The Breaking Point

Elbows Up. Gloves Off.

Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada and Donald, 2025. Photo Credit: The Independent

For over a decade now, American media has done everything in its power to normalize the words coming out of Donald’s mouth. One of the ways in which they’ve done this is through the process known as sanewashing, which is to take his incomprehensible, insane, unhinged, immature, prepubescent rants and sanitize them, selectively quoting from them so that sense can be made of the senseless. All of this, of course, benefits Donald by making him seem less insane and more measured than he actually is.

He recently went on a couple of rants on his failing social media site about Canada and trade with the United States. So buckle up.

Donald: Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years. Their ridiculously high tariffs on our farmers and farm products has made life impossible for these great American patriots and has long created a $60 billion deficit between our two countries, not sustainable and not anymore. On January 1st, 2027, tariffs on all cars, trucks, both large and small, automotive parts and steel will be increased to 50%. Build in the US, there are zero tariffs. Canada will be treated like a state no longer on trade and in other ways. Also, they’re among the worst nations in the world to deal with. They feel entitled and yet we don’t need Canada. They need us. They do 95% of their business with the US. For us, the exact opposite. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

A couple of things. Oh no, should we spoil this with facts? My word. Yeah, we’re going to.

Not long after that, he continued.

Lots of bluster from Doug Ford, who is the premier of the Canadian province of Ontario, but who is better known as the less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother of the late great Rob Ford. America has been carrying Canada for decades, but no longer. The USA will always be far bigger, richer, and stronger than Canada. Without the United States, Canada couldn’t survive. It’s where they get all of their money and because of their current bad leadership, primarily Governor Carney and his flunky Ford, they will not be allowed to keep taking advantage of the United States. Their key to survival. Remember, much of the electricity, oil and gas that Canada gets is transported through the USA. Someone should get these clowns to fall in line or the consequences for Canada will be far worse.

Canada’s unemployment rate is now at 10% and rapidly rising. Their businesses are fleeing for the United States and it’s all because of their failed policies and inept leadership. The days of ripping off our farmers and other businesses are over. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

What in the world is going on there?

Let’s break it down.

Where to start? As always, in a lot of these posts, there are just lies and then there’s a lot of projection. Let’s start with some of the lies. Over a hundred countries run trade deficits with the United States of America. Canada is maybe tenth on the list and, again, our second largest trading partner, so that tracks. The other thing is that America actually needs a lot of goods that come from Canada, including aluminum and lumber. So these tariffs are going to make many essential goods in the United States much, much, much, much more expensive.

And did we really think that Canada was going to take this lying down? President Carney is not going to take the bait. He doesn’t care if the prepubescent child who is Donald Trump calls him Governor Carney, as if Canada were not a sovereign nation but instead the 51st state of the United States. However, he’s not going to let America impose tariffs on Canadian goods and not retaliate with tariffs of his own.

The difference is this, though. Canada knows that they will suffer more economically in the short term, but in the long term, the United States is going to end up paying the price. Donald knows that tariffs raise prices on Americans. He’s finally figuring that out, and that’s why he’s starting to import foreign beef to get prices down, because his tariffs are one of the reasons that beef prices have gone up.

So he’s not going to have these tariffs go into effect until January 2027, which is, yes, after the midterms. Canada is not going to show such restraint. They’re imposing their tariffs on September 8th, the day after Labor Day, when Americans actually start paying attention again. So this is all going to backfire spectacularly on a man who continues not to understand how tariffs work.

Also, I think it tells us everything we need to know about Donald when he compares Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, unfavorably to his brother, whom clearly Donald prefers.

Why is this all happening anyway? Because the guy with no impulse control and megalomania, which often comes in the form of a God complex, decided, when negotiations were this close to being settled, to force Canada to give up French language protections and give the United States control over who they traded with.

In other words, in order to get a trade deal, Donald wanted to weaken Canadian sovereignty.

Canada walked away, as they should have, because that is insane. This is just another example of the degree to which Donald is flailing because he knows what a weak, pathetic little man the world now sees him as. Nobody needs to capitulate to this loser anymore.

So he keeps trying to impose himself in situations in which his adversary, in this case one of our oldest, closest allies, is more than willing to walk away because, unlike Donald, Canadians have self respect and, unlike him, they are willing to fight for their rights even from a position of weakness.

That is what gets lost when Donald’s words are sane washed. If you take a sentence here and a sentence there and turn what he says into something resembling a coherent trade policy, you obscure what is actually happening. These aren’t the words of somebody laying out a measured argument about the economic relationship between two sovereign nations. Donald is calling the prime minister of Canada a governor. He’s talking about Canada as if it were a state. He’s threatening one of our oldest allies with economic consequences if its leaders don’t “fall in line.”

That is what he said. We should not pretend he said something else.

For more than a decade, we have watched people take Donald’s words and try to make them mean something more coherent, more sophisticated, and more defensible than what actually came out of his mouth. But sometimes the most important thing we can do is simply listen to him.

When Donald says Canada needs to “fall in line,” that is what he means. When he calls President Carney “Governor Carney,” that is deliberate. When he says Canada will be “treated like a state,” we shouldn’t rush in behind him and construct a more reasonable interpretation of what he might have meant. And when negotiations are close to being settled and Donald suddenly demands that Canada give up French language protections and allow the United States to control who it trades with, we should recognize that for what it is. He wanted to weaken Canadian sovereignty, and Canada walked away.

The result is that Americans and Canadians are now going to pay the price for Donald’s megalomania and inability to control his impulses. Canada knows it will suffer more economically in the short term. The United States will suffer, too. Americans are going to pay higher prices for essential goods because Donald still does not understand how tariffs work, even as he begins to understand enough to know that he would rather delay his own tariffs until after the midterms.

This is not going to end well for anybody because both Canadians and Americans will suffer with higher prices for God knows how long. And none of it needed to happen. We are here because Donald cannot tolerate being told no, because he cannot accept that Canada is a sovereign nation with its own interests, its own rights, and its own government, and because one of our oldest, closest allies finally decided it did not need to capitulate to him.

So, Canada, just remember there are a lot of us here who have your backs and who are on your side. Normally I say elbows up, but I think we’re way past that.

It’s gloves off.