First, he came for the billionaires, and I did not speak out: threats part 2

…Then he came for the big law firms, and still…

Today’s first threat is, like the first post in this series, another obvious one.

Threats to Canadian democracy, Part 1 the obvious ones

The book, Enduring Love, opens with a young child alone in a breakaway balloon. People grab ropes but it’s not clear they are enough to restrain it. If even one opts for safety and lets go, the rest will be pulled skyward to eventually fall to their deaths.

Regrettably, the book is neither about their dilemma nor, unsurprisingly, about Donald Trump. It was written in 1997 by Ian McEwan. But now the people of the world, together with some but not all of its flightless birds, face that same dilemma thanks to him.

But first, a pedantic digression. It’s important to distinguish between a problem and a dilemma if only so you don’t beat yourself up unnecessarily later. A problem has a solution, a dilemma doesn’t. You can’t do more than manage a dilemma for better or worse. It’s helpful to, as they say, paint your target after you shoot your arrow.

Yesterday I was doing a bit of research trying to untangle which Washington law firms made deals to stave off retribution and which hadn’t. The arrival in my inbox of the NY Times Newsletter saved me further fruitless aggravation. Here’s a bit of the retribution teaser,

Trump has found new ways to use his power against foes. And his actions, or just the prospect of them, have led some of his antagonists to fall in line. …Most recently, major law firms have buckled rather than endure punitive executive orders or fight in court. “They’re all bending and saying, ‘Sir, thank you very much,’” Trump said last (sic) recently.

…The law firm Paul Weiss is home to many former Democratic officials. Its managing partner is a major Democratic fund-raiser, and another partner prepared Kamala Harris for her debates. Trump barred it from dealing with the government and suggested that its clients could lose their government contracts. Despite believing that what Trump was doing to the firm was wrong and illegal, Paul Weiss made a deal with the Trump administration to reverse the order.

I only need to make two points:

• Trump does not work for the US; the US works for him. He wields its power for his own selfish ambitions and infantile satisfactions.

• He overpowered big law firms because, as Paul Weiss complained, far from standing together, other firms used his attack on them as opportunity to poach clients.

Today’s first threat is that others will leave us hanging - the nastiest of dilemma.

The sleaze of the deals

Here’s a poly sci tongue twister. Power rules when there are no rules and no solidarity among the ruled.

Trump has abrogated 80 years of rules the world could depend on his predecessors to enforce. Access to the US market now depends on his idiosyncratic pleasures. This of course maximizes the opportunity for corruption and preformative dominance. In case there was any doubt, Eric Trump smirk-tweeted this on X,

I wouldn't want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with Donald Trump. The first to negotiate will win – the last will absolutely lose.”

Companies have also been warned that, if your country isn’t making concessions, you should get in and make your own deal with Trump.

According to the Trump officials, 50 countries are already in touch clamouring to make concessions. (Though, according to Bloomberg, they are mostly small countries that trade little with the US.)

The second threat is more subtle and, for that reason, dangerous.

The elephant assumed in the room

Donald Rumsfeld famously said that unknown unknowns are the most dangerous. He was wrong. Unknown knowns - AKA implicit assumptions, the ideas we are so used to they recline, smugly unexamined and unchallenged in the back offices of our minds - are the most dangerous because we rely on them above all else. Rumsfeld later denied assuming that democracy and free markets are only held in check by murderous dictators. But the lack of a nation building plan to follow the invasion suggests at least some in the Bush administration assumed gratitude and democracy would follow naturally once Saddam was toppled.

Here’s the reveal of an unknown known that’s easier grasp than Iraqi politics.

Australian Stuart McArthur … drew his first South-Up map when he was 12 years old. His geography teacher told him to re-do his assignment with the “correct” way up if he wanted to pass. – ICA Commission on Map Design

There’s no up or down in space but geomagnetic reversals – when our magnetic poles flip and the compass needle does a 180 - occur every four hundred thousand years, give or take a hundred thousand. The last one, the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal, occurred roughly 780,000 years ago. We are way overdue.

There are also geopolitical reversals. Both sorts are disorienting, one literally and the other figuratively.

This is a double threat: (1) given its enormity, it is impossible to grasp all the implications of what is underway; and (2) the implicit assumption that a rules-based world order is the default state that will pop out once Trump, the stopper in the bottle, is removed. I’m not saying anyone believes this explicitly any more. I think we’ve all concluded that new arrangements are necessary. But we need to examine what’s lounging in the back of our minds because, when things are abruptly turned upside down, it is not simply a matter of righting them again.

Accident or 51st state response? Where are the conspiracy theorists?

The Trump-Vance geopolitical reversal

The Trump-Vance geopolitical reversal would replace liberal democracy and rules with malign incompetence and gangsterism. It is so sudden that it’s necessary to pause and take stock of what they’ve overturned.

History in a hurry: 300 years in 300 words

It’s probably apocryphal that the British Army band played “The World Turned Upside Down” when it surrendered at Yorktown, ending the US Revolutionary War in 1781. They really ought to have because it marked the overturning of one political assumption, the necessity of loyalty to royalty, in favour of a new one: a liberal democratic order conceived in the Enlightenment, nurtured in the 19^th century under Pax Britannica, and raised to maturity under Pax Americana.

Like geological reversals, the adjustment was gradual and imperfect but victory in WW2 gave the Western allies the opportunity and impetus to shape the world order along enlightened lines. Colonial empires were liquidated, (admittedly not always peacefully) and international dialogue replaced aggression (admittedly not invariably). The nation state was conceived as the edifice in which individualism could best be protected and fulfilled. Human and socioeconomic rights were codified and supported by transnational institutions including the United Nations (UN), Marshall Plan, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and European Economic Community (EEC).

The UN is an example of the enlightened self-interest of the victors to avoid war. Article 2 of its Charter has two key clauses.

1. "The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

There was nothing inevitable about any of it or Pax Americana. The Marshall plan was a late reversal of the Morgenthau plan favoured by Roosevelt and Stalin (and reluctantly by Churchill it must be said), which was to impoverish Germany so it could never fight a war again. Instead, under Truman the US, the only country with the means, invested in building a prosperous German democracy.

Bellum Americanum

The threat is all the greater because of the pace. So, here’s the same 300 years in 8 words - loyalty to royalty, through liberality, to mob mentality.

Robert Reich’s summary of the US’s internal state is a useful gauge,

It’s hard to remember that only 10 weeks ago, the American economy was quite good, our foreign relations were on the whole positive, we were on the way to dealing with climate change with subsidies for wind and solar energy, and we still lived in a democracy.

Today, all that is disappearing. The economy is in acute danger, our relationships with traditional allies are collapsing, we’re subsidizing fossil fuel polluters, and we’re turning into a dictatorship.

This has happened in part because of Trump’s continuing creation of fake national emergencies. - Robert Reich Apr 07, 2025 https://robertreich.substack.com/p/america-is-on-a-war-footing-without

A silver lining, perhaps.

On “Liberation Day” a resilient and dangerous unknown known was revealed to the deluded business tycoons and commentators who have insisted on identifying the “real reasons” for the dumb things Trump does. After Liberation Day the truth is inescapable for any willing to see:

• Trump is a grasping, dangerous, ignoramus who now believes he is omnipotent. He declares emergencies when none exist and rules by decree.¹

• Imaginary problems justify real actions. “Everyone is ripping off the US.”²

• Complexity is a ruse.

• Don’t fix a problem, smash everything. Gradualism, doubt, negotiation, and forbearance are weak.

• Dominance is the point.

• Rules are concessions to the weak and should be demonstrably defiled.

So what? Canada is particularly exposed.

Here’s a couple of short quotes from my previous whingeing about Trump together with the links if you care to read the posts.

In The Leader of the Free World is the President of Ukraine I described Canada as,

… sandwiched between two heavily armed imperial powers dominated by two guys with medieval minds - one a useful idiot of the other.

In The View From the Top I quoted a Trump official describing “collaboratively good things… the US and Russia can do together, including AI.” AI with Putin? What harm could possibly come of that?

When there are no rules, the first instinct of people and countries is look to themselves. Canada, together with Mexico are, to use the 19th century term that’s enjoying a revival, within the US sphere of influence. At the very least, we are not geographically connected with any other such “sphere” or trade bloc.

While other countries would like to trade with Canada, they will be wary of punitive action by Trump. He warned Canada and the EU not to combine to act against the US. He sees Canada as a vassal state, so any collaboration with Canada would draw his ire.

Now what?

First, we must prepare ourselves for the second worst case, a forced choice between the US and countries that share our values.

Second, make our case to those countries that they need Canada as part of their coalition. This is already underway. Here’s Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Jolie skillfully putting our case on Germany’s DW. She explains that Canada is leading the charge against tariffs and is “the most European non-European country.”

This is exactly what we need to be doing, preparing our allies to stand together and together with us against thuggery.

Third, construct our case and explain it to Canadians so we can amplify it. Here’s some suggested elements:

• Like minded countries must stand together against Trumpism.

• Canadians have the courage to stand up to Trump. The proof is we are the most threatened and the most united in our defiance.

• This battle will be won in the US. You want to be with us. We have deep connections and strong allies there. (As Jolie says, “We understand the US better than anyone.”)

• We are a stable democracy, even during an election, so we are reliable. We will not leave you hanging because we know that fidelity to ideals like national honour is the hard currency of lawless times. (See An Optimistic Take... Perhaps a bit overly optimistic so but not entirely.)

• We are rich, law abiding and share your values.

Fourth, never forget that the long term goal is to reestablish a rules-based international trading system that includes the US but does not depend on US leadership. We cannot trade around the US entirely; we will all have to come to terms with it eventually.

It is important to remember that, even as the country that underpinned the old order destroys it, the precedent it set retains its value - in fact it’s having a Big Yellow Taxi moment - and the global expertise that tended it remains at our disposal to build a new and better order.

Fifth and final point: to keep our resolve never forget the worst case - being trapped on the spoke of a malign spider’s web.

On that optimistic note, I’m going to give some thought to the next threat, economic warfare.

1. Yesterday, 7 April 2025, a 5-4 majority of SCOTUS “scrapped a trial judge’s order that had imposed a sweeping block on all deportations under Trump’s invocation of the two-centuries-old Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used law meant to guard against foreign invasions in wartime.” - Politico

2. “On economics Mr Trump’s assertions are flat-out nonsense. The president says tariffs are needed to close America’s trade deficit, which he sees as a transfer of wealth to foreigners. Yet as any of the president’s economists could have told him, this overall deficit arises because Americans choose to save less than their country invests—and, crucially, this long-running reality has not stopped its economy from outpacing the rest of the G7 for over three decades.” The Economist 3 April 2005

“More than half the goods it imports are from affiliates of US multinationals denominated and paid for in dollars, so its deficit is an accounting identity with itself rather than reflecting economic weakness.” – Will Hutton, The Guardian