The Leader of the Free World is the President of Ukraine
Showdown at the Oval Corral
Between two medieval minds
Yesterday morning I’d nearly finished a post. It’s working title was “What Canada – and maybe the rest of the West - should do in response to Trump”. The thrust of it was that, tariffs are but a symptom of the deeper problem. I planned to encapsulate Canada’s situation this way:
On February 12th as Trump was talking to Putin, a joy-riding Santa above the North Pole, suddenly saw Canada sandwiched between two heavily armed imperial powers dominated by two guys with medieval minds - one a useful idiot of the other. No prizes for which one…
For years one country was only a theoretical threat because the other protected us. Now our former protector is the real threat and, if it comes to a fight, we are alone.
It was an attempt to leaven the most serious of subjects with a bit of playful imagery. The rest of the post had the usual silly puns. If humour is required now, and it is, it will have to come from someone funnier.
The meeting in the oval office yesterday afternoon changed nothing and confirmed everything we thought about the Trump administration.
The only question is why Vance picked the fight. In a sense it doesn’t matter. It comes to the same thing. But for what little fun can be had in this, here are a few of the questions. Was Vance off leash or did he and Trump set it up? Was Vance free lancing to provoke Trump, who of course has no self-control, in order to sabotage the deal with Ukraine? Was it deliberate at all or was Vance just unable to contain the animus toward Europe he displayed in Munich?
To my mind, the most plausible explanation is that it was an incompetent attempt to cover up Trump’s earlier incompetence. Trump, having given all the cards (his metaphor) to Putin on the strength of one phone call, now finds his only hope for a Nobel Peace Prize like Obama’s is to force Zelenskyy to accept Putin’s terms.
The best evidence of this is Trump saying the war continues only because Zelenskyy wants it to. Senator Lindsey Gumby said that Zelenskyy must either change completely or step aside.
The pact deck
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 24 August 1939 shocked Europe. Hitler and Stalin were implacable foes as were Nazis and Communists. Secret provisions established Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and led to the invasion and partition of Poland. The Second World War followed.
If there is any shock today it is that yesterday Trump made the implicit explicit.
The Mementorian Candidate
British comedian Andy Salzman put his finger on the deeper problem when he said that “the United States is like a man who cut off both his hands in two separate thresher accidents”.1
An erratic administration is a four year problem. An erratic electorate is another thing altogether. Canada at least has the decency to have Two Solitudes when we’re not getting along. The very weird and dangerous man in the White House is the spawn of one half of the feuding couple in Canada’s downstairs apartment.
If the wheels come off the Administration (is it the Mump or Trance Administration? I can’t tell anymore) – which may come sooner that we think – the couple’s fighting will likely intensify. He is the banner not the leader of the movement that bears his name. So, the threat will not end with Trump.
Where does Canada stand?
Trump has designs on Canada though his methods are clumsy. Fans say Trump is a 3D chess master. But repeatedly referring to us as the 51st state is the like sticking the chess pieces in his mouth Maggie Simpson style, uniting Canada against him in a way trade complexities never could have.
If the Developer in Chief’s vision for Gaza is any indication, we are right to worry about what annexation of Canada might look like.
Here’s Gaza reimagined, complete with something that looks like the statues of Lady Liberty and Saddam Hussein had a baby except it’s golden, it’s Trump, and it’s unwelcoming to anyone with less than $5m USD to spare.
Jf you haven’t seen it already, here’s CNN’s analysis.
At least Trump’s fascination with the commercial potential of the Gaza Strip (He didn’t even have to change the name, just the people – that’s Musk and Netanyahu enjoying the new vibe.) bought Canadians time to stock up on storm chips for which we are grateful.
Even it Trump decides Canada is not the pushover he expected, we are clearly in the US “sphere of influence” as Molotov would have put it.
More advanced planning is required for the unknowable challenges to come.
I’ll have something on that in a day or so.
Meantime, we should find cheer where we can. Here’s the inspiration for the golden Trump statute
Much better than my, “With the re-election of Donald Trump the adage, ‘Once bitten, twice shy’ was convincingly vanquished by ‘There’s a sucker born every minute...’” Trumped: democracy in the Ideas Era Part 1 By the way, Memontorain Candidate is a mash up of two movies, one about memory loss and the other about a plot to take over the US by stealth.
My God! Exactly what I was thinking although probably a lot of us Canadians were! Trump allowing Putin to take Ukraine will allow him to take Canada. I had not thought of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact though, which makes it even more alarming and possible.
Also the ABC transcript has JD Vance saying Russias invaded Ukraine.