TNR writes that Canada is shifting from the status of an ally and cooperating friend to a nation that will distance itself from the US:
Canada Announces Bombshell Break With U.S. Over Trump
The new Canadian prime minister announced the two countries’ relationship is “over”Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney officially broke things off with the United States Thursday, marking a seismic shift in relations between the longtime allies.
“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” Carney said during a press conference, following a meeting in Ottawa with his ministers to “discuss trade options” in response to Donald Trump’s “permanent” 25 percent tariffs on all imported vehicles and auto parts.
“What exactly the United States does next is unclear, but what is clear, what is clear is that we as Canadians have agency. We have power. We are masters in our own home,” Carney said.
“We can control our destiny. We can give ourselves much more than any foreign government, including the United States, can ever take away. We can deal with this crisis best by building our own strength right here at home.”
“We will need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States. We will need to pivot our trade relationships elsewhere. And we will need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven’t seen in generations,” Carney said.
Well there we have it. djt and his morally rotted MAGA wealth and power movement have needlessly alienated a precious, long-time friend and ally. How long will it be until the MAGA rank and file wake the hell up? Or will they never be able to see the vast damage that morally rotted djt and his morally rotted MAGA bullshit is needlessly causing to the US and its interests? The US is needlessly losing friends, power and moral authority. At this point, there seems to be little or no American moral authority left.
Analysis: What are the final djt/MAGA elite goals? What is the end game?
In the last few weeks, my assessment of both djt and MAGA elites has shifted some. I previously thought that djt and MAGA elites were only focused on wealth and power to set up an old-fashioned corrupt dictatorship. Now I believe it is worse than that. In my opinion, djt and MAGA elites are focused on wealth, power by way of destruction. It's not clear to me yet if the destruction component is squarely directed at just killing democracy and establishing an old-fashioned kleptocratic dictatorship, or if the destruction aims to for something a lot worse, namely establishing an modern American totalitarianism.
The post that PD put up earlier today raised the question of totalitarianism. After reading, actually, trying to read, Hannah Arendt's 1951 book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, I dismissed the idea of djt having either the intelligence or the work ethic needed to be a contender for totalitarian status on a par with Hitler or Stalin. djt struck me as too lazy and too stupid to even come close to pulling off a Hitler or Stalin move. Now I am not so sure, but for a reason I did not foresee until now.
What I did not see coming was Project 2025 and it's secret 180 day attack plan, the 180-Day Transition Playbook. To my knowledge, the Playbook still has not been leajed to tghe public, indicating to me how critically important it is to MAGA elites' planning and operations. The people behind those initiatives are neither lazy like djt nor stupid like him. I now think that what they are driving to establish probably is an American totalitarianism or something fairly close. As one can appreciate, the difference between a kleptocratic dictatorship and a totalitarian state can be hard to tell because the differences tend to be opaque and obscured by relentless demagoguery.
In the wake of the Hedgseth/djt national security breach fiasco, the relentless lying by djt and the MAGA elites involved cannot be clearer proof that demagogic lying to the public to disinform, divide and distract is a core moral value. Arendt commented about the role of propaganda (demagoguery) coupled with terror in a totalitarian state:
The essential point is that the necessities for propaganda are always dictated by the outside world and that the movements themselves do not actually propagate but indoctrinate. Conversely, indoctrination, inevitably coupled with terror, increases the strength of the movements or the totalitarian government’s isolation and security from outside interference. Propaganda is indeed part and parcel of “psychological warfare”; but terror is more. . . . . Where the rule of terror is brought to perfection, as in concentration camps, propaganda disappears entirely; it was even expressly prohibited in Nazi Germany. Propaganda, in other words, is one, and possibly the most important, instrument of totalitarianism for dealing with the nontotalitarian world; terror, on the other hand, is the very essence of its form of government.
So the question is, is Arendt right that terror (mass murder) is always needed for totalitarianism to exist? Or can there be such a thing as a modern day totalitarian state without the brutal murdering terror that Hitler and Stalin used? I look to China for an answer. There, the power elites have established a highly sophisticated digital dictatorship. It strikes me as almost impossible for a society to oppose even mildly, much less overthrow. Social media is deeply entwined with China's digital dictatorship. It is heavily dependent on cell phones and digital commerce propagated through cell phones. No one goes anywhere, associates with anyone else or buys much of anything without all of it being tracked and scored for threats to the communist party. In my opinion, that is what makes China's dictatorship so powerful and seemingly indestructible. MAGA elites are 100% aware of what China is doing and why they are doing it. Again, MAGA elites are not stupid or lazy. But they absolutely want unfettered access to wealth and power.
Arendt wrote about what she and the world knew in 1951. She did not know about social media or cell phones, or their power to literally influence human brain wiring. Social science is clear that social media influence can and usually (always?) does affect how people see reality, think about it and act on those beliefs. When beliefs are based on authoritarian demagoguery in the realm of politics (and everything else?), they are often, probably usually, acting on a non-trivial basis of lies, slanders and irrational emotional manipulation.
Q: What strikes you as the most likely goal the 180-Day Transition Playbook has in mind, old-fashioned kleptocratic dictatorship (with plutocracy and Christian nationalist theocracy), true Hitler/Stalin-style totalitarianism, or something in between without the mass murder of true totalitarianism, e.g., totalitarianism-lite or semi-totalitarianism?
