US troops WOULD fire on Canadian civilians. I cannot think of ANY reason why ARMED US troops would even be near Canadian civilians unless they were willing to use those arms. Rifles are not just for show. Whether such an event happens though… that depends on contextual conditions.
However it is unthinkable that Canadians wouldn’t be resistant in every way possible to such a foreign military occupation. The chaos that would be borne from this (both organized and spontaneous) resistance would eventually lead to the military occupier to using their armed forces in violent ways.
IOW Canadian civilians would force the US armed occupiers to use their guns. There is no other way that the Canadian public would comply without constant active violent repercussions.
This thread is a “fun” thought experiment, but I think the divide in opinion really comes down to how one estimates Trump’s chance of getting anything done once he states his intention to invade Canada to the people who count (Department of State, the military, etc.). And I just don’t think a lot of people in this thread are being realistic.
We saw what happened recently with Trump’s aborted trade war with Canada and Mexico. Think dog with tail positioned midway between legs. Trump got pushback at least from the stock market, and one may imagine him consuming media that was highly negative about the plan. Who knows what his sycophants (i.e., everyone around him) were saying to him, but it probably wasn’t nothing.
Okay, in the case of a literal invasion of Canada, imagine that level of pushback times… a very, very big number. One thousand times more would be a vast underestimate. The stock market would not dip; it would evaporate. Since Elon would be involved, consider what would happen to Tesla: again, not a dip, but an outright ban on sales in almost every European country. Vast swathes of Americans taking to the streets and proclaiming their readiness to fight against their own country. Democratic governors saying they will oppose the invasion any way they can. And so on.
Complete, utter chaos. That’s the realistic picture. Trump proved recently that he is not ready to face anything of the sort. The man is a barely sentient simian with no ability to plan something complicated like an invasion, understand the implications of such a decision, or steel himself to handle the blowback. It 100% is not going to happen.
25% tariffs on Canadian (and all other non-US, but Canada’s the single largest source) of iron and aluminum announced today, and the blanket 25% tariff is merely on hold, not canceled. Thinking that Trump’s trade war has been “aborted” is extremely optomistic.
I’ve already stated up thread that I have no expectations of Trump. He is a chaos monkey who’d bomb California IF it were offered to him by the US head of Defense. Also he and his fascists have complete control of all three branches of the US government. They also have a large following of rich patrons, and fash loving public voters.
However they don’t have the US civil and military bureaucracy. That would take many years to effectively erode. These are people who (while they have their own biases, political leanings, and quirks) offer the options and carry out the orders on ground. They were there before the administration was set up, and will last after the administration shifts to another (barring a complete coup d’etat). They can be a leash to some of the most extreme fascist acts.
That is, until Trump’s goons replace them. One by one. The US is looking shaky. Trump is old and doesn’t have the years to do this task but please. Make sure you don’t get a run of fascists as Presidents. Anything is possible then.
I’m not convinced that Americans would respond with the resistance you outline here. Why would they? I agree, the chaos of markets and production would be profound but that would happen after the invasion and the thought of such disruption might not be a deterrent.
But all doom-seering [sic] aside, my concern is the silly talk by Trump about annexation and invasion will be used to strengthen economic ties between the two countries, that is, giving US capital even more access to and control over Canadian resources. “It would be better to sell them our oil, timber, minerals, water cheaply than risk invasion!” has often been the hysteria-mongering response of Canadian politicians and business people who would profit from such arrangements. The point of NAFTA was to make such access easier and to make it more difficult for Canadian governments to say no to such deals, environmental protection, and labour conditions.
I guess the point is US and international capital can effectively take over Canadian resources via economic means and thus make sovereignty moot without firing a shot. Talking about annexation might only encourage that process.
By the way, is your user name based on the character of Kropotkin in the movie The President’s Analyst? Great flick!
You saw the George Floyd (RIP) protests. The reaction would be at least that big. And that’s just from folks acting independently. An invasion of Canada would 100% guaranteed trigger a civil war in the US. I can’t prove it, but I am sure of it.
After? As other posters have pointed out the buildup to an invasion would be big, and I would not be a well-kept secret. The markets would be sliding down to oblivion the whole time.
Something like that, in Trump’s rotten noggin. He seems to have pissed off everyone as a prelude to his “big deal,” however.
Or perhaps soften up the target in a way Trump doesn’t want: making Canada more interested in having adjacent blue states join them, such as the entire West Coast. That’s a lot more likely at this point than a US invasion.
Sadly, not that inventive; it’s from the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, 1842-1921, who is the avatar as well. No doubt the character, full name V.I. Kyodor Kropotkin, is from V.I. Lenin and Pyotor Kropotkin. Thanks for reminding me to look for the movie: I haven’t seen it in years.
I could see the US west coast down to, oh, Mount Shasta or northernmost California lining up with Canada, but not SF or LA. But it is interesting to think about. I was always disappointed that Ernest Callenbach’s novel Ecotopia didn’t include some of BC in the new territory, but that would have been a pretty complicated wrinkle to include.
It is fascinating to think about the end of the formal nation-state, which was never a logical or “natural” thing.
Basically. While I despise Trump and think he’s no better than a gum wrapper on shit on a shoe in the gutter, I do try to be accurate about what he is and what he isn’t, and I don’t think he actually gets off on killing and violence and war in general. His first term was pretty mild in this regard. And that’s another reason why I don’t think he’d invade Canada. It’s not his kink. Now, threatening people like a mob boss and suing the shit out of them? That’s definitely his groove.
Big Biz doesn’t want to lose its mon-mon, and those guys don’t want an invasion for sure.
Indeed. I keep citing the case of one A. Hitler, who took years to get Germany ready for his worst depredations.
The US is shaky as hell, but I keep seeing people go the wrong way on the circuit board with this one. The chance of the fascists cementing their reign is zero. The chance of the nation coming apart is very high. Trump is such a dumb pig that he literally thinks, “I’m president–everyone has to do what I say!” He thinks that, if you can successfully cheat at the game (as he tried to do with the election in 2021), people will just back off and say, “Aw shucks, you got us.” He is used to playing by his version of the rules, such as when he sues people, and having other people have to play by them. What he doesn’t see is that, if he plays outside the rules, others will too.
Trump put tariffs on steel in his first term, which Biden never got rid of, so I’m curious if there is any overlap with this new proposal. Maybe Canada wasn’t covered then. Let me know if you know…
If Trump tries to do the blanket tariff again on Canada and Mexico, he will face the same blowback, and he knows this because his simian brain responds to conditioning, so I’m not sure what he’s going to do on that. My impression is that the tariff game is almost 100% Trump and not something someone in his circle is pushing independently.
Canada was absolutely covered in the 1st Trump steel & aluminum tariffs (as was Mexico). It was the first round of “Canada’s steel is a threat to US national security,” as a completely made up thing to provide a fig leaf for the president’s authority to impose such tariffs without congressional action. Those tariffs were lifted as part of the USMCA deal, which apparently can be abrogated on a whim without any consequences.
I agree that the tariff stuff is pretty much all Trump personally. His inability to understand the basics of international trade (or economics generally) is not a failure shared by most in his circle, and I don’t think there’s any sort of enthusiasm by anyone else in the administration for tariffs, outside of people like Bannon (who’s been making imperialist/manifest destiny noises recently) thinking they might be helpful as an economic club to facilitate annexation.
But given the collective willingness of Republican legislators to stand up for the interests of their corporate masters against Trump’s ignorance, I have no confidence whatsoever that that ignorance will not prevail.
I also hope you’ll forgive Canadians for being way less convinced that a prospective invasion will fatally fracture the US than you are.
If the UK were willing to host our government in exile - which they have a fundamental moral duty to do so I hope they would - that would make the USA an enemy state anyway, and make the UK an enemy state in the eyes of the Trumpist government.
I mean, if you literally host the government the USA is at war with, you’ve fairly clearly picked your side.
Not to hijack, but that’s not a good take on Bakunin, who had much more to offer as a theorist. He was highly critical of some of Marx’s ideas, especially about the possibility of Marxism becoming the ideology of a new class of intellectuals. As one writer noted, Bakunin predicted Stalinism before Stalin was born.
Oh, I know it’s definitely one-sided. I just happened to stumble upon it. I plan on reading more about Bukunin elsewhere, as well as reading his original works.
Thanks for the additional info. Congress needs to rein in this bullshit, but of course they won’t so long as the GOP can prevent it.
The thing is, most of the corporate masters these days represent multinational capital, not local “American” interests, so I don’t think most of them want these tariffs either.
This is an odd statement, as it implies that I or the average Liberal American has some reason for seeing things differently on this topic than the average Canadian, and I am having difficulty imagining why that would be so. I am not trying to advance some proposition about the moral superiority of Americans; the last election, if nothing else, has made that impossible. All I’m trying to state, actually, is what I consider to be the obvious bare minimum that would happen if the US was about to invade Canada: which is all hell breaking loose in the US.
Because, just as the dickheads of the right are constantly itching for something to bitch about, such as wokeness, trans rights, migrants, whatever, Americans on our side are also craving a cause, a reason to do battle with the troglodytes. Politicians on our side are looking for ways to boost their careers. And so on. Look at the George Floyd protests. A lot of people were fucking pissed. And for good reason. Of course, I think when people get pissed like that, it’s about more than the immediate cause. Yes, George Floyd’s murder was an execrable tragedy, but the people who got pissed were also pissed about racism in general, injustice in general, the fuckheadery of the right in general, and so on.
Now take that level of rage, turn it past 11 to something like 1,023. With not just a huge chunk of Americans joining in but basically every other country in the world supporting the pissed Americans and ready to take on the fascist GOP. That is the bare minimum of what would happen.
My friend, the fascists have already won your country over. Wholly and legitimately. What is only left to see, is just how much they’ll break your system of checks and balances. I have so little faith in American liberals. I’m not a doomer, but your track record is embarrassingly weak. I mean, you let the Republicans take over EVERYTHING. You couldn’t even save abortion, or setup a single-payer health care system.
The fact that we are here where we are, listening to your President talk and planning about annexing Canada, Greenland, and Gaza WITH a large amount of Americans cheering him on… I’m not a doomer, but enough Americans do love criminal fascists and your liberals are too weak to do anything but tut-tut their teeth and throw up their hands.
tl;dr - You should’ve controlled your guns, Obama should’ve just confirmed his SC pick, you should’ve thrown Trump in jail after Jan 6th, and I will never bet on the effectiveness of American liberals.
For the record, I don’t think the US will annex Canada. There is too much that needs to break down before Trump can muster that kind of era breaking political change. But he’s floating the idea. He’s testing the waters. He has the power and the lack of intelligence to act normally.
Its also possible he could violate our sovereignty in a thousand ways short of annexation given the inclination.
I know that you know that this isn’t true, that we have powerful blue states and powerful blue cities within the mostly weaker red states, and that the disproportionate power that the fascists wield is mostly due to bad and hackable structures baked into our constitution, and so on. So I won’t belabor the point.
Trump is the ultimate conman and hacker of systems in the 21st century. He has destroyed American Christianity by showing everyone that Christians are fakes and chumps willing to support anyone so long as he promises them an advantage, and, very similarly, he has fatally damaged the system of norms that has helped us keep order since the end of the Civil War. He has shown everyone now that the system is little more than tissue paper ready to be torn by anyone willing to tear it. I think he’s made a revolution inevitable at this point.
You are pointing at weaknesses baked into our system, which will more or less necessitate a revolution to correct. Liberals are weak in our system, it is true, because following the rule of law means getting absolutely nothing done at all. The senate alone prevents anything from happening. Trump is currently flouting the law for the same reason.
I need evidence that a large contingent is cheering Trump on wrt those things. I have not heard polls on any of it, but I do know that Trump’s approval ratings are shitty and IIRC at an all-time low for him.
Yes, a lot of Americans are morons. A huge fucking tragic and embarrassing, might I also add shameful lot. Sadly, not a small number of Canadians are Trumpers too. My best friend is married to a Canadian and his father-in-law–hoo boy. Trump nut par excellence. Apparently Canadian politics are so boring that you have to import our depravities for a little interest, lol. Oh, and I have heard that you were set to have a conservative government come in, though apparently Trump’s idiocy is boosting the prospects of the Liberals. Do we get credit for the save?! (I look favorably on Canada and Canadians, but the dumbassery you see in the US is a global plague. Viz Brexit, the rise of right wing parties in Europe, etc.)
We have a moronic thing in our constitution called the “2nd Amendment.” Oh, and amending the constitution is impossible, so…
That doesn’t make any sense. The idiot senate confirms. The president has no power to strong arm anyone in such a case.
Agreed. He should have been picked up as he left the White House, IMO. Biden did a lot of good in terms of domestic policy, but in terms of politics itself, he was an anachronistic dumbass who thought the old rules applied.
Right–and that’s what we were debating, correct?
Like what, concretely speaking?
Trump is an old swine with his eyes half-closed at this point. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to plan sneaky little ways to fuck with Canada. That’s why he’s talking in broad strokes and making big dumb threats. If he tries delegating “fucking with Canada with finesse” to someone else, he will not find success, as the right people are not in place.
Both Biden and Obama had the same leeway Trump has, they failed to exercise it…at all. Even when they could see this coming.
I think Trump won because people are tired of bits and pieces, patches on old ways, and were over ready for sweeping change. Good or Bad, at some point everybody knows sweeping change is needed in numerous sections of law, legislation, enforcement, prisons, education, medical systems etc, etc.
They keep voting for change and getting modification to a creaking old system. At some point sweeping change, at any cost, seems a better choice. It seems like this is happening in liberal democracies, around the world.
Then rises someone willing to burn it all to the ground.
Basically agree. I think the problem is that, despite the desire for sweeping change, there are no verified best practices to usher in a better type of government or economic system, so we end up switching to a different aesthetic instead of something that will really make a difference. In the case of MAGA, all they can do is try to solidify their power and engage in authoritarian cosplay. They have no actual ideas for change.