Economically dependent on their northern neighbor, business owners in Washington state are laying off employees and shutting their doors.
Hey 'murican here, the other day I punched my friend in the face and started bragging about maybe taking their home from them with violent force and now they are ravaging our friendship by refusing to hang out with me.
What can I do? Threaten my friend with more violence and intolerance?
Thnx ahead of time for any advice.
I’m in B.C., and near the Washington border. It was a “right of passage” when we turned 21 and were legal to drink in Washington, USA. I think there was a lot of eye-rolling when we Canadian hooligans came over the border. But, you were always welcoming and hospitable. I miss you, neighbours 🥺.
It’s your friend’s fault, they are brainwashed by the woke trans globalist agenda and can’t understand you’re doing it for their own good. Keep draining the swamp and they will eventually see you were right all along!
No matter how much you fuck up, don’t stop! Political Momentum is all that matters!
Do you know where your friend is from? They might actually be from the US. Always ask for ID before you swing. Gotta hoard those calories since food got more expensive.
Have you tried deporting your friend to a death camp in El Salvidor?
How about a 90-day moratorium on face punching, after which their will definitely be more face punching?
It’s not even a boycott at this point, who in their right mind would cross the border and risk getting detained by an unshackled border control and ice.
Yup. Boycott is only part of it. The other part is that it’s not safe. ICE is out of control and has already sent Canadians to jail for zero reason.
I’m planning a 15 hr drive next month that I’d normally do thru the US as it shaves a few hours off. But not this time. You literally couldn’t pay me to cross that border - I can’t risk getting shipped off to some concentration camp in El Salvidore because ICE doesn’t like my hybrid car, or whatever.
Exactly, I wouldn’t visit America for the same reason I wouldn’t visit Afghanistan…it’s a dangerous country run by dangerous religious nut jobs.
I think many of us are shocked that the US has an army of ICE and CBP agents that were this ready to go full Gestapo. That suggests some alarming underlying issues.
As someone who travelled to the ZS for work (under different Visas(… Not really shocked. The shit some CBP officers pulled during immigration at the airport. “What do you mean, you are here to work, don’t we have Americans to do the job?”, " Why do we invited Europeans to America to speak at an American conference?", “You’re here because a Swiss company bought an American company? This can’t be right.”
And this was mostly in California. During Obama. I can only imagine how these interaction would go now, when those notjubs feel encouraged by their leader and on the right side of history.
Not going back there for a long time.
many of us are shocked
Yet you have been regularly informed that “some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses” since 1992.
Don’t know if that’s widespread knowledge outside of the US but it would be interesting if that was widely known within the US.
It’s certainly fairly well known in the UK since that song was Christmas No. 1 in 2009.
The type of people that went into those agencies are uhh obsessed about those issues.
One can only wonder how many white nationalists gravitate towards those jobs, especially ICE agents.
Nobody in their right mind, but people who want to experience one of the best and one of the worst Rainforest Cafes in the same day.
Good. Stick it to us Canada.
Archive
I do want to feel bad, especially when hearing Canadians say, “go back to the US” like in that article. Then I hear stories about my Canadian friends going to Arizona for business and people making jokes about being a 51st state to their faces and my compassion dips.
I mean, I and others friends have made jokes about the 51st state thing with a Canadian friend in our group. But everyone in that group knows how fucking absurd the idea is, and everyone in the group knows that no one in the group is in favor of it. Sort of gallows humor.
I have to hope that’s what those others were trying with their jokes, trying to relieve tension by mocking the absurdity. But obviously if that backfires, it’s certainly not the fault of the receiver of the joke. Intention matters but it isn’t everything.
Yeah, my friends and I have made jokes that could be construed as the worse things you’ve ever heard unless you understood that that’s the point. Out of context they’d be terrible, so I know what you mean.
The way my friend described it was quite unpleasant. They could have been joking with him but I think a few of us are more on edge about this so that can be in play. I’ve also seen news reports about Canadian’s in Florida and Floridians joking about taking over Canada and Canadians being quite upset about it too.
I would hope that the Americans were not being intentionally provocative and that it’s us Canadians that are not getting their jokes. However, I think most of us just don’t take Trump’s threats lightly. He’s caused so much damage and he’s only getting started.
Don’t ever feel bad for giving exactly what is being asked for.
The shitty part is that the people suffering aren’t the people making decisions, but then that’s what needs to happen for voters to vote for someone else.
Hate is never needed
I hate fascists
We don’t hate Americans, we just don’t think about them anymore, and actively try to avoid American made things.
As an American, please to allow for actions to continue to have consequences.
I can confirm Points Roberts is really losing out from this trade war. It’s a little tiny piece of the USA easy to get to from Vancouver but hard from mainland USA since you either have to take a boat or go through 2 international border controls.
Point Roberts gets the water electricity and telephone from our lines, throws their trash in our landfills, gets most of their business from Canada, and have a bunch of shipping/forwarding services because the rates are often cheaper to a US address.
Many Americans are great and I like them, but we’re boycotting because starting from the Republican regime and its supporters, a lot of people there have gotten too casual about how much they think they don’t need us so we’re reminding them at large of our value.
I’m glad this Bloomberg article finally lists the many reasons that factor into this because for a few months the only reasons given were the tariffs and bad exchange rate. On its own, those haven’t stopped Canadians crossing to the US to this level in the past.
As an American, I do not take it personally that Canadians and other countries are boycotting the US. it’s understandable, appropriate even, and I’m fully supportive of it.
The only thing I ask is that when the resistance comes that you find ways to support us, covertly if necessary, but public if able.
Whatever you do don’t let us drag you down. I appreciate fellowship and goodwill but we have a madman in the driver’s seat; don’t give him any fuel.
that you find ways to support us, covertly if necessary, but public if able.
I hope you will extend the Canadians the same courtesy if the US invades them.
Many Americans are great and I like them…
Thank you. That means more than you realize.
Nobody can blame Canadians for responding rationally to an irrational situation.
I never met an American, in person, that I didn’t like. But lord, I loathe your country right now…
You have every right to.
I agree with a chunk of this, but your note about ‘reminding them at large of our value’ is off. Most people I talk to here in Canada look at the issues in the states as basically untenable in terms of stability / trade / geopolitical unity. Supporting Russia, attacking their allies/threatening to militarily annex peaceful democratic areas like greenland, putting up BS reasons for trade tariffs (fent). The USA is a schizo trade partner at best, where for 4 years with the dems it may be ‘normal’, but when it flips repub its suddenly xenophobic dictator land, with less stability in its agreements than a third world military dictatorship – at least those deals tend to last until the next coup, whereas Trumps agreements change based on his dementia; his administration has become comfortable with making up totally fake numbers even, which can change based on how they want to present the fake narrative about why they’re doing whatever stupid crap they’re doing. And there’s no assurance it’ll go back to a ‘stable’ dem setup for four years next time around – the way it’s trending, the dems will be locked up, with all their funding methods declared unamerican by EO, similar to the shakedown of the law firms that’s happened recently as reported by 60 minutes.
If you live next to a family in a mansion, and they suddenly start flying a Nazi flag, beating/deporting their own maintenance staff (sometimes their own family too, by mistake), and screaming about how they’re gonna take your house, you don’t pull back on visiting as a way to ‘remind them’ of your value. You pull back because WTF, no. And if you can’t move, and they were your main contact locally, you start lookin for other friends / buying guns and protection. Again, not to remind them of your value, but because fuck no.
We are going to treat the US more like a different country than ours, even after “normalcy” returns, but there is a way to recognize the fact that of the 300 million people you have at least a few million within them that are victims.
I get what you are saying, but just like ourselves, it’s not realistic to expect every American to be a hero saving the world and themselves from Trump. We are doing our part to avoid American products, so we should expect organization and pushback at a similar level, rather than waiting for vigilante justice or asking everyone to just move away immediately. A general strike is a possibility, but we shouldn’t be going “tsk-tsk” just because it’s not planned right now. There could be the beginning of discussion to separate from the United States, who knows, but that won’t happen immediately either.
When the Nazi’s came to power in Germany, they had less support amongst the public than the republicans do today.
If you think it fair to hold all of Nazi germany accountable for the atrocities that went on, there’s no reason to pretend America is some “special” exception. Germans take responsibility for their past, with things like banning AFD – even if a German can legit say “It wasn’t me gassing those jews”, they still recognise they were responsible for what occurred as a result of their inaction and apathy. In the US, like 30% of them didn’t even bother to show up and vote. Apathy is no excuse, and not worthy of absolution. They literally elected a felon and a rapist.
Regardless, I still stick by the reduction in visits and the on going boycotts aren’t about making them “realise our value” or whatever. It’s a visceral recoil experienced on an aggregate scale, to the vitriolic bile being spewed by the people they elected, targeted quite literally at all of us here in Canada. If someone vomits on you constantly, you move the fuck away – and it isn’t about “wanting to make them miss you”. It’s about the vomit.
I wish Point Roberts could just become part of Canada, but the US has never given even an inch of territory away once acquired.
Our tourists won’t come back until we abolish ICE and stop detaining random people at our borders.
And the tariffs.
And threatening to annex us.
It’s not just ICE.
I don’t understand why so many Americans don’t get that. I hear, Canadians are upset at tariffs. I hear, Canadians are worried about border issues.
Both are true.
But that’s not why we’re enraged. It’s because an unhinged, racist, sexist, authoritarian, mentally challenged dictator has threatened to destroy our country and everyone there is doing fuck all about it.
everyone there is doing fuck all about it.
i think it’s important not to downplay the protests… people are organising the most political action that’s happened in most people’s lifetimes
but it’s by no means proportional to the situation
and perhaps more importantly: there are still a huge number of people that are drinking the koolaid
The protests have proven to be irrelevant and ignored. Trump and his idiocy has been protested for a decade. He’s been convicted of crimes, he was declared by a court to be a rapist, when he speaks, he clearly has mush for brains, people close to him have called him a racist, he formented an insurrection. And yet here we are…
Clearly holding up signs, even in large groups is doing fuck all.
Thomas Jefferson had something to say about what the situation calls for.
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr/publications/35-rule-how-small-minority-can-change-world
you need 3.5% of the population engaged in non-violent protest for guaranteed political change
for the USA, that’s about 10m people - no small number… the protests keep growing. what’s your solution? because so far that’s the best idea that anyone has simply because
Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts
sure, the systems should be better equipped to deal with the situation, but they’re not… so it’s a shit situation, moving on from that: realistic paths forward?
I read the BBC article your link cited.
A couple of really telling points.
- "Numbers really matter for building power in ways that can really pose a serious challenge or threat to entrenched authorities or occupations,”
What it doesn’t say is what happens when support against regime change is >50%. 2/3rd of the US population through either direct support (voted for) or indirect support (couldn’t care to vote), put a convicted criminal racist rapist who was very clear what he was going to do, in power.
- No mention of foreign backed influence campaigns
How many of those non-violent campaigns had foreign intelligence support for them, and how many against? The CIA, FSB (KGB) and many others had their fingerprints all over so many of those. Certainly today, we know without a doubt that Trump has been and likely still is supported by the FSB. And yet, not a disqualifier.
- The study considered a successful non-violent protest, only if it resolved in under a year
People have been protesting so long against him that some people who were in diapers when he announced his intentions to run, will be old enough to vote in the next election. If there is one.
- The scope of the study is poor
As a historical study, it’s great. But in terms of analyzing the current modern state, nothing older than 20 years should be considered. Technology has changed the game so much that comparing the world of today to the world of pre-2000 is useless. 20 years may even be too much.
Twitter helped overthrow the Egyptian regime, but today is owned by one of the people running the regime.
While the scope is too wide, it’s also too narrow because it only goes back to 1900. It misses some very important events.
- French Revolution
- American Revolution
- The Haitian Revolution
- The War of Mexican Independence
- Many revolutions in a 20 year period in Central and South America
- The Belgian Revolution
There is more, and I kept the scope for the same approximate period of time as the study did.
What’s important to note here, is the study looked at a post WW1 world where the League of Nations and the UN provided a place to air a countries dirty laundry and organize counters against them like public shaming and sanctions. A large part of the success being the support of the United States. Today, the US is actively dismantling the institutions that kept the world from needing violence for positive change.
It also excludes regime changes using foreign military support. So no;
- Mexican Revolution
- Bolshevik Revolution
- Guatemala
- Congo
- Iran
- Vietnam
- And many more
And the most important example, because it has the most significance to today…
- WW2, where the world’s most militarily powerful nation, elected a racist, fascist, speed addicted dictator, who used tight control of the information sources to push an evil agenda that destabilized the world and led to the deaths of millions. A regime incidentally, that saw mass protests. But to paraphrase myself, they really did fuck all.
So here I sit in 1937 Poland, listening to the Orange Oberbefehlshaber talk about how all of the countries around are taking advantage of them, and how large sections of the population of those countries support him, and how Vichy Alberta wants to join them…
How many fucks do you think I’ll give about protests against him when US tanks are rolling down my street.
i don’t have anything to add really, i just wanted to say that i think they’re all very valid, and excellently made points and i agree :)
Honestly? It might be too late. Even if we did those things, no one is coming back for decades. We just proved it’s not safe.
Canada isn’t going to be friends with the US again for at least an entire generation. I can get to mainland Europe from Vancouver for roughly the same price as a US vacation because your prices are completely fucked too. 18 usd for a burger? Lmao I’ll go to Prague and have a goulash and two beers for that
As a Canadian I feel bad for this. A lot of Americans in these tourist towns love Canadians and didn’t even vote for Trump!
The only thing that will change the US trajectory towards fascism is an economic crisis. A major one.
Sadly there will be collateral damage. I’m sorry for them.
You say that, but in Nazi Germany (whose playbook we’re following) economic crisis was part of the rise of fascism. Not its fall.
That’s true.
Surely in this case however a direct line could be drawn between fascist policies and the coming recession.
I’ve seen plenty of those same “love Canada” Americans using the “it’s just a joke, bro” defense, though. So they still don’t get it.
As an American, I can hardly blame the Canadians. Who would want to cross the border when doing so might get you tossed into a dark hole in El Salvador for no reason whatsoever?
It absolutely does suck for the Americans who rely on those tourist dollars, though, as well as the Canadians who lose a destination they love. I really hope we can restore sanity sooner rather than later, but I fear it would take an act of God to do so.
Same. I can absolutely understand their anger.
We have a psychopath openly expressing a willingness to take something by force. This is the definition of terrorism.
Not really, just an act of humanity.
If you want to make an omelette, you might have to fuck a chicken.
Wait…
Allegedly.
We need the pain. Just like you needed the pain from Trump to oust your far right, We need everybody, even the people in the deep blue states to say absolutely not to the entire right agenda, or shit here is never going to get better
We didn’t oust our far right. They got more votes than they’ve had in decades. They just got them in the wrong places.
We also lost our left wing party whose votes got gobbled up by the centre-left Liberals.
Idk anything about Canada’s voting. I’m assuming all the right wing votes were placed on places with lower representation?
No they were all over the place. They won a lot of seats but Carney’s Liberals won more.
In Canada I think there are just more left wing voters than right wing. Normally when the Conservatives win it’s because the left wing gets split among multiple left wing parties. This time, people abandoned those other left wing parties and jumped to the Liberals.
Thats… not what the dems are doing. At all.
No. Because the antediluvians running the party don’t understand why they keep losing. Maybe they should try a tactic other than "Stop, or I’ll say stop again.
Almost the entirety of the border (minus Detroit and Buffalo) is Trump country.
How much of that is tourist country?
I realize some of these are merely collateral damage.
Id rather it wasn’t necessary, but in the meantime, may it start hurting enough that y’all rise up to your bullshit king.Not yet. People are still in denial that their choice, or their choice to sit it out, us responsible for his installation.
It’s Bidens fault!
it’s all biden’s fault. He left the US with a GREAT economy. How dare he do that?
Keep it up. We need to feel the pain to fully awaken to the reality of Trumpism.
Trumpism is the tip of the iceberg.
The know-nothings have been here all along.
Economic hardship is about the only thing we all understand. It’s still important, I feel, to make it about the economy though. If Canada effectively sanctioned us because we banned abortions that would likely backfire.
Ravage US, Canada. This isn’t sexual.
Speak for yourself. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I don’t like it when they say sorey every time I scream. I’m American, I need it to hurt so I can feel.
We’re currently being hit at the cervix by Alaska panhandle, can you ease off eh
Just commented in another post about Canadians stopped going to the USA. NY border towns like Plattsburgh, small one like Rouses Points, or even big one like Lake George are suffering big times because there is no more Canadians.
Two weeks ago, felt like going to Burlington for a quick weekend trip from Montreal. Went to Niagara falls instead. That a few hundreds Trump won’t enjoy. Clean your house USA.
Only significant pain will transform the US unfortunately. And it’ll either be economic or combative. Most MAGA voters are gone, but the “nothing will change” non-voters can be woken up from the delusion that nothing matters and helped to recognize that voting at its most basic is harm reduction.
As a border state that sees a bunch of Canadian tourists and shoppers it’ll suck, but the only way out is through.
I’m sad to comprehend that you are saying they are a lost cause and not that they had disappeared.
I’m incredibly sad about it too, it consumes a non-inconsequential amount of my family. But a large faction of the US have been trained since the civil rights era that it’s good to suffer hurt yourself as long as you are hurting the undesirables more.
Are you aware what a massive undertaking it is to deprogram people who are brainwashed in a cult?
It’s extremely hard, takes a long time, and requires the influence from the cult is cut completely.So yes the MAGA cult is basically a lost cause. Unless USA decides to shut down FOX and CNN and the likes.
We needed to deprogram the south when they lost the war, Sherman gave it a start, but then we failed when we showed them mercy.
Now they’ve finally won.
Other countries need to hammer republican states with tariffs and boycotts. Since they control the government, it’s the only way they will relent on economic sanctions and ICE nonsense.
Or…
The West Coast needs to form its own trading bloc and reform ICE, as the former rules don’t seem to apply to anything anymore. We’ll continue to uphold traditional American values from 1776-2015, values held before all of this New Right horseshit.
Uhh, we definitely don’t want to uphold traditional American values from before the 1960s or so.
I meant more in the long arc of “being a place that values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” like most modern nations.
Have you spent any time studying American history?
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… for rich white men.
Governors should sign executive orders firing all ICE employees in their states.
And it’s about to get worse
I 110% expect Carney (Canadian PM) is getting the Zelenesky treatment tomorrow
He will be fine though and likely dominate, he will kiss his fists and say meet mr calm and collected and all will be well
Dear news orgs: you have reached your 2025 quoto for the following words: “ravaged,” “blasted,” “slammed”
How about “smashed”, “hit with” and “under fire”?
I remember a recent commenter elsewhere refer to this as “playground speech”. I guess if you have the mental capacity of a gradeschooler then you can’t help but click on playground speech links. Clicks that inevitably seem to lead to a tiny narrow block of content down the middle of your wide screen, surrounded by miles of whitespace, lots of pictures, not much to read.
