Relations Between Canada And America Are At Their Lowest Point Since The American Revolutionary War

The non-blatantly propagandistic media in the United States is reporting the Trump-Musk coup as if at any moment the fabled Resistance is going to arise and halt our descent into autocracy. But the American people as a whole are broken, numb, overwhelmed, and don’t care.

Is that also true of our neighbors to the north? As reported, it’s been “a week of Canadians wondering why their closest neighbor and best friend has suddenly turned on them.”

Relations between Canada and America are at their lowest point since the Revolutionary War, when the rebel army invaded the British fort in Quebec to secure their northern flank.

As loud as the boos for the US national anthem were at sporting events in Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary in recent days, “the people who may need to hear them the most are rarely listening anyway.”

Most Americans (many of whom believe Canadians are Americans), agree with a US goaltender in Montreal after our national anthem was booed in 2003 in response to the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq: “The people who boo are not a blip on our radar screen. As an American, I don’t really care about those people.”

Having some Canadian ancestry (a grandparent from Quebec who died before I was born), and having grown up near the Canadian border in Michigan, I’ve long had an interest in and feeling for Canada and Canadians.

In my first year of college, I took a cultural geography class from a professor from China who had also taught in Canada. His perspective was, to say the least, unique.

One day he said something that’s stuck with me ever since: “From a cultural geographer’s perspective, the United States and Canada share the same culture; we call it the North American Culture Hearth.”

A Quebecois would argue the point, but they are, or were, the exception that proves the rule. The question now is: Are the Canadian people different enough from the American people, who, in their pursuit of personal happiness through consumerism, quit on their nation and humanity, and thus gave rise to King Donald?

It’s no coincidence that Trump is employing the same “shock and awe” tactics in his war on the American people and government that both Bush Senior and Bush Junior used in their invasions of Iraq. America’s wars have boomeranged.

Though Trump is undoubtedly ignorant of it, the desire of the United States to “own” Canada has a long history, dating back before the Declaration of Independence was even inked.

As the historian, D. Peter MacLeod writes in “Revolution Rejected: Canada and the American Revolution,” “The American invasion of 1775-76 was one of the most important campaigns in Canadian history. Had the invaders succeeded, Canada would now in all likelihood be part of the United States. Instead, Canada remained British and eventually evolved into a self-governing Dominion and independent nation.”

History is full of paradoxes. As MacLeod insightfully infers, “The American Revolution, by provoking the Loyalist migration, fundamentally influenced Canada’s people, its provinces, and its institutions, and helped to create the Canada we know today.”

Beyond the bilateral relationship with America’s closest ally, sharing the longest (formerly undefended) border in the world, it’s now unavoidably clear that Make America Great Again really means making the United States the meanest predator in the international jungle. But there is an upside, if people of insight, vision and courage seize the moment.

The biggest paradox of history would be if Trump’s America First isolationist/imperialist atavism brings about a true world order by providing the catalyst to move beyond the defunct international order with its rotten foundation of the supremacy of the nation-state.

The international order that the United States largely built is dead. National interest inherently conflicts with the interest of humanity as a whole. It has been an illusory cornerstone for “durable alignments based on mutual interest, legally binding treaty obligations and democratic values.” That cornerstone has crumbled, and the entire edifice is collapsing around and upon us.

“Little Marco,” Trump’s Secretary of State, just pulled the United States out of the G-20 conference in South Africa. Rubio posted Trump’s reason on Co-President Musk’s X: “My job is to advance America’s national interests.” Elon Musk, who’s from South Africa, replied with two American flag emojis.

South Africa’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, rightly said on X. “Our G20 Presidency is not confined to just climate change but also equitable treatment for nations of the Global South, ensuring equal global system for all.

For that to become reality people of the Global North and South must end nationalistic identification within us, and thereby allow and create a true global order and civilization.

Martin LeFevre: lefevremartin77@gmail

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