U.S. blocks Canadian access to iconic Stanstead border-straddling library
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
If you look at how he is turning the cranks it doesn't make sense, virtually no modern economic thought supports this kind of tariff and customs war with friendly Canada. It seems like a child playing at the wheel of a car with no idea how to drive but by God you will hear him honking that horn.
On the plus side, my investments have doubled. On the downside, I feel dirty.
Yeah, it's discouraging that it too is now gone. But if someone wants to be mad at Trump, just be mad at Trump. They don't need to suddenly pretend to care about Derby Line to have a legitimate gripe about Trump.
They're doing so many things which could normally be described as "Cartoonishly Self Destructive" that it's hard to keep up with their actual objectives.
What's even less clear to me is why the apparatus of state seems so willing to go along with these whims of the executive.
I'd imagine every EU/UK company is re-thinking any US based conferences they have booked right now, because who knows if your field will suddenly fall under their whims.
That's the only way so far I've managed to make sense of what the USA is doing to itself, the destruction is the point.
"There is a class of men whose sole delight is in destroying" William Blake
It's also important to remember that democracies are weird in the sense that people who could abuse power voluntarily do not do so. Democratic systems only work because people accept that they work (similar to fiat money). Once people start questioning them, they can fail very quickly (see the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank).
Presidential systems are particularly susceptible to this sudden collapse because they start out with a strong concentration of power in one person.
After all the recent firings and appointments, so many people in positions of power believe in unconstrained executive action that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Recent Supreme Court decisions related to presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office bolster this view.
Americans feel (somewhat rightly) that their democracy isn't responsive enough, and even if it was more responsive, they feel it doesn't represent them. Many of them seem to think the only way to fix this is to have a king.
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To connect this back to HackerNews relevant discussion, I feel there's a bit of an "innovators dilemma" at play with democracies. The democracies which developed the earliest have some design flaws baked very deeply into their mechanics that later democracies recognized as problems and were able to avoid. But in older democracies, there's too many entrenched interests against fixing these problems so they keep ancient design flaws even when everyone knows they're counterproductive (and in the present case, perhaps even fatal)
The other thing that’s sad to see is that slides into substandard leadership have plenty of precedent - strong, well-run countries have many times reverted thanks to incoming leaders being worse at the job. The US has just come off an exceptional run of competent and strong leaders driven by ideals, but eventually your hot streak is going to come to an end. To put it another way, this looks to be a reversion to the mean.
More important question is 'What's going on with the US people?'
Are they "just following orders"?
Mexico just changed from a superdemagogic leader to one less so. Their deceptively simple recipe is, like Alice in Wonderland, doing five unimportant stupid things before breakfast, so their next important stupid thing doesn't look as bad.
Can you expand on this a bit more? Are you suggesting that government employees should quit in protest? For better or for worse, the American President is in charge of the executive branch and (most? all?) US government employees are part of that branch.
Very quickly and for no clear reason, America is saying FU to all these people. Americans will have a rude awakening when they realize they are now disliked rather than treated with a mild admiration. Just not sure what that's for.
Regular Americans are used to being seen as a source of money around the world.
Being disliked, but tolerated, has been the lot of Americans for decades
With the troubles at the border, it will be interesting to see how other countries respond. Are they willing to forego US tourist money?
At a personal level if I were a tourist from the US, would I be shunned by touts or denied access to nice places ("sorry mate, not allowed in the Tate. Cheers")?
This is not something new, just more evident nowadays.
Things that USA has done for decades that have alienated other countries:
- Always has been at war, preferably asymmetrical, brutal wars for profit while claiming democracy and freedom.
- Many Americans are ethnocentric, ignoring much of the world outside their country. For example, its national baseball cup is still called the "World" Series? Or ask any American abroad which country they are from, and most will name their state.
- Not so ethnocentric Americans usually choose to do tourism abroad, and those are the ones most people in the world encounter. Obnoxious American tourists are a minority, but they're the most memorable, unfortunately forming the stereotype.
- Has appropriated the "America" name from the whole continent. United States of North America would be its proper name. Gulf of USA is small compared to that.
- Remember "Manifest Destiny"? It's still alive, just frequently changes names.
I could go on and on. I don't deny the blooming of USA after WW II was beautiful, bringing hope to a ravaged world, it seemed like everything it did was awesome. Unfortunately, it was superficial, and its flaws have become more evident as the luster vanishes. USA needs a whole makeover, right down from its constitution to their electoral system, and up to the international arena, to materialize the promise that it showed before.
The reason is crystal clear. A particularly stupid portion of Americans have gotten their lord and master, the undisputed "Emperor of Stupid" elected and it has emboldened them.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/27/nation/rising-border-...
line from the archived website:
"The Haskells wanted Canadians and Americans to have equal access to the Library and Opera House and so they chose to build on the border. Construction began in 1901; the Opera House opened in 1904 and the Library in 1905."
That's not an "or" list. It's "and".
More than a century of incredibly close partnership and interdependence thrown away for nothing more than stoking American egos, looking for an easy target to bully.
The ugliest part of all of this is that if voters completely reject Trumpism in 2 or 4 years and go back to a sane path, they won't have done it because they were convinced of the gross immoral capriciousness of the Trump administration. The only reason American voters would reject Trumpism is if they decide he's bad for business, and caused serious economic harms.
At a bare minimum, call your congress people at least once a week. It does make a difference.
Here are some links that may give you some ideas:
https://thewhitepages.net/p/thirty-lonely-but-beautiful-acti...
The American electorate has decided that their wallets are the only thing they care about when voting, so we can hit them right there. I'll be doing everything I can to no longer purchase or support US products whenever possible.
I've also sold all the stocks I hold in US corporations.
> The ugliest part of all of this is that if voters completely reject Trumpism in 2 or 4 years and go back to a sane path, they won't have done it because they were convinced of the gross immoral capriciousness of the Trump administration. The only reason American voters would reject Trumpism is if they decide he's bad for business, and caused serious economic harms.
If Trump did all this crap and it made the stock and job markets boom, he'd be home free. That alone is enough for me to lose all faith in the USA and hope for a future where I can isolate myself as well as possible from the USA's malign influences and capricious actions.
To me it's the same as above. It is too late.
And even of that group, a large number voted for him thinking that he wasn't going to do what he's doing. He even claimed in his campaign that he wasn't going to do what he's doing. I think those people were foolish, of course. As you point out, his nature was pretty obvious, but they weren't on board with what he's doing nonetheless.
Regardless, I understand your skepticism and I wouldn't be shocked if you're correct. I just have a touch more optimism than that myself. Pessimism can lead all too easily to defeatism, and defeatism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I also don't believe the argument that it's a minority of Americans. If people really thought he was a danger to democracy and thought that was a problem, they would have voted. So the way I see it, the overwhelming majority of Americans (i.e. more than 70%) didn't think he posed a legitimate danger to American democracy. That's a really really worrying demonstration of beliefs and priorities.
I support you in disagreeing with me though. I want you to keep fighting and I want you to do everything you can to resist this.
Americans can't afford to believe they may have voted for the last time. But simultaneously, the rest of us can't afford to plug our ears and hope this all goes away.
If it were China or Russia doing this, of course I’d be upset, but when it comes from the U.S., it feels like a much deeper betrayal. I’ve had countless interactions, friendships, and business ties with Americans. Heck, even my first girlfriend was American.
We’ve always shared a close bond through love, friendship, and mutual respect, so actions like this strike on a very personal level.
Some might say that is a naive perspective, and maybe it is. But I am not ready to throw away decades of relationship and shared history with our neighbors to the south.
Despite the negativity, I remain hopeful.
I mean, that's what i expect from a US cartoon character like Homer Simpson, not from a real, living person. Are the average republican like this, or are those comportment limited to republican representatives?
P.S. Muffin is a character in the Aussie show "Bluey".