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Comment by eigenspace | Hacker News Reader

As a Canadian, I really can't express the amount of frustration and anger I feel towards the USA these days.

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.

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What really upsets me personally, as a Canadian, is that this feels like being backstabbed by your best friend.

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.

As an American, I agree with your sentiments entirely. I really think that the US is facing an existential threat here.

From an outside perspective, it really looked like the US faced an existential threat and already lost. I really hope I'm wrong about that.

I think you're wrong about that. Things look pretty dire, but we're at the front end of this, not the back end.

The reason I'm so pessimistic is the thing I said higher up in the comment chain:

> 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.

Most Americans aren't and never were on board with this stuff. Trump won the election by an incredibly slim margin, and that only happened because a lot of people didn't vote.

I don't agree. More than seventy million people voted for him. He has been a politican for over a decade. It is not even like he was put forward by people in a smoke filled room, he was chosen through primaries.

To me it's the same as above. It is too late.

True, that many did vote for him, out of a total eligible voter population of 244,666,890. That's about 28%.

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 can only hope you are right.

In my opinion, if January 6 wasn't enough to convince the American electorate that he isn't fit for office, nothing he does could do it.

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.

Many of us in New England share your feelings, along with frustration and anger about feeling powerless to stop it.

It’s up to us in the US to stop it. No one else well. Don’t give into despair! We have power; we just need to use it.

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...

https://chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.com/

https://handsoff2025.com/?SQF_SOURCE=indivisible

People not in the USA also have the power to affect this.

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.

It maybe helps but as an outside observer the voting didn't seem to be that much about wallets.

This is it really. The first time round it was ok, well mistakes can be made. The second time? No, something is fundamentally broken in the US. Electing someone else will not fix that. The rest of us need to recognise that and do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves.

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