Month: July 2017

The US and Canada have far more in common than a border:  both are nations of immigrants within land usurped from indigenous people with bountiful natural resources, wide open spaces, and political and religious traditions taken from the UK.  That said, they are also very different places:  the US is much larger, more religious, more individualistic, less equal, and far more violent.

So it would seem that geography is not always destiny; accidents of history are equally important in the creation of a nation.  Why are the countries so different?  Part of the answer has to be that Canada would have no reason to exist if its culture simply emulated its vastly more powerful neighbor.  Part of the answer is that Canada didn’t have a revolution and so has less small government DNA than we do.  Finally, part of it has to do with the structural differences in the two political systems themselves.  The Trump phenomenon simply can’t happen in a parliamentary system.

Islamic terrorists and the liberal fake media:  very bad!

Russia:  sort of a problem to be addressed through friendly negotiations.

Western European leaders:  wimpy losers lacking the will to fight Islam.

Polish right-wing populism:  my kind of guys as long as you take Russia out of the equation.  I’m sure that can be worked out.

By Canadian standards, Stephen Harper was impeccably right-wing;  he sympathized with social conservatives, aggressively pursued Canada’s interests in fossil fuels, and appeared to prefer hard to soft power.  For all that, his government never reached the kind of level that we are seeing in the US today: he never tried to “repeal and replace” the Canadian health care system; he never took an ax to the welfare state; and he never denied climate change, at least to my knowledge.

In short, American “conservatives” are different, even from their erstwhile allies elsewhere on the same continent.  Why?

I think there are three basic reasons:

1.  The US was created as an act of rebellion against the British state;  the Canadian nation was not.  As a result, we have more small government DNA than the Canadians do.

2.  There is no Canadian equivalent of Fox News.  Canadians do not have to deal with “alternative facts.”

3.  Right-wing religious beliefs are more of a factor in the US.  No elaboration is necessary.

The most recent edition of The Atlantic contains a lengthy and thorough article discussing our military options with North Korea.  To no one’s surprise, the author ultimately concludes that all of the proactive options are far too risky, and that deterrence is the best choice.

I doubt Trump sees it that way.  He is far too invested in “winning” by putting an end to the North Korean nuclear program.  He simply can’t tolerate looking like a loser.  So, given the alternatives of humiliation or hundreds of thousands of dead South Koreans, which do you think he’ll pick?

If I lived in South Korea, I would be really, really worried.  The best hope is that Trump will blame Obama for the mess and thus, at least in his own mind, avoid the “loser” tag.