this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 264 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Speaking as a Canadian... Yes, we know.

You guys had the most trustworthy, most reliable ally ever. The faith and trust between Canada and the US was legendary.

That's gone now. It'll be a century or more before you can ever rebuild that trust.

And you threw it away for this drooling moron to play tinpot dictator.

Was it worth it?

[–] themadcodger@kbin.earth 82 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Can some of us, uh, join you though?

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 67 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Honestly I've been worrying for years that the only way the US is going to resolve this division and hostility within their country is by breaking up, possibly largely along red state/blue state lines, and hopefully not triggering a violent (or god forbid nuclear) civil war in the process.

But I can say as a Canadian, if it does come to that, and you guys can't take back your country (which I really think you can, once you start to accept what is happening and accept that it's gonna hurt and you dig your heels in anyway, I don't think there's anyone who will be able to take you down, not even Trump and crew), then we would be absolutely happy to quickly rebuild and strengthen our relationship with most of the blue states. And however you end up wanting to arrange yourselves in the end, we'll work with that. And if you guys genuinely wanted our help, our resources, our logistical support, even our protection (what little we can provide), if things were to start looking like actual civil war, I'm sure we'd absolutely be willing to figure out what sort of arrangement is actually going to work. We'd have to at least initially discuss it as equals and as partners though, I don't think we'd ask you or coerce you to give up your sovereignty, any more than we'd want you to take ours. But if the intention to join Canada was a popular attitude, I expect we'd be willing to consider it, probably after some cooling-off period though to make sure it's not just a passing fad. The progressive parts of America are the parts we've always loved. If you guys come knocking on our door needing a couch to crash on we're not going to ask how long you need to stay, we're just going to go find pillows and blankets.

[–] themadcodger@kbin.earth 23 points 1 day ago

Same. I don't honestly know how we recover as a country. Trump isn't the cause, he's a symptom. A tumour with a much larger cancerous problem underneath. At no point will the sane (and actual majority of us) roll over and become fascists. But at the same time, I don't see how the third of the country that has gone full fascist suddenly regains their sanity and joins us.

The USSR's goal was to divide us, and the Cold War never ended, it just went underground. There is a large part of me that is afraid at this point Balkanization is our future. But how we would we even get there without causing death and destruction?

But regardless of sentiments about losing faith in us (and I don't blame those that feel that way, they are warranted) I do love you all who recognize that not all of us are the insane ones that make it on TV. We do still value our brothers/sisters/enbys to the north and are proud that we have a friendship unparalleled and the world's longest undefended border. The world is a often a dark and scary place, but it's friendships like these that make it worthwhile.

I appreciate you internet stranger.

[–] ghost_towels@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You’ve put it very well. And as someone that lives in BC, I agree wholeheartedly.

[–] themadcodger@kbin.earth 15 points 1 day ago

You guys are the best. I'm just south of you in the PNW and want us to always have each other's backs.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

i honestly think that applies to most of the world: pretty much everyone will back the blue states, because the red states are friendless right-wing nut jobs compared to pretty much the entire west… and it’s not like china would come to their “rescue” - they probably dislike them more than the rest of us even!

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Most of the world*

*excludes Russia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Hungary, Israel, possibly India, probably Turkey, and any other fascist right wing countries. Sadly also excludes Alberta too.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

the only way the US is going to resolve this division and hostility within their country is by breaking up

No part of the US should be left to the fascists. They need to be crushed everywhere, in the US and globally. We are not going to sell out decent people in red states to be enslaved and oppressed just to make our lives easier.

Or, as the last decent Republican put it: the union must be preserved at all costs.

And this time we finish Reconstruction.

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 3 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

That's the American spirit that I, as a Canadian, want to see! It's your country. Don't let them take it!

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 2 points 1 day ago

You moved me to tears, and I'm not even out of bed, yet. Thank you so much for this genuine display of human compassion.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 hours ago

The problem is, the US isn't actually divided by red/blue areas. It's divided by urban and rural/suburban. Even red states, the cities are almost all blue. You can't just break it up like that because they'd have revolutions in the south at least.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 10 points 1 day ago

There's an immigration process, go ahead and apply if you want.

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 50 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I assume certain short-term things will get better with anyone less crazy than Trump, but I agree the US is no longer reliable for anything long-term, and no other country should deal with us on the assumption that we'll give up certain short-term advantages for a long term stability within our sphere of influence. It's not even that the US was "good" (though I imagine the next hegemonic power could easily be worse), but across administrations, the US was generally intelligent about how to leverage its influence but retain enough goodwill to continue to do so indefinitely.

[–] stringere@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This administration is showing the world how poorly codified and vulnerable the US democracy is.

[–] themadcodger@kbin.earth 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We learned that last time Trump was president that most of our country has been run on gentlemen's agreements. It was news to a lot of us as well.

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

I think a huge part of the problem is that it's run on Gentlemen's agreements but we pretend it's not. The UK's "Constitution" is a hodgepodge of laws and court cases and things that probably closer to treaties than anything else. It's a mess, but they know it's a mess so there's a very real sense that the gentlemen's agreements are important and as real as anything else.

In America, we worship our Constitution like a holy text, but so many of our institutional controls depend on Judicial Review (which is not technically mentioned in the constitution), on following along with the presumed intent, and on fudging around the edges when it's obvious the machinery of the state would grind to a halt if we had to amend it every time a novel situation arose. Yet, nevertheless, we have an entire school of thought built around the idea of shallow surface readings. The "originalists," not to put too fine a point on it, are fucking idiots.

If you get the idea that the only important thing is the blackletter text agreed to by a gaggle of 18th century provincials, many of whom were intelligent and well-intentioned, but all of whom were elites and either slave-owners or okay with hanging out with slave owners, then you have a recipe for considering stupid shit like presidential immunity or having a speaker of the house who's not a Congressperson and who can become president despite already serving two full terms, because it doesn't explicitly say you can't. It's childish and dangerous, and their ascendancy in the judicial branch is a travesty.

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yup. I joked that we're still on Constitutional Republic version 2.27, and not only is the next point release long overdue, but we should really have upgraded to version 3 or 4 by now.

[–] outrageousmatter@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Woah, we only just finally left the beta and are on constitution republic 1.27. The articles of confederation is more of an alpha test that was not good and tried the constitutions and while it worked, it never left the beta stage as , it just used spaghetti code that led to the civil war, which people wanted to upgrade to the first release won and started the reconstruction era, and caused the final release of 1.15. The south downgraded it back to beta after using violence to restrict people rights and remake the antebellum south under beta 15.01. We finally left after the civil rights movement forced them to put it at 1.25, with no restrictions on people rights. Though we need to not upgrade yet as someone is trying to install banana republic instead.

[–] Archer@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

This country makes a lot more sense if you think of it as a Linux server run by feuding sysadmins all trying to run their own package managers

[–] InvertedParallax@lemm.ee 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Was it worth it?

Southerners: "Yes, but we get to abuse brown people again!"

[–] SupaTuba@lemm.ee 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

And say the "R-word" apparently

[–] chuck@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago
[–] Archer@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

Canadian hard R

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 13 points 1 day ago

For him and his administration? Yes, it was worth it. Destroying that was the entire point.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Call his bluff.

Ya'll are about the size of, and politically left of, California. 54 of 538 electoral votes. 52 of 435 members in the House of Representatives. You'd be another California.

You're the last thing that the GOP wants involved in US politics.

If you hate Trump, you can drive a wedge between him and the GOP simply by reminding us that you have universal healthcare, and you intend to spread it.

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That depends on there still being elections

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There will be elections.

Whether we use touch screens or guillotines to cast our ballots is an unanswered question. But there will be elections.

[–] notastatist@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Aaaand when will these so called elections happen?

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

When do you want to cast your vote?

[–] notastatist@feddit.org 1 points 17 hours ago

I for my part voted, but not in the US, which I am happy of.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Sure there will be elections. But what do you do when Trump gets 90% of the vote like Putin does?

There are elections and then there are "elections".

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Start putting up billboards reminding the Secret Service how many terms a president is allowed to serve.

Billboards reminding JD Vance that he can finish out up to two years of Trump's term and remain eligible for two terms of his own.

"Remind" Trump that everyone around him is plotting against him.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Russia had term limits... until Putin just changed the constitution to remove them.

But why would you assume having some other fascist in charge will fix the problem? Trump is old and unhealthy, so there's a good chance he'll before the end of his term from natural causes. Sure JD Vance isn't nearly as popular as Trump, but if elections are rigged and the media is under the control of the President (as things are in Russia), that won't matter much.

Trump is the symptom, American proclivity towards fascism is the real problem.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 1 points 15 hours ago

MAGA is a personality cult. It will rip itself apart as soon as Trump is gone.

If Trump ever thought that Vance was a threat, he'd try to have him executed, just like he did with Pence. Convince Trump that he's surrounded by traitors, and he'll bring down the whole apparatus himself.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 19 points 1 day ago

That implies that Canada would be given representation instead of some inferior "possession" status like Puerto Rico. Just because he says he'd make it a state doesn't mean anything more than any other splat of his verbal diarrhea.

[–] Protoknuckles@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

No. I have zero interest in your apologies. Not you, not any American whose first instinct is to tell us how sorry they are. I'm sure you're all wonderful people, but we're well past the point where that matters.

I never, ever, want to hear the word "Sorry" from any of your lips while I'm living with the reality that people I love might die to American bombs and bullets. I am not obligated to assuage your fucking conscience by dignifying your apologies while you all sit around hanging your heads in worthless shame.

We do not want or need your apologies. We want your rage. Get angry. Get out in the streets. Fucking do something.

And when Trump is gone and every last fascist has been hunted down and your government is run like an actual democracy, and your voters have learned how to value and respect friendships with countries outside of your own.... Then you can come to us and say sorry.