More Thoughts on our Struggle with the U.S.

Dave

Hi and welcome to my podcast. In this second podcast, I have decided, in the light of our current situation with our neighbor to the south, to provide further input on our situation and offer some directions that I think can help us going forward.

Dave

To begin, I would like to provide some context on our history and relationship with the United States which I am sure many of you are familiar with. We have been neighbors going back at least to the time of their fight for independence. We have co-existed as friends since then except for some minor surmises such as the War of 1812. We have fought shoulder to shoulder with them through two world wars as well as during the Korean war and other times such as in Afghanistan. We have also come to their aid during times of emergency like the Iranian hostage taking where our embassy took in and protected American diplomats and also during the nine eleven crisis when we took in all those flights in Labrador. So, it is safe to say that we we have peaceably co-existed for a long time and have had each others back. Yes, we have had our differences when it comes to trade but we have overcome those in the past and, up to now, have had an exemplary trade arrangement between our two countries.

Dave

That is up to now. Now we are in a new world where the United States has elected a convicted felon as President for the second time. However, this time he has a plethora of sycophants behind him, including the richest man in the world. These people have been hand-picked to do his bidding, including those who are the authors of the Project 2025 manifesto and who are going to implement its ideas through Trump. We are seeing these ideas being implemented already through things like removing DEI from all aspects of their government, rounding up immigrants, regardless whether they are criminals or not and other initiatives that have been spelled out in Project 2025. If this is not enough, Elan Musk, an un-elected agent, is running roughshod over the current governmental structure in that country. Also, unlike Trump’s first term, his administration has now become a true oligarchy with not only Musk having Trump’s ear but other billionaires like Bezos, Zuckerberg, Murdoch and others. This administration will likely be full of grift and corruption like no other even more than Trump’s first term.

Dave

At this point, I would like to present the contents of a message to an exchange student which we hosted a few years ago just to present my view of the future under Trump. She was concerned about his re-election and what it meant for us and Canada. Before I do this, I would like to point out that I provided this message shortly after Trump’s re-election in November of 2024. Thus, some things have changed since then for sure. OK here is the jist of the message.

Dave

You probably remember when you were staying with us that we were very concerned and shocked when he was elected President the first time. However, this time is going to be far worse for the U.S. and the world as he will now be more powerful and aggressive and will have many people working under him who are much more dangerous and will not prevent him from doing everything that he wants to do. You may have heard the word fascism used to describe his thinking and the things that he wants to do this time and that is very accurate. Many people who voted for him just wanted a better economy and tougher immigration policies and didn’t care about what he said during the campaign or his other anti-feminist and anti-democratic policies. Ironically, the U.S. economy is one of the best in the world right now. The American public can be so ignorant of their own situation. Apparently, some Americans didn’t even know that Joe Biden was no longer running for President based on the most popular searches on Google asking if Joe Biden was still running for President in the final days before the election. Unbelievable! Now that he is President, he and his aides are going to force the U.S. away from a democracy to become an authoritarian state. The proof of this is in his republican party manifesto entitled Project 2025. You may not have heard of this document before but I’m sure that you can Google it and find a version in Spanish. Based on this document and all the things that he said during his campaign, here is what I think may happen during the next years that he is President. First, he will pardon himself from all the indictments and convictions that have been made against him in the last several years as he will now have the power to do that. Second, he will attempt and may be successful at imprisoning many of his political enemies like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and others as well as journalists and other TV celebrities that he does not like and maybe shutdown newspapers and News channels like CNN. Thirdly, he will start to round up all illegal as well as possibly legal immigrants and put them in prison camps while they wait to be deported. Fourthly, he will possibly, and likely more than not, withdraw the United States from NATO which will seriously weaken its powers. Fifthly, he will force Ukraine to surrender to Russia as he has always been friendly to Putin. Sixth, he may make abortions illegal throughout the entire U.S. instead of just in some states which they are now. Seventh, he will eliminate or change many democratic institutions in the U.S. to make the country more authoritarian and give him more power. He has already been successful in doing this with their Supreme Court. Eighth, he will severely curtail and possibly eliminate all the programs introduced by the Biden administration to fight climate change as he and the Republican party do not believe that climate change is real. There are many more things that could happen under his rule, but I think that these are the main ones. I also have a great concern that as a result of his rule over the next four years that there will be no more elections in the U.S., at least none that are not controlled solely by him and the Republican party. As far as my concerns for Canada, I see the following may happen. First, he will put tariffs on all Canadian goods being sold to the U.S. as he said he would do for all countries selling goods into the U.S. This will definitely harm our economy. Secondly, we will experience large numbers of illegal immigrants coming into Canada that are currently in the U.S. as they try to evade his draconian policy on deporting immigrants back to their home countries. Along with this, I foresee many legal U.S. citizens trying to immigrate to Canada to escape a more fascist government. Thirdly, he may withdraw the military alliance that we have with the U.S. which helps keep us safe as we do not have the large military forces that the U.S. has. You can compare that with NATO forcing Spain out of that alliance. There are some other things that will be of concern to Canada, but the one thing that concerns me very much is that he may decide that we would be better off as part of the U.S. due to our natural resources and try to take us over, either peacefully or by force. We would be essentially defenseless as we have nowhere near the military might of the U.S. I would compare this to what happened to Poland at the start of the Second World War. This may be highly unlikely but it still worries me very much. We are a neighbor with a shared border that is over 8,000 kilometers long. It is possible that only a few these things will happen and I hope that is true. Hopefully, this gives you a summary of what I think may happen.

Dave

OK so I did not foresee the part that Elon Musk would play in his new administration or the formation of an oligarchy, but I did foresee some of the things that have come to fruition to date. What is ironic is that I prepared this message based mainly on what I had heard from Trump and his sycophants during his campaign.

Dave

So lets get back to our current situation with Trump attempting to impose these crippling tariffs on Canada. As I am putting together this podcast, we have now been able to forego the imposition of these tariffs for 30 days due to phone calls by Trudeau to Trump. Although I was very angry initially when I heard that Trudeau had negotiated to postpone these tariffs, I have come around to the resignation that at least this gives us some time to continue to prepare for the inevitable. However, make no mistake, we will never be able to negotiate with a deranged narcissistic moron and thus, we must take permanent actions to protect our country going forward. This brings me to my ideas for proceeding from here. First, we must increase our spending on defense, not to the two percent of our GDP which we are expected to meet under our obligation as a member of NATO, but to a much higher percentage. This is not to the two percent which Trumps complains about, but to a significantly higher amount of maybe four to five percent, primarily to protect us from the U.S. going forward. Second, we should look to align ourselves politically and economically with the European Union and maybe go as far as joining the European Union. In many ways, we have more in common with respect to our views and outlooks on healthcare etc. then we do with the United States. Third, we should strengthen our border with the United States which is already happening to a great extent with our current concession to the orange Jesus. Fourth, we must find new markets for our products and services, including our oil and gas. These markets should include the EU as well as possibly the far east. This should include building of additional all-Canadian pipelines for oil and gas to allow us to export to the EU which is still very dependent on Russia for their oil and gas, although they have been able to reduce that dependency somewhat in the wake of the war between Ukraine and Russia. Fifth, as a country, we should strive to purchase more Canadian-made goods and services, including food, at least in the short term until we ween ourselves from our current dependency on the U.S. It is very encouraging to see that this is already taking shape as we begin to fight back against these impending tariffs. Sixth, we need to overhaul our infrastructure to make it less dependent on the U.S. I am not sure exactly what is required to do this but I do believe that it is important to do. Seventh, we need to strengthen our position with respect to technology innovation and deployment, especially with respect to AI which is going to dominate our lives more and more in the future. Eighth, we must continue to work to fight the effects of climate change, if not by initiatives like a carbon tax, then by other means. Although this is my eighth recommendation and not directly tied to our current situation with respect to tariffs, it is no less important and is likely the most important initiative we need to concentrate on going forward for the sake of our children and our planet. So these are my ideas for reacting to these tariffs we are being threatened with. You may not agree with some or any of them and, if so, let me know in the comments.

Dave

In closing, let me know what you think of these podcasts and if more podcasts on Canada’s fight to remain a strong and free country would be welcome. That’s all for now. God bless and let us remain strong and free.