As an increasingly desperate Amerika rants and raves and deteriorates, its sense of exceptionalism largely remains intact in the minds of many. That can be the only explanation for the arrogant pontifications of the repugnant Trump envoy to Canada, Pete Hoekstra.
In his most recent upbraiding of Canada, he warned that the U.S. is watching us closely for signs of election interference:
Hoekstra warned Canadian politicians to keep their "nose out" of American politics in the weeks before the midterm elections.
Apparently, speaking truth to a nation increasingly allergic to any semblance of it is deeply offensive. Recently former prime minister Justin Trudeau displayed such temerity during a discussion at Brown University:
"There is a pattern here of doing things that are driving up prices for your consumers and not necessarily making anything better for America, by fighting with one of your oldest and best allies," Trudeau said during the conversation.
Hoekstra said if any actions by Canadians end up amounting to election interference, the United States will respond.
"We're monitoring it, we're evaluating it and if some of it becomes election interference then America will respond to it," Hoekstra said.
The Toronto Star's Andrew Phillips sees this as a classic case of projection, an example of which is a chronic liar thinking everyone else lies as well.
This is rich, coming from the representative of a president who’s made questioning Canada’s very existence (“51st state!”) into a cheap applause line at his campaign rallies. Whose own treasury secretary pumps oxygen into the Alberta separatist movement, and whose diplomats listen respectfully while those same separatists offer up Canada’s resources in return for support from Washington.
Classic projection: we’re meddling in your internal affairs (as we’ve done everywhere from Argentina to Hungary, not to mention Venezuela) so naturally we think you’re meddling in ours.
The other possibility, Phillips suggests, is that the tactics Canada has used, such as targeting red states with specific tariffs, are working.
Canadian tariffs are hitting key industries in states like North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Texas, Montana and Illinois. Most are so-called red states, i.e. reliably Republican, but they can see the link between Trump’s trade obsession and damage to their own economies, as well as the general inflation it fuels.
Other Canadian actions are having an effect, too. The boycott of travel to the U.S. has hit Las Vegas particularly hard. Democrats there are making much of the fact that Canadians, normally Nevada’s biggest source of foreign visitors, aren’t filling hotel rooms there. What happens in Vegas, in this case, doesn’t stay in Vegas: it spills into the midterm battle.
Phillips also suspects that Canada is being set up as a scapegoat to explain the drubbing Republicans will likely take in the mid-terms. My own cast of mind, however, suggests something more might be at work. While lying awake early one morning, a vivid scenario came to me: after the midterms, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, refuses to allow the newly elected Representatives to be seated, citing election interference, ballot irregularities, and unsanctioned voting. He could very well say that until a full investigation is undertaken, he has a responsibility to 'protect' the integrity of the democratic process.
And his kind of election interference would be something only those who still believe in real American democracy could remedy.
