It wasn’t talking about emptying Gaza of Palestinians and turning it into another Trump resort.
It wasn’t threatening tiny Panama with the Putinesque move of restoring American sovereignty over a canal it built and gave to Panama in the last century.
Nor was it freezing, without warning, trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, and shuttering USAID, causing havoc, pain, and death, to helpless people across the world.
It wasn’t shutting entire sections of the US government without notice, causing chaos and confusion.
It wasn’t wreaking retribution on the FBI by firing FBI leaders and investigators who worked the January 6th Insurrection.
It wasn’t his firing of Inspectors General across the Federal Government for no reason, undercutting trust in the entire government.
It wasn’t his placing an ex-Fox “News” bullshitter, retired mid-level Army officer, sexual bully, and alcohol abuser, in charge of the biggest military of the world.
It wasn’t placing a fellow narcissist, a tech oligarch without even bottom rung security clearance or any government experience because he’s never been elected to anything, in charge of destroying parts of government, the latest of which is the Education Department which oversees 49.6 million students.
And it wasn’t for using parts of the Constitution to take down other parts of the Constitution, which is clever and unexpected. But that’s not new. Hitler used a similar approach in 1933 when he took down the German democracy in less than 2 months.
The impossible? He pissed off the Canadians!
Not possible! You say.
Our kind, polite, even-tempered neighbors to the North…pissed?! They haven’t been pissed since we invaded Sandwich, Ontario during the War of 1812. These are people who open the door for each other and help change flat tires. They invade our border by the thousands in the winter and flood Florida and other points South, and are so pleasant, even DeSantis doesn’t complain.
But Trump finally pissed them off.
How? For months, Trump had been musing about Canada becoming the 51st state, which wasn’t polite or kind. Then, on Saturday, Feb. 1, he announced 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
That tore it. On Monday, Feb 3, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced, “We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink,” a contract worth $68 million dollars to Co-American Dictator Elon Musk.
”Ontario won’t do business with people hell bent on destroying our economy,” said Ford. “Ontario won’t do business with people hell-bent on destroying our economy.” Trump’s team “wants to destroy families’ incomes, destroy businesses. He wants to take food off the table of hardworking people, and I’m not going to tolerate it.”
And now angry Canadians are booing the US National Anthem at games and emptying store shelves of American products from Vancouver to Toronto, leaving signs that say “Buy Canadian Instead.” (See what I mean about polite?)
Therein lies some much needed advice from our civilized grownups to the North.
No-one has to accept Rubio’s, Hegseth’s, and Miller’s orders or those of any other subalterns of the American Dictator. Instead we can ignore, refuse, or even ridicule them. As citizens we can demonstrate in the streets. We can contact our Representatives and Senators over and over again and tell them to get some real cojones and stop this destruction of American democracy. We can join the political system and encourage neighbors and friends to make themselves heard and seen.
We can explain to those who somehow missed Civics 101, that Fascism didn’t die with Hitler – it just went underground for awhile – and remind them that Democracy dies in silence as much as in darkness.