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Notes -
Self-Immolation as Civic Nation-Building
To demonize another person, we first have to self-canonize.
Envy and hatred try to pierce our neighbor with a sword, when the blade cannot reach him unless it first passes through our own body.
In recent news of culture-war-as-trade-war, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney inflicted retaliatory 50% tariffs on many goods traversing the Canada-US border. This will obviously have the effect of scalding his own nation, but both Carney and his countrymen appear to gleefully accept this masochistic act in the hope that the US might also get singed a little bit (75% of Canadians supported a withdrawal from negotiations - negotiations which solely existed in the first place to try and lessen the cost on Canada’s economy). Indeed, the issue appears to be so universally mandated up north that Carney’s nemesis, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, has primarily attacked Carney for… not being antagonistic enough towards the US, particularly in regard to said tariffs. Obviously Poilievre is falling into a classic bear trap tendency of conservatives: fearing the social isolation of a strongly differentiated viewpoint and therefore gradually moulding himself into “Liberals but sensible”. We saw how this played out for the Republican Party from 2008-2016; I wonder if Canada is capable of producing a brash enough figure to fill the crucial life ring role played by Trump, which we now recognize as having been the only solution for the prolonged political life of conservatives in the US.
There is another angle here which is even more fascinating. It is often observed that citizens who despise their own country while at home will become surprisingly patriotic and defensive of their nation when traveling abroad and facing criticisms from foreigners. But there is a stronger, deeper version of this phenomenon: that of a nation which either failed to establish territory in the modern world or which ceased to exist as wars were lost and maps were redrawn. The zealous identity of these “invisible nations” can be seen everywhere from Eastern Europe to Kurdistan to American Indian reservations to the Pacific islands. No flag is raised with more patriotism than those flags which have been erased from the map.
With Canada facing a crisis of existence in its ethnic makeup and self-belief, with its only guiding light being burning resentment toward its big brother, what can save the nation? What can transform a postmodern, puritanical nowhere place into a beloved homeland to be fought for, to be boasted about, to be made great again?
In their recent actions and polling numbers, it appears Canadians already know the answer to these questions. So, in their own mind, they might as well go down swinging.
I genuinely don't understand the right-winger position here. What's so funny?
I asked before, and the answers were something to the effect that Canadian citizens, in their personal capacity, are much too smug online and look down on Americans as uncivilized boors, which is unbearable since Canada is a small dog and America is a Big Lion, so the Lion's gotta do what it does. This is simply childish. But fine, I can acknowledge childishness. What I don't get is why you go out of your way to misconstrue the Canadian perception here. Do you really have no theory of mind for other people believing that their nation ought to be treated with dignity by foreigners at least on the official level? Is this an extreme case of Hottentot morality?
And no, their internal issues (like ethnic relations or immigration policies) are not a carte blanche for you, outsiders to treat their state with contempt and expect them to join in on the fun. Try to think about this by analogy: do you feel that any nation is entitled to offer you unequal treaties and expect them be signed, just because you have fat people in Walmart/fentanyl problem/school shootings/BLM/wokes or whatever you believe is problematic and shameful? This is a pretty asinine approach, right? OK, now consider that people in other countries have a similar philosophy. This is called patriotism.
Speaking of their perception, this is how Trump's terms look up there. This is rubbing it in, I can half-believe it was written to be indignantly rejected because he just hates Canada for some reason, maybe precisely because he's a boor and feels status anxiety. But seeing his supporters' takes, I'm not sure it wasn't done with sincere cluelessness.
Then again, the median position now seems to be even simpler: "we can afford to rape them so why the hell not". The stuff about "not a real country" is, of course, veeeery Russia-Ukraine too. But people mostly don't believe their nations ought to have a "real locus", a telos, or anything like this, they just want sovereignty, respect, and the ability to make deals in their self-interest.
Nations can choose whether they are real or not. Unreasonable external hostility is one way to forge a nation. Ukraine is more real now than it was in 2021, which was more real than in 2013, which was more real than in 2003 or 1989 – even in the Russian eyes. Maybe Canada will earn its reality too, reality it traded away a generation ago by signing what became NAFTA, assuming it's worth nothing since no unreasonable hostility is forthcoming. John Turner foresaw this exact outcome that @Shakes celebrates today. Canadians remember Turner-Mulroney debates for a genteel dunk on a relatively minor domestic mishap by Turner. Maybe they'll remember his lines in this one too.
This is a pile of steaming garbage ai slop (made by ChatGPT specifically, it's so blindingly obvious) tweeted by a foreigner who also has no connection to Canada or the USA.
Needless to say I shouldn't have to waste any effort debunking this because it's just a heap of garbage.
Edit: If you want even more confirmation, the URL at the bottom of the image is fake. Fabricated. Made up. Lies. Deception. Falsehood.
The "attack on the French language" thing is particularly transparently dishonest from Carney. Trump's devastating alpha strike on Quebecois identity is... not requiring US streaming services to promote French-Canadian content.
Didn't the US identify bilingual-labelling laws as a non-tariff barrier that they wanted removed?
The NYT article on the topic did not mention this. It calls out the laws promoting Canadian online content, and says, "A person with direct knowledge of the talks said that the American side was flexible on this point, and did not make any asks regarding the French language explicitly. A Canadian counterpart said that, even if that were the case, the topic was still being debated until the last minute before the talks broke down on Friday."
So, maybe? Maybe not? I would think that if NYT had solid confirmation that the US went after bilingual labeling laws, they would have included it. Of course, that article is also a snapshot in time concerning the information they had at that moment.
I think one of the problems here is that the US side isn't talking about the talks that broke down, and doesn't see why they might need to. In particular, nobody is pushing back on the claim by Carney that there was a last-minute bait-and-switch from the US side, with various media outlets (admittedly probably all relying on the same anonymous source) saying that this was because Commerce Secretary Lutnick took over the reins from USTR Greer.
Based on Trump's MO going back to his real estate days, I think we can assume that there was a bait-and-switch from the US side - it is less clear whether or not it was a planned dick move as part of "tough" negotiating tactics or whether it was unintentional chaos as a result of divisions within the administration. But all we have to go by in terms of what the bait-and-switch was about is Carney's talking points (which I assume are selective and biased, because politics) and various pro-Canadian poasters amplifying them. Trump could say (or could get his people to say) that of course the US doesn't have a problem with Quebec preserving its language and culture and try to play divide-and-rule with Quebec the way is (ineptly) trying to do with Alberta, but he didn't.
This round of talks began with a unilateral escalation by the US (the various proclamations of 20th July) and the only intelligible demand the US has made on substance is that Canada reverse the retaliatory measure they put in place after the previous unilateral escalation from the US side, including steel and aluminium tariffs which the US said were not negotiable and other tariffs which were announced as a threat to force Canada to address a non-existent fentanyl problem and then TACOed.
So the US does not have a public negotiating position here. And if the bait-and-switch theory is correct, they haven't communicated a stable non-public negotiating position to the Canadians either.* It might be the case that normalcy could be restored if the Canadians agreed to end the retaliatory measures and accept the steel and aluminium tariffs, but we don't know and Carney has now said that he doesn't either. As far as I can see based on Trump and his supporters' social media posts, the actual MAGA theory of the case is that the correct process is that Trump commands and Carney obeys, and that the real problem is Canadian insistence on LARPing as a sovereign state.
* The actual US negotiating position in this case needs to be non-public because the Trump administration is abusing emergency powers to impose the tariffs. Everyone on both sides of the border knows that the legally colourable US-law justifications for the tariffs in the official White House proclamations have little or nothing to do with the real reasons they are being imposed, but can't say so.
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The image being made with ChatGPT has no relation to the veracity of the claims in it. Indeed it's a point in its favor: LLMs are smarter than Trump, and Trump posts a lot of AI slop (such as his map-painting exercises) and outright falsehoods (eg about Canadian unemployment or oil stats) anyway. If it were just a compilation of his own claims, it'd be worse.
The whole “Trump is an idiot” argument is tired at this point. Someone cannot achieve what he has achieved being an idiot. He might be wrong. He certainly isn’t a rationalist or careful when it comes to what he says. But thinking someone who has accomplished about 1000x whatever your life has accomplished is an idiot is laughable.
Just because a lot of people haven’t achieved what Trump has (… is there some reason why I should want to?) doesn’t mean ordinary people haven’t achieved things Trump is clearly incompetent at. If money was all I cared about, I’d do gay pornography and let every man have a go at my asshole or enter into organized crime. Because I’m actually a Bible believing Catholic though, my spiritual wealth I’d wager is far greater than his will be in the afterlife.
I haven’t checked but I imagine porn actually doesn’t pay that well
According to Ron White, gay people get 5x the amount of money. Take that for whatever it’s worth.
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Respectfully, I call cope. What is it Trump has achieved that normal people wouldn’t want? Becoming President? Large family? Extreme wealth? Fame? You may not want these things but they are among the most common fantasies in the world.
This is a moral judgment masquerading as a value neutral. You think you’re better than Trump because you think he’s going to hell.
Would it be nice to have a billion dollars? Yes. Would I be living all that differently than how I currently am? Not really. All money does for my desire is fuel more of the same. I would think anyone with common sense would get the impression that people who aren’t putting in work to obtain riches would constitute good evidence that their drive to obtain it obviously isn’t that great (i.e. money isn’t what’s primarily driving them). The proposition isn’t that more money isn’t nice, it’s that money isn’t everything; and it’s very difficult for those who have it to understand how anyone could ever be satisfied without it, when they’ve invested all their psychological resources into thinking that’s what makes them happy. Case in point in my own life, my mother came from a rich family and I was spoiled rotten when I was a kid. It still didn’t make me happy.
As I’ve said before. Most people don’t envy fame and fortune. They envy the lives they imagine these people lead. It’s not actually like that. As a matter of fact from my ontology of the world, yes; I am more accomplished than Trump is as a practitioner of the faith. It’s 100% my moral judgment; and the fact that it’s prejudicial doesn’t mean it isn’t also accurate. A person may not buy my theology and that’s fine with me. From my vantage point they’ll get what’s coming to them in the end all the same. It doesn’t make a difference to me. I want to get to Heaven for what I want out life, not so I can enjoy the thought of Trump going to Hell. In that’s sense I’m every bit as selfish about my own interests as Trump is with his. I don’t care one bit if he believes what I do or not. If the fruits of this world outweigh the ones awaiting him on Judgment Day are more important to him, great; then we can both be winners.
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Why? Biden could become a President (indeed, beat Trump at a debate!) while in early stages of dementia, so it wouldn't be far-fetched for Trump to achieve more than Biden while being an idiot. And what has he even achieved, except winning the vote, installing his loyalists (often profoundly inept, like Kash Patel or RFK Jr. or Linda McMahon or… then again, your may refuse to acknowledge their ineptitude too) and doing random intense costly actions he can afford because the US is rich and powerful? And as regards winning the vote, the task seems easy enough: just be an unprecedentedly faithful representative of the immense mass of stupid and malicious people underserved by previous candidates, just shitpost more, be a bigger and louder primate. It's not like American democracy demands any kind of moral or intellectual achievement of their leaders. It's vibes, spite, boredom, hubris, petty sadism…
I understand how acknowledging such mechanics behind your political culture might be hard.
Yeah yeah, money talks bullshit walks, reality is that which pays. This is not a philosophy for human beings.
Pandemic era Biden didn't come across as demented. He came across of someone who was still compus mentis when fully awake, but who was too physically frail for the demands of executive leadership (or indeed running an in-person campaign, which he fortunately didn't need to do in 2020 because of the pandemic). This is consistent with what staffers have said about the administration, which is that Biden was lucid for 4-6 hours a day and able to use those hours to prevent a power vacuum appearing that could be filled by someone else.
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Biden won via the democratic establishment carrying him to victory. Trump engaged in a hostile takeover. They are not the same.
Biden had no staying power; Trump clearly did.
Re money talks — yeah it’s exactly a philosophy for human beings. Person A accomplished a lot. Person B hasn’t. Person B tries to tear down A to make themselves seem more important. Well, the proof is in the eating of the pudding.
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He was also never that smart or studious when his brain was at full power either.
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Respectfully disagreed. I am surrounded IRL by people who reject exactly those simple messages, and whose lives are downward spirals of empty talk, self-delusion, and the rejection of all measurable metrics in favor of declaring as profoundly ethical their bad habits, self-destructive behavior and perpetual failures at even their own stated goals, and who excuse their lies, their parasitic existences and their proselytizing to this complex of self-defeat with words very similar to yours - that human beings needn't accomplish or even do anything to be valuable, and that all those who in fact do things and accomplish things are surely immoral and deserve contempt.
There are probably unhealthy extremes either way, but maxims like
actually form a very healthy philosophy for humans under most circumstances.
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Would it be more charitable to grant that he has "animal cunning"?
I do jest, but so far you seem to not know what intellectual virtue, exactly, has led Trump to success, only assuming that there must be something.
In particular one can point out that Dase didn't say Trump has always been a moron, only that his 80+ old self is more stupid than LLMs. Most of Trump's self-achieved success has been before that. A rock with the correct words on it can be elected president in a system where power is sufficiently diffused.
Less charitably, there are many factors that can cause one person to be in a better position to achieve things, compounding to a 1000x advantage (measured how?), and intelligence is just one. It doesn't seem laughable that a 100 IQ boor with generational wealth and business connections in USA had achieved 1000x more than a hypothetical provincial well-read 120 IQ Russian twice his younger.
It does seem laughable that a 100 IQ boor with generational wealth could basically be the most important person in the world for over a decade. There are tons of idiots born into money and connections. None have leveraged it like Trump. That suggests he isn’t a 100 IQ boob.
And the broader point is that when one person has had that level of success, his detractors better have similar level of success before they call him stupid. It’s like the idiots calling Musk dumb.
Most important in the world is credit to US, not to any particular president. Most important in the country? Many kings had accomplished that without any effort simply by being heirs to a stable hereditary monarchy.
You seem to ascribe some additional moral protection to intelligence that you don't afford other virtues. So when someone is successful, it must have been intelligence? No, there are plenty of other factors, including, yes, sheer dumb being the right-shaped person at the right place in the right time.
I'll continue to call a king naked when he is naked instead of cringing from it in some performative show of humility, "well he's king, so he must have some good reason behind this, or he wouldn't be king!". Your way is just not being able to point out things about anyone famous for any reason because no one here is that famous.
You must realize there is a marked difference between being born the heir to the throne and accomplishing what Trump accomplished?
And of course there are other virtues, etc. I’m just saying you don’t get the top of the top by being an idiot.
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Yet the image is still chock full of falsehoods. I wonder why you never addressed that point?
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