The Canadian Peril

It turns out that believing six impossible things before breakfast (or reading or hearing them, anyway, and being expected to believe them) is a lot more exhausting than it sounds. Every day we're inundated with can't-possibly-be-real-but-is news, starting with the impossible election result back in November. And amid all this unreality one of the unrealest developments is Trump's desire to annex Canada, which is a) way beyond batshit crazy and b) 100% guaranteed not to happen, but c) maybe it could?

I mean, the messaging is consistent enough to make it clear that Trump really does want this.

Lutnick: "The best way to actually merge the economies of Canada and the United States is for Canada to become our 51st state ... Canada is gonna have to work with us to really integrate their economy, and as the president said, they should consider the amazing advantages of being the 51st state."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 12, 2025 at 6:27 AM

Again, I want to stress that this is absolutely not going to happen. Unless it does. But in the weird and scary world that is Trump's mind--a place where mice get taxpayer-funded sex change operations and 'asylum' means 'insane asylum'--it's...a pretty good deal for Canada! They'd be crazy not to take it!

And the thing that makes this a terrifying possibility (and again: it's actually not a possibility at all, unless it is), that renders the prospect of war with Canada (and just writing the phrase 'war with Canada' makes me feel like I've gone insane) no longer inconceivable (honestly I feel like Vizzini, all the actually-happening shit I think of as inconceivable), is that in that weird scary mind of Trump's there's no such thing as sovereignty. His native language is one in which the word does not exist.

This absence is at the core of Trump's worldview. When he talks about American "ownership" of Greenland*, he thinks of it as like buying a property to develop, and Denmark saying no is just a business negotiation. And maybe we have to play hardball, like you do in business, but really this would all be easier if we could just agree on a price.

And when Putin invaded Ukraine it can't have been a violation of any principle of international relations because there isn't any such principle. It was a hostile takeover, that's all. These things happen in business. It was a smart move! Ukraine has minerals, it's a natural target for acquisition! And the reasonable US response to it is for us to get a piece of the action.

Panama Canal? Why not? It's just reneging on a contract, people in business renege on contracts all the time, especially if they're Trump. Military action in Mexico? Sure they'll squawk, but so what? Big corporations take advantage of smaller companies. That's how the world works.

And...Canada. Wouldn't they be much happier as a subsidiary under the corporate umbrella of the United States? And if they don't think so, well...maybe it has to be a hostile takeover.

To be clear, this is absolutely bonkers. But then so is [gestures broadly and manically]. And the one thing that might give him pause--that every prior president at least recognized as existing even when they violated it, at least had the decency to invent rationalizations for violating it, like Kirk coming up with reasons to violate the Prime Directive--just isn't there.


*Gerardus Mercator has a lot to answer for.