Oh? Canada?

O Canada!

Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all of us command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,

The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

My roots are partially planted in Canadian soil.

I met my wife in Windsor, Ontario and we married there not long thereafter. We lived in Windsor briefly in 1971 and in the U.S. forever thereafter. She has retained Canadian citizenship, in part because the Vietnam debacle loomed large, activating the possibility of Canadian shelter. The possibility of Canadian shelter has since been a constant theme, although work and family kept us in the U.S.

Only by serendipity, our daughter also married a Canadian, although that was, unfortunately, not forever after. Their daughter now has dual citizenship, attended a Canadian university, and is now a second year law student in Vancouver, British Columbia. I suspect she will not again grace the United States with her sublime presence, except to visit now and then.

Our amoral, ignorant, felon-in-chief has suggested annexing Canada as the 51st state. Trump claimed on his Truth Social platform that “many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st state.” Many Canadian commenters think he’s joking or bluffing, including the threats to impose crippling tariffs.

Trump’s blathering imperialistic threats are like some reasonable Christian’s views of the Bible. Paraphrasing, I suggest that the threats needn’t be taken literally to be taken seriously.

(Although taking the threats seriously doesn’t preclude humor. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo suggested renaming the United States “Mexican America” after Trump offered up the “Gulf of America.”)

To twist the famous retort with which Lloyd Bentsen deflated Dan Quayle, “Believe me Donald, I know Canadians and they do not LOVE Canada being the 51st state.” Even Canada’s Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, pegged as likely successor to Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister, agreed with Trudeau’s view: “Canada will never be the 51st state.” Poilievre might well be described as Trump with a smaller body and bigger brain, so he’s not stupid enough to fully align with someone as irredeemably ignorant as Donald.

Trump’s Monopoly Board ambitions also include Greenland and the Panama Canal. Here too, there is no roll of the dice that make those annexations probable. Trump’s bluster has always been bullshit. His real estate “empire” in New York and elsewhere has been largely comprised of developers that paid a licensing fee to slap his name on a building erected and managed by others. His erections have always been less significant than advertised.

The danger to Canada is not annexation. The danger is, and always has been, cultural and economic suffocation. And, to that extent, systems of government and sovereignty are almost incidental. The behemoth to Canada’s south needs no invasion to dominate its northern neighbor. It just needs unwitting cooperation. And that seems to be forthcoming.

Doug Ford, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative (??) Premier, pooh-poohs Trump’s threats, but is eager to succumb to the temptations of mutual greed, especially when it comes to energy. Perhaps not Trump himself, who has neither knowledge nor ideology, but his behind-the-scenes co-conspirators lust for Canada’s resources. They are not interested in poutine, maple syrup, curling or vast swathes of nearly uninhabitable tundra. They want oil, timber, water, minerals and more.

Even though the U.S. currently produces more crude oil than any other country, Canada’s reserves are 5 times – 5 times! – greater. Trump et al are ignorant about many things, but prescient when it comes to wealth. Our past foreign policy has had some balance, but the present and future is more about raiding someone else’s pantry after we’ve eaten everything in our own and essentially burned down the house when we finished. Los Angeles anyone? If you think current wildfires are not related to oil, money, greed and global warming, I’ve got a Trump Bible to sell you.

Yes, Trump is just doing his trademark bullying, using economic threats like tariffs and geopolitical “threats” about annexation to cut favorable deals for the U.S. and plunder Canadian resources and soil Canadian culture with the cheap bangles he’s used to dazzle his ignorant supporters.

So beware, you few Canadians who think Trump or Trump’s America seems a dandy prospect. His American supporters are, for the most part, stupid, believing that he wants to make America Great Again when he really just wants their money. That’s what he wants from you too.

Resist, resist! Remember, nothing good has ever come from getting into bed with Donald Trump.