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Are Americans not aware that their head of state is threatening to annex us? Oh, and judging from social media comments, his supporters think this is a really n

Are Americans not aware that their head of state is threatening to annex us? Oh, and judging from social media comments, his supporters think this is a really nifty, clever idea. Why do you think this is about a trade dispute?

kridsdale1 2y ago
Exactly. It’s being felt the same way Georgia and Ukraine have come to feel about Russia. The US can no longer be trusted. They’ve squandered a century of friendship. For nothing.
- ks2048 2y ago
  > For nothing. "Nothing" for most people, but for those building a fascist state, it's for lots of power and money. Being a bully, making people pick sides (even for ridiculous things), making people fear your personal police/border force, etc - all part of the dictator playbook.
  - llm_nerd 2y ago
    Given the history of the United States, and the stark political division, it's for less than nothing: The coarse they have set is one that is absolutely guaranteed to lead to civil war and dissolution. Any American that actually thought you had a pretty decent country in decades past needs to seriously consider acquiring firearms, and this isn't an exaggeration. And really, the not-into-a-corrupt-idiocracy states -- one where lawless will-enslave-people-for-$ garbage like El Salvador and Russia are your besties -- should be openly talking about secession. The right likes to pretend it's unthinkable when the so-called "blue states" broach it, yapping some "indivisible!" line, but Texas has spent every Democrat government with in the open secession planning. Abbott was busy setting up Texas "consulates" of sorts, preparing to be their own little country. All because equal rights and healthcare offend them so. Now there's a grotesquely incompetent group of criminal grifters and clowns talking about abolishing federal courts, completely annihilating the constitution, and openly joking about invading literal allies. Mix in some advertising of their shitcoin crypto and getting rid of the gold stockpile for Bitcoin. It's your time, blue states. What the hell are you waiting for?
    - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
      There are very few US states that are so homogenously blue that you could even talk about this without imagining civil war within blue states -- right across the border from Canada in western New York there's walls of MAGA-voting counties. Even in northern Vermont. The American idea and patriotism is so profoundly deep in the psyche of almost every American, I can't imagine any kind of post-USA state have any existence without profound catastrophe and violence. Maybe your country did a disservice to future generations by not just letting the southern states just... leave... because the cultural gap between north and south seems to be a source of serious long term and structural problem. And from watching American discourse from a distance up here, I actually think the US is far less divided than American liberals would like to think. A large polity in the US has swung over to MAGA, more than in 2016. The trend is heading in the wrong direction. For now. Trump 2016 looked like an accident and a huge but blundering catastrophe. Now it looks far more sinister.
      - llm_nerd 2y ago
        Oh for sure there is no homogeneous state and you are completely right. It is a gross simplification to talk about blue and red states, and like the Pacific NW is about as blue as it gets, but you can also find extremely red areas. But I mean Texas is as "blue" as New York is "red". Yet Texas is unabashedly, overtly a Republican state. 1/3 of extremely red Arkansas voted Democrat. If it came to shooting, it wouldn't be state vs state, it would be zipcode vs zipcode. >I actually think the US is far less divided than American liberals would like to think The US is approaching a 50/50 divide between extremely different political opinions, where each then changes everything to force their view on the other. It is extraordinarily divided. And that was before "MAGA" in the US decided that allies are actually enemies, Russia is a friend, and sending people charged with no crime and with no due process to a random corrupt banana republic -- El Salvador -- that will enslave them for $, and it's just grossly untenable: These are positions that are completely orthogonal to those that America has set for itself during all of modern history. It can't go on. There is no way that the alternate positions are compatible.
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        > I actually think the US is far less divided than American liberals would like to think. Trump still can't break 50% on a vote, I don't think we are messed up so much that MAGA has anywhere near a majority.
echelon 2y ago
The thing I don't get is that if Canada became part of the US, Republicans would never hold power again. Don't they know that? That makes me think this is all asinine rhetoric to (1) squeeze Canada, Europe, and other allies of the trade deficit goodwill for a quick buck. That stuff America used to maintain global soft power and hegemony - cashing it in for a quick buck. (2) run quick and chaotic pump and dumps where donors get to make enormous alpha on the market volatility (this could seriously just be market manipulation games?), and/or (3) satisfy the geopolitical powers that may or may not be underwriting Trump, Musk, Gabbard, et al. Saudis, Russians, and Chinese. Several of this gang are politically exposed persons, possibly with exposure or debts to all three groups.
- Sanzig 2y ago
  Canadians are under no illusions that we will ever be a US state. If we ever were to be annexed, we would almost certainly be a territory without voting rights like Puerto Rico.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    US states are almost always added in pairs so that the number of Republican and Democratic states increase at the same rate. It's why Alaska & Hawaii came in the same year, why we have oddities such as the split between North & South Dakota, et cetera. So if Canada were to join as states, it would be something like a Republican Western Canada and a Democratic Eastern Canada. Or some sort of strange split that gives 2+2. Definitely not the existing boundaries, because that'd likely be an 8/2 Democratic/Republican split.
    - robin_reala 2y ago
      You’re saying this like it’d be a choice and not an invasion.
      - bryanlarsen 2y ago
        Yes, any considerations like this would be part of a post-invasion peace treaty.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
> Are Americans not aware that their head of state is threatening to annex us? Oh, and judging from social media comments, his supporters think this is a really nifty, clever idea. Why do you think this is about a trade dispute? I don't see why you guys can't dislike us for more than one reason. The annexation threat, and then the weird tariff demands that came out of left field, they both seem like good reasons, and you could even treat them as addition.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  There can be trade disputes between friends. Even if this one is just more than a bit unhinged. Where it crosses the line is incidents like this: https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/provincial-news/article794964.html https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/provincial-news/article...
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    I still don’t see how the trade dispute can’t make things worse. If you are friends, a trade dispute will strain your relationship, even if it might not cross the line to ruin it. We are just way beyond that line with Canada.
    - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
      According to Trump the trade dispute and annexation threats are the same thing. e.g. yesterday's 25% auto-tariffs = potentially half a million unionized well-paid Canadians out of a job, in Canada's economic heartland, with no reasonable employment alternatives. Basically a declaration of economic war.

kridsdale1 2y ago

Exactly. It’s being felt the same way Georgia and Ukraine have come to feel about Russia. The US can no longer be trusted. They’ve squandered a century of friendship. For nothing.

ks2048 2y ago
> For nothing. "Nothing" for most people, but for those building a fascist state, it's for lots of power and money. Being a bully, making people pick sides (even for ridiculous things), making people fear your personal police/border force, etc - all part of the dictator playbook.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  Given the history of the United States, and the stark political division, it's for less than nothing: The coarse they have set is one that is absolutely guaranteed to lead to civil war and dissolution. Any American that actually thought you had a pretty decent country in decades past needs to seriously consider acquiring firearms, and this isn't an exaggeration. And really, the not-into-a-corrupt-idiocracy states -- one where lawless will-enslave-people-for-$ garbage like El Salvador and Russia are your besties -- should be openly talking about secession. The right likes to pretend it's unthinkable when the so-called "blue states" broach it, yapping some "indivisible!" line, but Texas has spent every Democrat government with in the open secession planning. Abbott was busy setting up Texas "consulates" of sorts, preparing to be their own little country. All because equal rights and healthcare offend them so. Now there's a grotesquely incompetent group of criminal grifters and clowns talking about abolishing federal courts, completely annihilating the constitution, and openly joking about invading literal allies. Mix in some advertising of their shitcoin crypto and getting rid of the gold stockpile for Bitcoin. It's your time, blue states. What the hell are you waiting for?
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    There are very few US states that are so homogenously blue that you could even talk about this without imagining civil war within blue states -- right across the border from Canada in western New York there's walls of MAGA-voting counties. Even in northern Vermont. The American idea and patriotism is so profoundly deep in the psyche of almost every American, I can't imagine any kind of post-USA state have any existence without profound catastrophe and violence. Maybe your country did a disservice to future generations by not just letting the southern states just... leave... because the cultural gap between north and south seems to be a source of serious long term and structural problem. And from watching American discourse from a distance up here, I actually think the US is far less divided than American liberals would like to think. A large polity in the US has swung over to MAGA, more than in 2016. The trend is heading in the wrong direction. For now. Trump 2016 looked like an accident and a huge but blundering catastrophe. Now it looks far more sinister.
    - llm_nerd 2y ago
      Oh for sure there is no homogeneous state and you are completely right. It is a gross simplification to talk about blue and red states, and like the Pacific NW is about as blue as it gets, but you can also find extremely red areas. But I mean Texas is as "blue" as New York is "red". Yet Texas is unabashedly, overtly a Republican state. 1/3 of extremely red Arkansas voted Democrat. If it came to shooting, it wouldn't be state vs state, it would be zipcode vs zipcode. >I actually think the US is far less divided than American liberals would like to think The US is approaching a 50/50 divide between extremely different political opinions, where each then changes everything to force their view on the other. It is extraordinarily divided. And that was before "MAGA" in the US decided that allies are actually enemies, Russia is a friend, and sending people charged with no crime and with no due process to a random corrupt banana republic -- El Salvador -- that will enslave them for $, and it's just grossly untenable: These are positions that are completely orthogonal to those that America has set for itself during all of modern history. It can't go on. There is no way that the alternate positions are compatible.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      > I actually think the US is far less divided than American liberals would like to think. Trump still can't break 50% on a vote, I don't think we are messed up so much that MAGA has anywhere near a majority.

echelon 2y ago

The thing I don't get is that if Canada became part of the US, Republicans would never hold power again. Don't they know that? That makes me think this is all asinine rhetoric to (1) squeeze Canada, Europe, and other allies of the trade deficit goodwill for a quick buck. That stuff America used to maintain global soft power and hegemony - cashing it in for a quick buck. (2) run quick and chaotic pump and dumps where donors get to make enormous alpha on the market volatility (this could seriously just be market manipulation games?), and/or (3) satisfy the geopolitical powers that may or may not be underwriting Trump, Musk, Gabbard, et al. Saudis, Russians, and Chinese. Several of this gang are politically exposed persons, possibly with exposure or debts to all three groups.

Sanzig 2y ago
Canadians are under no illusions that we will ever be a US state. If we ever were to be annexed, we would almost certainly be a territory without voting rights like Puerto Rico.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  US states are almost always added in pairs so that the number of Republican and Democratic states increase at the same rate. It's why Alaska & Hawaii came in the same year, why we have oddities such as the split between North & South Dakota, et cetera. So if Canada were to join as states, it would be something like a Republican Western Canada and a Democratic Eastern Canada. Or some sort of strange split that gives 2+2. Definitely not the existing boundaries, because that'd likely be an 8/2 Democratic/Republican split.
  - robin_reala 2y ago
    You’re saying this like it’d be a choice and not an invasion.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      Yes, any considerations like this would be part of a post-invasion peace treaty.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

> Are Americans not aware that their head of state is threatening to annex us? Oh, and judging from social media comments, his supporters think this is a really nifty, clever idea. Why do you think this is about a trade dispute? I don't see why you guys can't dislike us for more than one reason. The annexation threat, and then the weird tariff demands that came out of left field, they both seem like good reasons, and you could even treat them as addition.

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
There can be trade disputes between friends. Even if this one is just more than a bit unhinged. Where it crosses the line is incidents like this: https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/provincial-news/article794964.html https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/provincial-news/article...
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  I still don’t see how the trade dispute can’t make things worse. If you are friends, a trade dispute will strain your relationship, even if it might not cross the line to ruin it. We are just way beyond that line with Canada.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    According to Trump the trade dispute and annexation threats are the same thing. e.g. yesterday's 25% auto-tariffs = potentially half a million unionized well-paid Canadians out of a job, in Canada's economic heartland, with no reasonable employment alternatives. Basically a declaration of economic war.