Ya’ll are about the size of, and politically left of, California. If ya’ll were a state, the US would look more like Canada than Canada would look like the US.
You’re the last thing that the GOP wants involved in US politics.
Honestly I’ve been worrying for years that the only way the US is going to resolve this division and hostility within their country is by breaking up, possibly largely along red state/blue state lines, and hopefully not triggering a violent (or god forbid nuclear) civil war in the process.
But I can say as a Canadian, if it does come to that, and you guys can’t take back your country (which I really think you can, once you start to accept what is happening and accept that it’s gonna hurt and you dig your heels in anyway, I don’t think there’s anyone who will be able to take you down, not even Trump and crew), then we would be absolutely happy to quickly rebuild and strengthen our relationship with most of the blue states. And however you end up wanting to arrange yourselves in the end, we’ll work with that. And if you guys genuinely wanted our help, our resources, our logistical support, even our protection (what little we can provide), if things were to start looking like actual civil war, I’m sure we’d absolutely be willing to figure out what sort of arrangement is actually going to work. We’d have to at least initially discuss it as equals and as partners though, I don’t think we’d ask you or coerce you to give up your sovereignty, any more than we’d want you to take ours. But if the intention to join Canada was a popular attitude, I expect we’d be willing to consider it, probably after some cooling-off period though to make sure it’s not just a passing fad. The progressive parts of America are the parts we’ve always loved. If you guys come knocking on our door needing a couch to crash on we’re not going to ask how long you need to stay, we’re just going to go find pillows and blankets.
Same. I don’t honestly know how we recover as a country. Trump isn’t the cause, he’s a symptom. A tumour with a much larger cancerous problem underneath. At no point will the sane (and actual majority of us) roll over and become fascists. But at the same time, I don’t see how the third of the country that has gone full fascist suddenly regains their sanity and joins us.
The USSR’s goal was to divide us, and the Cold War never ended, it just went underground. There is a large part of me that is afraid at this point Balkanization is our future. But how we would we even get there without causing death and destruction?
But regardless of sentiments about losing faith in us (and I don’t blame those that feel that way, they are warranted) I do love you all who recognize that not all of us are the insane ones that make it on TV. We do still value our brothers/sisters/enbys to the north and are proud that we have a friendship unparalleled and the world’s longest undefended border. The world is a often a dark and scary place, but it’s friendships like these that make it worthwhile.
the simple truth is that 95% of these people are not able to immigrate, they aren’t wealthy, they aren’t skilled. No country would take them.
Immigration is a tedious process, Its a pipe dream for many. For a time I thought I would Immigrate to the UK when I was dating someone there, years later I realized I didnt have a chance in hell unless we were married. that was the only path that was available to me.
I assume certain short-term things will get better with anyone less crazy than Trump, but I agree the US is no longer reliable for anything long-term, and no other country should deal with us on the assumption that we’ll give up certain short-term advantages for a long term stability within our sphere of influence. It’s not even that the US was “good” (though I imagine the next hegemonic power could easily be worse), but across administrations, the US was generally intelligent about how to leverage its influence but retain enough goodwill to continue to do so indefinitely.
I think a huge part of the problem is that it’s run on Gentlemen’s agreements but we pretend it’s not. The UK’s “Constitution” is a hodgepodge of laws and court cases and things that probably closer to treaties than anything else. It’s a mess, but they know it’s a mess so there’s a very real sense that the gentlemen’s agreements are important and as real as anything else.
In America, we worship our Constitution like a holy text, but so many of our institutional controls depend on Judicial Review (which is not technically mentioned in the constitution), on following along with the presumed intent, and on fudging around the edges when it’s obvious the machinery of the state would grind to a halt if we had to amend it every time a novel situation arose. Yet, nevertheless, we have an entire school of thought built around the idea of shallow surface readings. The “originalists,” not to put too fine a point on it, are fucking idiots.
If you get the idea that the only important thing is the blackletter text agreed to by a gaggle of 18th century provincials, many of whom were intelligent and well-intentioned, but all of whom were elites and either slave-owners or okay with hanging out with slave owners, then you have a recipe for considering stupid shit like presidential immunity or having a speaker of the house who’s not a Congressperson and who can become president despite already serving two full terms, because it doesn’t explicitly say you can’t. It’s childish and dangerous, and their ascendancy in the judicial branch is a travesty.
Yup. I joked that we’re still on Constitutional Republic version 2.27, and not only is the next point release long overdue, but we should really have upgraded to version 3 or 4 by now.
Woah, we only just finally left the beta and are on constitution republic 1.27. The articles of confederation is more of an alpha test that was not good and tried the constitutions and while it worked, it never left the beta stage as , it just used spaghetti code that led to the civil war, which people wanted to upgrade to the first release won and started the reconstruction era, and caused the final release of 1.15. The south downgraded it back to beta after using violence to restrict people rights and remake the antebellum south under beta 15.01. We finally left after the civil rights movement forced them to put it at 1.25, with no restrictions on people rights. Though we need to not upgrade yet as someone is trying to install banana republic instead.
Speaking as a Canadian… Yes, we know.
You guys had the most trustworthy, most reliable ally ever. The faith and trust between Canada and the US was legendary.
That’s gone now. It’ll be a century or more before you can ever rebuild that trust.
And you threw it away for this drooling moron to play tinpot dictator.
Was it worth it?
Call his bluff.
Ya’ll are about the size of, and politically left of, California. If ya’ll were a state, the US would look more like Canada than Canada would look like the US.
You’re the last thing that the GOP wants involved in US politics.
That depends on there still being elections
There will be elections.
Whether we use touch screens or guillotines to cast our ballots is an unanswered question. But there will be elections.
Southerners: “Yes, but we get to abuse brown people again!”
And say the “R-word” apparently
Can some of us, uh, join you though?
Honestly I’ve been worrying for years that the only way the US is going to resolve this division and hostility within their country is by breaking up, possibly largely along red state/blue state lines, and hopefully not triggering a violent (or god forbid nuclear) civil war in the process.
But I can say as a Canadian, if it does come to that, and you guys can’t take back your country (which I really think you can, once you start to accept what is happening and accept that it’s gonna hurt and you dig your heels in anyway, I don’t think there’s anyone who will be able to take you down, not even Trump and crew), then we would be absolutely happy to quickly rebuild and strengthen our relationship with most of the blue states. And however you end up wanting to arrange yourselves in the end, we’ll work with that. And if you guys genuinely wanted our help, our resources, our logistical support, even our protection (what little we can provide), if things were to start looking like actual civil war, I’m sure we’d absolutely be willing to figure out what sort of arrangement is actually going to work. We’d have to at least initially discuss it as equals and as partners though, I don’t think we’d ask you or coerce you to give up your sovereignty, any more than we’d want you to take ours. But if the intention to join Canada was a popular attitude, I expect we’d be willing to consider it, probably after some cooling-off period though to make sure it’s not just a passing fad. The progressive parts of America are the parts we’ve always loved. If you guys come knocking on our door needing a couch to crash on we’re not going to ask how long you need to stay, we’re just going to go find pillows and blankets.
Same. I don’t honestly know how we recover as a country. Trump isn’t the cause, he’s a symptom. A tumour with a much larger cancerous problem underneath. At no point will the sane (and actual majority of us) roll over and become fascists. But at the same time, I don’t see how the third of the country that has gone full fascist suddenly regains their sanity and joins us.
The USSR’s goal was to divide us, and the Cold War never ended, it just went underground. There is a large part of me that is afraid at this point Balkanization is our future. But how we would we even get there without causing death and destruction?
But regardless of sentiments about losing faith in us (and I don’t blame those that feel that way, they are warranted) I do love you all who recognize that not all of us are the insane ones that make it on TV. We do still value our brothers/sisters/enbys to the north and are proud that we have a friendship unparalleled and the world’s longest undefended border. The world is a often a dark and scary place, but it’s friendships like these that make it worthwhile.
I appreciate you internet stranger.
You’ve put it very well. And as someone that lives in BC, I agree wholeheartedly.
You guys are the best. I’m just south of you in the PNW and want us to always have each other’s backs.
❤️,seriously.
There’s an immigration process, go ahead and apply if you want.
the simple truth is that 95% of these people are not able to immigrate, they aren’t wealthy, they aren’t skilled. No country would take them.
Immigration is a tedious process, Its a pipe dream for many. For a time I thought I would Immigrate to the UK when I was dating someone there, years later I realized I didnt have a chance in hell unless we were married. that was the only path that was available to me.
Well, if anyone wants to marry a Canadian, I’m single.
I assume certain short-term things will get better with anyone less crazy than Trump, but I agree the US is no longer reliable for anything long-term, and no other country should deal with us on the assumption that we’ll give up certain short-term advantages for a long term stability within our sphere of influence. It’s not even that the US was “good” (though I imagine the next hegemonic power could easily be worse), but across administrations, the US was generally intelligent about how to leverage its influence but retain enough goodwill to continue to do so indefinitely.
This administration is showing the world how poorly codified and vulnerable the US democracy is.
We learned that last time Trump was president that most of our country has been run on gentlemen’s agreements. It was news to a lot of us as well.
I think a huge part of the problem is that it’s run on Gentlemen’s agreements but we pretend it’s not. The UK’s “Constitution” is a hodgepodge of laws and court cases and things that probably closer to treaties than anything else. It’s a mess, but they know it’s a mess so there’s a very real sense that the gentlemen’s agreements are important and as real as anything else.
In America, we worship our Constitution like a holy text, but so many of our institutional controls depend on Judicial Review (which is not technically mentioned in the constitution), on following along with the presumed intent, and on fudging around the edges when it’s obvious the machinery of the state would grind to a halt if we had to amend it every time a novel situation arose. Yet, nevertheless, we have an entire school of thought built around the idea of shallow surface readings. The “originalists,” not to put too fine a point on it, are fucking idiots.
If you get the idea that the only important thing is the blackletter text agreed to by a gaggle of 18th century provincials, many of whom were intelligent and well-intentioned, but all of whom were elites and either slave-owners or okay with hanging out with slave owners, then you have a recipe for considering stupid shit like presidential immunity or having a speaker of the house who’s not a Congressperson and who can become president despite already serving two full terms, because it doesn’t explicitly say you can’t. It’s childish and dangerous, and their ascendancy in the judicial branch is a travesty.
Yup. I joked that we’re still on Constitutional Republic version 2.27, and not only is the next point release long overdue, but we should really have upgraded to version 3 or 4 by now.
Woah, we only just finally left the beta and are on constitution republic 1.27. The articles of confederation is more of an alpha test that was not good and tried the constitutions and while it worked, it never left the beta stage as , it just used spaghetti code that led to the civil war, which people wanted to upgrade to the first release won and started the reconstruction era, and caused the final release of 1.15. The south downgraded it back to beta after using violence to restrict people rights and remake the antebellum south under beta 15.01. We finally left after the civil rights movement forced them to put it at 1.25, with no restrictions on people rights. Though we need to not upgrade yet as someone is trying to install banana republic instead.
Sorry… 😞