These are folks I know and talk to, and they're not even so much explicitly boycotting the US as the rhetoric is enough that they just feel sort of uncomfortable and unwelcome.
If you want to live in a world as black and white and clear cut as this, I don't think anything I can say will stop you.
Needless to say, it's not that simple.
Only when there is enough full-throated protest will it, maybe, slow them down or force them to reconsider.
Like I mentioned, words alone are generally not a catalyst for protest.
This is just wrong. Contests happen mostly between top 2 candidates even if there there are more in the list. I'm taking from experience of other countries in the world not usa. By that logic, of anyone who votes anything other than those 2 most popular, is like voting the whoever wins.
Even if they won't admit it to themselves.
/s
How about if they voted in a state in which every elector was already going to vote republican anyway?
Or what if they voted to protest against Harris being chosen without a primary vote, against the basic principles of democracy? (And from a party so unwilling to pay attention to the situation on the ground that it had to wait until nearly the last moment just to be able to admit that Biden wasn't going to make it.)
I can see a lot of reasons to try sending a message that way, and as far as I know Stein didn't cost democrats the vote in any state, and certainly wouldn't have cost democrats the vote nationally even if the overall popular vote mattered (which as we all know, it doesn't); your message is extremely reductive and frankly seems like a purely emotional attack. You really aren't elevating the discussion.
It sucks but in 2-party system one have only 2 choices.
Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Out of curiosity what works to obtain results beside voting every now and then ?
both parties live by “party over country” mantra so your phone calls won’t do jackshit. you can go look up votes by congressman/senator and see how many can you find where a congressman/senator voted for the good of his constituents and not rubberstamped it along the party lines. ballparking this is 0.0076% of all votes (say in the last decade)
However, I have to wonder: aren't they armed? They've been touting self-defense since Reagan and now they have the chance to demonstrate its efficacy.
Let's stop coddling Trump supporters. They're adults, they knew who they voted for, and don't get to pretend to be surprised or outraged when he acts the way he does.
When tariffs spike inflation and folks watch their 401ks and SSA payments decline, I personally will have zero sympathy for anyone who voted for this guy.
However, he has been on the "acquire Greenland" train since his first term, and has excused other land grabs like Crimea. If anyone was surprised that the man wants to grab land in his 2nd term, they are stupid or willfully ignorant.
Most people are idiots.
It's interesting that you assume the value of their 401ks is among their top concerns, when only about 50% of Americans (even older Americans) have retirement accounts at all, and among those who do, the median value is 30K.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/08/who-has-retir...
He does all that, yet does not lose support. Something which he never said he would do during his campaign.
Trump is losing support at unprecedented levels. Typically new presidents have a honeymoon period for the first ~6 months or so were they actually go up a little bit in support. Trump has been losing support from day 1.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/how-low-is-trumps-popularity-fl...
Given that he and his allies hold ~100% of the political power in the country, whether you cynically don't care, or are actively supporting it, the result is the same.
They don't get wash their hands of this.
Agreed, but those are two quite different points, aren’t they? Isn’t it Trump’s job to extract the best deal he can from Canada? And the fact Canada has made itself utterly dependent on the US—economically and militarily—was Canada’s deliberate choice.
But the thing is there's a playbook. Even in Russia they didn't start by saying "We are going to start a formal war against international law, who is with me?"
1. They called Ukraine not a country.
2. They said Ukranians in certain regions wanted to be Russian, or should be Russian.
3. They cultivated politicians and figures of influence in Ukraine to join them.
4. They sent unmarked troops into limited regions and started a purported separatist movement. These were the little green men, actually Russian soldiers in generic fatigues.
5. They formally joined the fight once the separatists were losing.
6. They agreed to a ceasefire and kept violating it.
7. In 2022 they started a "special military operation" (still not a war!) on a pretext.
8. Now it's a war
The process took a decade. Currently the US has done steps 1 through 3. On a nearly daily basis the president and multiple admin officials call the border artificial, say Canada isn't a country, say we must be annexed (the word means taken against our will).
The US admin has cultivated the separatist leader of Alberta, who has made multiple visits to Washington and who has admitted to asking Trump to pause tariffs in order to help a pro US far right politician win the upcoming elections.
A journalist who is a fellow traveller of the movement has asked Trump about the practicality of starting by taking Alberta and Saskatechewan and then the rest of the country and Trump said taking Canada had to happen.
We also saw that after the Zelensky oval office visit US public opinion shifted about 20-30% against Zelensky in lockstep with the president making clear his opinion.
So I agree, right now the idea seems ludicrous. But the US admin is at the beginning phases of preparing the info environment to accept escalations. And any discussion of this online now has bot accounts parroting the same lines.
Frankly in Canada we're very glad at the domestic resistance to war. I'm not sure they can actually pull off getting support for invasion. They might think they need not go that far. But what's clear is that for whatever reason they do seem serious about taking us over; Canadian official have expressed as much.
Prewar, polls showed about 18% of the Donbas were interested in joining Russia. About the same percent of Alberta is interested in joining the US. It's enough to work with, if their narrative isn't actively resisted every step of the way.
Then they can say, "hey, we can keep this bit because only Russians live here!"
Americans do not support going to war with Canada in the abstract, but many of us will find a way to support whatever specific casus belli Trump comes up with. It's what I like to call the "Trump Derangement Syndrome" - these people know right from wrong, but when Trump is involved they lose their sense of reality.
9/11 and then a year and a half of constant "axis of evil" propaganda and suddenly a majority in congress was behind those actions.
But if you'd told people in May, June, August of 2001 that the US would be mobilizing for full invasion of another country, they'd tell you there was no support for that. And Bush's approval ratings were really low, too.
Just like they don't support insurrection against the government. We saw that when insurrection happened here, they are quite appalled! "That's not who we are!" they said say as they recoiled from the images.
But then something amazing happened. They were fed lines about how actually, it was Antifa; and actually, it was the FBI; and actually, it was Nancy Pelosi; and actually, they were patriots, and this was peaceful protest, and it was all legitimate political action. And the real villains are the people prosecuting us for this! How dare they!
Then all of a sudden people who were not okay with it were fine with what happened. So today, they support and vote for the people who enabled the very thing they said is beyond the pale.
So it will go with Canada.
First it was a joke, and people laughed.
Then it's said a little more seriously and there's a reason - trade deficit.
Then there's some negotiations about trade but it's not good enough, there's a new thing - they are sending drugs.
And it will go like that with increased urgency. Next it will be they are sending rapists and criminals across the border. The "Mexicanization" of Canadians will begin.
It will be framed as a need to defend ourselves, but also we will be told the Canadians want it. They are welcoming us to invade them, and bring them into the American fold.The New York Times will probably run headlines stating as much. So for those who aren't swayed by the stick, they will be swayed by the carrot.
When the invasion happens, it will be predicated on lies. See Iraq / Afghanistan. It will not be supported by most people, but it will happen anyway.
I see comments on here from very smart educated "libertarian" types about this all the time. Canada is anti-freedom, etc. etc.
So in some respects the ideological justification has already begun. Both inside and outside of Canada. If the Liberals win next months election, expect it to go into overdrive both in the US but also in Alberta/Saskatchewan.
When they take Alberta it will because they're saving it from oppression. Or something.
... Anyways.
I went to Idaho once in a car with California (CA) plates, ended up stopping in a fairly small town overnight before heading to see some of the parks. The person at the front desk of the hotel I stayed at noticed the CA plates and suggested I remove them (even offered a screwdriver they kept at the front desk for the situation) because they've had multiple cars with CA plates vandalized, specifically for being from CA. This was years ago, so not even strictly related to the current insanity.
I can absolutely believe that with the current climate, there are places close to the Canada border where parking in the wrong area with Canada plates would draw unwanted attention.
Hope your identity is not connected to this account because you just gave the reason.
With the way things are going, I don't anticipate ever entering the U.S. again.
I would expect many conferences to have less and less international attendees in the coming years.
It's starting: https://boycott-ietf127.org/