FOR NEARLY A YEAR, Canadians have been discussing the danger posed by the United States. The anxiety shows up everywhere—online forums, polling questions, and in the unusually blunt asides from officials. This is good. We need to get in the habit of having hard conversations about who threatens us, the extent of that threat, and what we can and must do if we are to survive as an independent country.
For CANADA, the diagnosis of the US administration is not academic. It is the difference between managing a relationship with a flawed but crucial ally and planning a campaign of resistance against a powerful neighbour no longer reliably constrained by its domestic institutions.
Unfortunately, we see signs of deference everywhere.
Congress has effectively abandoned its role in holding the president to account. It has failed to uphold its power of the purse on things like international development assistance, bowing to the administration’s decision to simply not spend the money. The loss of that funding has already led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition. It has failed to uphold congressional power to declare war, ignoring military actions in the Caribbean that culminated in the unlawful capture of Venezuela’s authoritarian president. It declined to act when the administration sidestepped the Senate’s confirmation power by allowing Elon Musk to wield cabinet-level authority without ever being confirmed. Congress has also largely demurred in defence of its power to regulate import tariffs. It is, in effect, a presidential lapdog.
Don’t worry… Our next president will be a center right candidate and be declared both a rabid leftist and simultaneously the saviour of democracy. They’ll only predator drone strike a few weddings, thus securing their Nobel peace prize. Everything will return to normal, with just a little shift of the Overton window to the right. But hey, at least it won’t be Trump and full on fascism…
All sarcasm aside, the older I get the more headlines give me dejavu. I can remember article like this after the Gulf war where I felt like other countries were actually stepping away from America’s lead, and then the Clinton’s rose to power to make things better. Then Bush v2 and Afghanistan and then Obama promised to make it all better. Now we have trump and I’m beginning to wonder what kind of centerist compromise the Democrats are cooking up.
History may not repeat itself but it sure does rhyme, and seemingly the tune it does it to just gets worse every iteration.
Okay, but the reason we have had centerist presidents is because that’s as far left as the people running the government and the media were willing to go. The voters are a symptom of that. That’s why they’re going after schools, you can’t have symptoms that are smart to what’s going on. Read anything about inside Korea, and they really love their dear leader if they’re young because it’s like a religion.
Okay, but the reason we have had centerist presidents is because that’s as far left as the people running the government and the media were willing to go.
Eh… That’s debatable. The modern democratic party being center right is kinda a byproduct of Thirdway politics. Which was largely popularized by the party leaders itself, specifically by the Clinton’s.
Bill Clinton rose to power by advocating for compromise as a way to get through the growing gridlock in Congress. This worked for his career, but it gave the Republican party a huge amount of influence over defining what that middle ground was. They would work with Democratic candidates with policy that served their purposes and completely ignore the ones that served anyone left of center.
This had the overall effect of not only controlling policy in congress, but actually being able to vicariously control the opposition. As time went on the only people who reached seniority in the DNC were those who would compromise with the rnc to create a “mutually” beneficial policy.
Pretty sure that we’re saying the same thing.
My point of contention is largely that the issue isn’t with the will of the voters, and that the direction of policy is largely directed from the top down.
Most American progressives are vastly more progressive than their representatives. It’s just that the DNC’s leadership is filled with thirdway democrats who refuse to support anyone left of center.
Edit: just reread you original comment. I misread it the first time round and thought you had said it was as far left as the people were willing to go. My bad.
It’s all good. I do that a lot myself, lol. One thing trump has shown and been extremely transparent about, is that the billionaires don’t give one shit about us and they run everything.
Americans expect a lot from their Presidents. But the real problem is Congress.
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In the US, you need a super-majority in the Senate to pass any legislation.
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The Senate size is so small that a single individual Senator has huge power. That create incentives for corruption.
Joe Biden tried to increase taxes on Wall Street. One single Senator, Kyrsten Sinema, sabotaged him.
The Biden Administration introduce a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act to to bring down drug prices. Again. One single Senator was enough to weaken his reform.
Good points, but the contention between branches is just kabuki theatre. It’s fake bro. There are always a rotating cast of “spoiler villains,” and if too many of them are facing reelection then they just make something up like “senate parliamentarian won’t let them.”
If the Dem president actually wanted to get something done then he’d use the bully pulpit like Trump does to make it so. This happened approximately 0 times during Biden’s 4 year slumber.
I’ve always bought up this sort of thing; but I’ve had to rethink it… not thar its wrong, but the executive orders that this (and many other presidents) sign which starts massive changes that don’t go through Congress completely short circuit the process. Even if they eventually get overturned, it’s typically way too late to go back to what was. It’s a short cut to get things done that isn’t popular and wouldn’t have passed as a bill.
Much like destroying the east wing, you can’t ever get things back you lost. People lose jobs, land gets torn up, foreign trust gets destroyed… it so much easier to sign an executive order, make a change that destroys that which took decades to build and then have it overturned. Then you say “well, congress has that power not the president” but it’s too late.
Americans expect a lot from their Presidents. But the real problem is Congress.
I mean it’s definitely both… Congress has empowered the executive to an incredible degree, and this has been rarified by the judiciary.
Plus, most people ignore most elections other than when electing a new president. So your presidential candidate has a huge influence over the makeup and political agenda of Congress.
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Regardless of who sits in the seat of power in the US, it is a garbage country with garbage values and always has been. Fascism is just the logical conclusion.
no trump. they might as well be poland watching germany take czechoslovakia. you can’t watch all this bull trump going on with worrying about when the trump will hit the fan.
I sure as trump like to see what you’re doing here, keep that trump up.
The US gov is a corporation, run by greedy business people and CEOs and whatnot. A government serves and works for the people, but this one is faaaaaaar from it. Poor citizens of the US.
