Starting tonight with some good news stories.
In the New York Times, Stephen Marche writes a brilliant opinion piece: We Are All Canadians Now (gift link)...American aggression and American decline are of a piece. As Mr. Carney has announced a slew of measures aimed at boosting Canada’s electric vehicle industry, nobody has argued for a moment that American equivalents could compete. By ending E.V. tax credits, Mr. Trump may have all but ensured that the American electric vehicle will one day be a thing of the past. America has decided not to compete. It would rather pose. If you are integrating yourself into the American sphere of influence, or whatever Mr. Trump’s national security apparatus calls it, you are integrating yourself into antiquity — or worse.
At the same time, America is becoming synonymous with dangerous randomness. The constitutional system is in collapse. The legislative branch, made up of both Democrats and Republicans, is missing in action. The Supreme Court debates the legal equivalent of how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, while the legal order that has held the country together for 250 years sputters toward an ignominious end. Nobody knows what America is anymore — not Americans, not their enemies, not their friends.
Coming to terms with this reality has not been easy in Canada. American exceptionalism is a hell of a drug; it’s hard to break the habit of thinking of Americans as the good guys. For Canadians, what is unfolding in Minnesota and elsewhere is happening to our friends, our neighbors, our colleagues, our kin — it is happening to people we love and understand better than anybody. But “the rupture,” as Mr. Carney calls
And now, the work begins. For better or for worse, what people most admire in Canada, certainly more than success, is the capacity to endure — no doubt a product of the brutality of the landscape. Atanarjuat, the hero of Inuit legend, survived a murderous plot by running through the snow naked. Terry Fox, as every Canadian schoolchild knows, ran a marathon a day for 143 days on a single leg to raise money for cancer. The idols of our national sport spit out their teeth and get back in the game. Mr. Carney’s speech offered a glimpse of that spirit, too. What liberal democracies need now, more than ever, is the sheer will to go on, without nostalgia for what once was. The West is feeling its betrayal turn into rage. The world is waking up to both its vulnerability and its value. But better late than never: We’re all Canadian now.
As the weeks go by after Carney's Davos speech, we are seeing even more clearly what an impact it is having on the world.
Crowd sings Oh Canada as Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand raises Canadian flag to officially open Canadian consulate in Nuuk, Greenland π¨π¦π¬π± π₯ Credit CBCOlivia / via π ❤️ππ¨π¦TEAM CANADA FOREVERπ¨π¦π❤️ ❤️ππ¨π¦VIVE LE CANADA π¨π¦π❤️
— ππ¨π¦Team Canada Foreverπ¨π¦π (@teamcanadaforever.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 5:50 PM
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