Tag: new york times
Worthwhile Canadian Observations, Or Resistance North Of The Border

Worthwhile Canadian Observations, Or Resistance North Of The Border

For those puzzled by my headline: Back in 1986 The New Republicchallenged its readers to come up with a headline more boring than “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative,” the title of a New York Times op-ed by Flora Lewis. They couldn’t. Canada, you see, was considered inherently boring.

As I wrote a couple of months ago, economists have never considered Canada boring: It has often been a laboratory for distinctive policies. But now it’s definitely not boring: Canada, which will hold a snap election next month, seems poised to deliver a huge setback to Donald Trump’s foreign ambitions, one that may inspire much of the world — including many people in the United States — to stand up to the MAGA power grab.

So this seems like a good time to look north and see what we can learn. Here are three observations inspired by Canada that seem highly relevant to the United States.

Other countries are real

I don’t know what set Trump off on Canada, what made him think that it would be a good idea to start talking about annexation. Presumably, though, he expected Canadians to act like, say, university presidents, and immediately submit to his threats.

What he actually did was to rally Canadians against MAGA. Just two months ago Canada’s governing Liberals seemed set for a historic collapse, with Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre the all-but-inevitable next prime minister. Now, if the polls are to be believed, Poilievre — who has been trying to escape his image as a Canadian Trump, but apparently not successfully — is effectively out of the running:

I won’t count my poutine until it’s served, but it does seem as if Trump’s bullying has not only failed but backfired spectacularly. (And, arguably, saved Canada; all indications are that Poilievre is a real piece of work.) But why?

Much of this is on Trump, who always expects others to grovel on command. But it also reflects a general limitation of the American imagination: we tend to have a hard time accepting that other countries are real, that they have their own histories and feel strong national pride. Canada, in particular, arguably defined itself as a nation in the 19th century by its determination not to be absorbed by the United States.

In fact, there are almost eerie parallels between some of those old confrontations and current events. The 1890 McKinley tariff, of which Trump speaks with such admiration, was in part intended to pressure Canada into joining the U.S.. Instead, it inspired a backlash: Canada imposed high reciprocal tariffs, sought to strengthen economic linkages between its own provinces, and built a closer economic relationship with Britain.Sure enough, Mark Carney, the current and probably continuing Canadian prime minister, has emphasized removing remaining obstacles to interprovincial trade and seems to be seeking closer ties to Europe.

Trump may expect submission; he’s actually getting “elbows up.”

Time and chance happeneth to us all

Why, but for the grace of Donald Trump, was the Liberal Party headed for electoral catastrophe? There were specific policy issues like the nation’s carbon tax and Justin Trudeau’s personal unpopularity, but surely the main reason was a continuation of the factors that made 2024 a graveyard for incumbents everywhere, especially continuing voter anger about the inflation surge of 2021-22.

Some of us tried to point out that the very universality of the inflation surge meant that it couldn’t be attributed to the policies of any one country’s government. If Bidenomics was responsible for U.S. inflation, why did Europe experience almost the same cumulative rise in prices that we did? But there was never much chance of that argument getting traction in the United States, where we have a hard time realizing that other countries exist.

The Canadians, however, definitely know that we exist, and you might think that public anger over inflation would have been assuaged by the recognition that Canada’s inflation very closely tracked inflation south of the border:

But no, Canadian voters were prepared to punish the incumbent party anyway for just happening to hold power in a difficult time. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet electoral victory to parties with good policies; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Life is about more than GDP

Canada’s inflation experience looks a lot like ours, but in other ways Canada has clearly underperformed. In particular, it has had weak productivity growth, which has left it substantially poorer than the U.S.. Canada, The Economist declared in a much-quoted article, is now poorer than Alabama, as measured by GDP per capita.

That’s not quite what my numbers say, but close. Yet Canada doesn’t look like Alabama; it doesn’t feel like Alabama; and by any measure other than GDP it isn’t anything like Alabama. Here’s GDP per capita along with a widely used measure of life satisfaction, the same one often cited when pointing out how happy the Nordic countries seem to be, and life expectancy at birth:

So yes, Canada’s GDP per capita is comparable to that of very poor U.S. states. So is per capita GDP in Finland, generally considered the world’s happiest nation. But Canadians appear, on average, to be more satisfied with their lives than we are, although not at Nordic levels. We don’t have a comparable number for Alabama, but surveys consistently show it as one of our least happy states.

Part of the explanation for this discrepancy, no doubt, is that so much of U.S. national income accrues to a small number of wealthy people; inequality in Canada is much lower.

And I don’t know about you, but I believe that one important contributor to the quality of life is not being dead, something Canadians are pretty good at; on average, they live more than a decade longer than residents of Alabama.

The general point here is that while GDP is a very useful measure, and is generally correlated with the quality of life, it’s not the only thing that matters. And the more specific point is that Canada, which among other things has universal health care, has some good reasons beyond national pride not to become the 51st state.

So Canada isn’t boring now, and it never was. As I said, try looking north; you might learn something.

Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and former professor at MIT and Princeton who now teaches at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. From 2000 to 2024, he wrote a column for The New York Times. Please consider subscribing to his Substack, where he now posts almost every day.




Reprinted with permission from Paul Krugman.

America's Silence Is Not Compliance (And Here Is How We Prove It)

America's Silence Is Not Compliance (And Here Is How We Prove It)

After watching the inauguration, and listening to President Donald J. Trump’s weird, ramble-y, post-speech event in Emancipation Hall afterwards, I am oddly less worried than I have been since the election.

Perhaps it was the funny stuff. For example, Melania’s odd hat. It covered half of her face, allowing her to sleep sitting up if she chose to and, as The Daily Showpointed out,almost exactly matched the Pizza Hut logo. Others compared it to Spy vs. Spy from Mad Magazine, and to McDonald’s Hamburgler.

Or perhaps it was Joe Biden, who cracked his old, familiar “can you believe this shit?” smile at some of Trump’ old, familiar lies and boasts.

Then, there was country star Carrie Underwood, who ended the long awkward pause as someone was unable to start the music, said a silent “fuck it,” and sang “America the Beautiful” a cappella. If only she had followed that song up with “Before He Cheats.”

You have to wonder: if the Trump people can’t get the music started at their kick-off event, what else can’t they do?

We will soon find out. Will everything in the new Trump administration run like the switch watch we have been warned about, or will it be as—or more—dysfunctional than the last time? Will the policy agenda, in the end, be bigger or smaller, as befits an already-lame duck guy? Will President Donald J. Trump—who promises bigger—be more empowered because he has a better-organized executive team and faces little opposition in his own party? Or will he shed members of the executive branch at the same rate as in his first term (news flash: Vivek is already gone.)

Another unknown: will the institutions that are designed to stop Trump and his MAGA thugs be better able to do it because they have had time to prepare, because Trump has telegraphed everything he plans to do, and these well-funded groups have legal teams standing ready to stop, or at least slow, him in the courts?

I suspect that the next two to four years (depending on whether the Democrats can flip the House or the Senate in 2026) will both be worse than what we went through between 2017 and 2021, and better in ways we can’t know yet. Perhaps this, and not apathy or depression, accounts for the virtual silence from the 50.1 percent of voters who did not cast their ballots for Donald Trump.

But silence is not compliance, which is why I bristled yesterday when I read Peter Baker’s column in The New York Times, in which he equated the absence of street-level protest and outrage to popular acquiescence in the coming weeks and months. Observing the contrast between the elaborate security measures taken around the Capitol and the lack of activists to defend against, Baker writes that “if Washington looks like a war zone again, it does not necessarily feel that way. Unlike the last time President-elect Donald J. Trump took the oath of office eight years ago,” he continues, “the bristling tension and angry defiance have given way to accommodation and submission. The Resistance of 2017 has faded into the Resignation of 2025.”

It gets worse. “Much of the world, it seems, is bowing down to the incoming president,” Baker writes:

Technology moguls have rushed to Mar-a-Lago to pay homage. Billionaires are signing seven-figure checks and jockeying for space at the inaugural ceremony. Some corporations are pre-emptively dropping climate and diversity programs to curry favor.
Some Democrats are talking about working with the newly restored Republican president on discrete issues. Some news organizations are perceived to be reorienting to show more deference. The grass roots opposition that put hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Washington to protest Mr. Trump just a day after he was sworn in back in 2017 generated a fraction of that in their sequel on Saturday.

“Hashtag-resistance has turned into hashtag-capitulation,” MAGA strategist David Urban told Baker. “The pink-pussy hats are gone, and they’re replaced by MAGA hats worn by Black and brown people.”

Bullshit. Nothing is gone, no one has capitulated, and Trump’s base is still majority white. The resistance is waiting, we are rebuilding, and we are trying to do it better next time. Instead of spending our days unspooling as the ideas and values cherished by liberals and the left disappear from the stage in Washington, we are trying to figure out why what we did didn’t work, and learn how to fight differently and better.

And this is where you, dear readers, may want to start.

Identify vulnerable people, help them, and stand up to anyone who bullies them.

The policies Trump says he will pursue in the next four years will not just withdraw protections from social minorities and women, but also many of the middle-class and poor people who voted for him. Tax policies will be presented as putting money in ordinary Americans’ pockets, even as other policies are quietly picking those same pockets.

So, there is no doubt that people will be hurt. Give them money. Help them get to where they need to go for an abortion, to get transgender care, to get away from an abuser—or from ICE. If you are a lawyer, set aside some (or more) of your time for pro bono actions. Don’t throw electronics, clothes, furniture, and other useful items away: instead, join the Buy Nothing Facebook in your area and give them to people who need them.

Leak: if you have factual information about a raid, or an action, that promotes an unjust use of state power, tell a local reporter. Already, it looks like the leaked plans for ICE raids in Chicago this week have caused that action to be postponed.

Most of all, as MAGA policies normalize abusive behavior, stand up to it. Say no to cruelty and stupidity. Say no to violent behavior and language. Get between abusers and the abused. Teach your children that only weak, angry people hurt others who are less powerful, and give them common-sense strategies to stand up to bullies.

Don’t let elections go by without volunteeringand never miss an opportunity to cast your vote.

It’s not enough to give money. The billions of dollars sloshing around our electoral system have only produced more polarization and paralysis. People know less about what is at stake in an election than they ever did. We now know that an unprecedented outpouring of energy, donations, and volunteering that greeted Kamala Harris’s candidacy was not enough to avert a second Trump presidency.

Imagine going local and rebuilding the Democratic Party from the grassroots up. What if this kind of organizing, and the conversations between friends and neighbor it incites, did not just happen every four years—and was not just focused on the Presidency and other higher offices? The conservative 1776 Project, which has been working to flip school boards across the nation to MAGA policies for the last four years, demonstrates that a well-chosen candidate and just a few thousand dollars for pamphlets and signs can win a local election.

For a starter pack on how to run for office, and access to resources and training, check out Run for Something. But you don’t need a national organization to help you do this. All you need is your local Democratic committee: go here for your state party website, which will lead you to those of your neighbors who are already doing the work.

Screen out the noise and seek out information. Stop relying on social media and cable TV for news.

Anyone who follows me knows that I am very engaged on social media, and how devoted I am to this Substack. But it has limits: what you don;t know is how much time I spend reading actual books, magazines, newspapers, and political research. Social media and cable television have blurred the distinction between reported journalism and opinion writing. Everyone needs reported journalism run order to understand what is going on in politics and respond to it with words or action.

I know many people don’t trust major newspapers anymore but pick one (or two) and read the reported stories about politics. Jeff Bezos or no Jeff Bezos, I think The Washington Post still delivers the best reporting on national government; the Wall Street Journal on foreign policy and economics; and The New York Times has a team led out by Maggie Haberman that will be critical to reporting what is going on in the White House.

Other sources I cherish: ProPublica and the PBS NewsHour (which you can see on YouTube any time after it is broadcast.)

And here’s something you can do to change the future: if you have kids, get them accustomed to reading the newspaper too. Watch the NewsHour with them—or even just a segment from it—and discuss the news informally by asking them what they think.

Here’s the thing: kids who get their news on TikTok and Instagram become adults who get their news on TikTok and citizens who vote for people they don’t know anything about.

Support local media.

Do you have a local newspaper? Subscribe to it, and while you are at it, write for it. Ask the editor if they would accept reports on local politics from freelance you. If you have a business, advertise in it. If you have no local paper anymore, start one on WordPress or Substack.

Local media is the heart and soul of democracy, and is traditionally one of our most trusted sources. If our local and regional news outlets had not been gutted, we would better understand how national events affect our local communities.

Pay attention to local K-12 education and library systems; defend and improve them.

We managed to get through an entire Presidential election in which neither political party had anything to say about education. At all. Yet, conservative activists powered much of the culture wars from school board meetings, beginning in 2021. And liberal parents are up in arms about pandemic policies and the harm they believe has been derived from them—yet there is virtually no public conversation about what we want our education systems to be and do. Librarians in three dozen states are fighting a rearguard action against censorship, with virtually no pushback from citizens.

And for God’s sake, when you know what is being cut from your kid’s education, pick up the slack and teach that to them yourself.

So that’s all for now. Fasten your seatbelts friends: it’s going to be a bumpy four years, but we will go through it together.

Reprinted with permission from Political Junkie

Fed Up With Media's Double Standard Against Democrats? So Am I

Fed Up With Media's Double Standard Against Democrats? So Am I

The Washington Post devoted seven stories to the Biden pardon yesterday. Jeff Tiedrich, in his Substack-which-you-must-immediately-subscribe-to, pointed out that every story on the opening page of the New York Times website yesterday was about Biden’s pardon of his son, all six of them.

The New York Times, in its wisdom, found it necessary to publish the musings of Jeffrey Toobin: “Biden’s Pardon For His Son Dishonored the Office.” Toobin, you will recall, is the former New Yorker writer and CNN talking head who pulled down his tidie-whities for a quick winkie-wankie on a New Yorker/WNYC Radio zoom call.

Toobin was suspended as a CNN commentator for eight months, and then welcomed back into the club, because of course he was! Jeffrey apparently doesn’t think that Donald Trump dishonored the office with his pardons of every single flaming idiot who lied for him during his impeachments and lied their asses off to the FBI, prosecutors, grand juries, the mainstream media and everybody else. No, those were just regular old run of the mill pardons for Trump according to grin-and-yank-it Jeffrey.

Here is Jeff Tiedrich’s take on the morals of the mainstream media:

“here’s a fun double standard to which the worthless scribblers of the corporate-controlled press hold our political parties:

Democrats must walk a narrow ethical path, and never stray one inch from it. they’re expected to kowtow to every demand the media makes. Joe Biden is expected to run a letter-perfect presidency. Kamala Harris was expected to run a flawless campaign. the slightest deviation, and the media will blow it up into a weeks-long scandal.

Republicans, on the other hand, are given a free pass to do whatever the fuck they want. lie? no problem. cheat? go for it, homies. protect a sex-trafficking predator within their midst? hey, we wrote one strongly-worded editorial. what more can we do?

and then there’s that Very Special Boy himself, Little Donny Convict. he could literally tear the Constitution in pieces and use the shreds to wipe his ass, and the press would just shrug their shoulders. look, that’s just Donny being Donny. it’s just the way it is.”

Biden is supposed to toe some imaginary line drawn by liberal op-ed writers and frightened congress-critters and pearl-clutching newspaper editors, even as Trump promises to pardon insurrectionists convicted of attacking Capitol police, damaging the nation’s Capitol, and attempting to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election.

That makes sense if your head is so far up your ass you can have a conversation with your own tonsils.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter.


Kevin Roberts

New York Times Invites Project 2025 Chief To Speak At 'Climate Week' Event

The New York Timesannounced the speakers for its September 25 “Climate Week NYC” discussion, an annual event coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly session in New York City that promises to “bring together some of the world’s most engaged climate voices as part of a community focused on change.” The event’s lineup notably includes Kevin Roberts, the president of right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation who has led the Project 2025 initiative — the controversial conservative transition plan of policy and staffing proposals for a potential second Trump presidency.

As detailed in its nearly 900-page policy book, titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, Project 2025 rejects climate science and dismisses efforts to reduce planet-warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy in favor of serving the interests of the fossil fuel industry. Overseen by Roberts, who wrote the book’s foreword, the Heritage plan for a future GOP administration seeks to gut or hamstring federal agencies working on renewable energy deployment, climate science, and environmental safeguards while opening up state and federal public lands for oil and gas extraction.

In Project 2025’s policy book, Roberts attacked environmentalists, the U.N., and the Environmental Protection Agency, calling for the unfettered use of oil and gas

In the foreword of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership policy book, Roberts sets the tone for the plan's hostility toward climate action and wholesale endorsement of fully extracting our oil and gas reserves, a path scientists have warned would be catastrophic.

  • Roberts calls environmentalism a “pseudo-religion meant to baptize liberals’ ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the holy water of environmental virtue.” He claims that those who suffer most from environmental policies are the “aged, poor, and vulnerable.” Roberts continues, “At its very heart, environmental extremism is decidedly anti-human” because it promotes “population control and economic regression” by “regarding human activity itself as fundamentally a threat to be sacrificed to the god of nature.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]
  • Roberts attacks global elites and calls for abandoning international organizations like the United Nations. Claiming that “global elites” and organizations like the United Nations are making decisions on climate change that are insulated “from the sovereignty of national electorates,” Roberts argues, “International organizations and agreements that erode our Constitution, rule of law, or popular sovereignty should not be reformed: They should be abandoned.” Additionally, Project 2025 demands that “the next conservative Administration should withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]
  • Roberts claims the EPA “quietly strangles domestic energy production,” later adding, “The next conservative President should go beyond merely defending America’s energy interests but go on offense, asserting them around the world.” Roberts goes on to claim that “America’s vast reserves of oil and natural gas are not an environmental problem; they are the lifeblood of economic growth. American dominance of the global energy market would be a good thing: for the world, and, more importantly, for ‘we the people.’” Under Roberts’ leadership, Project 2025’s section on energy production was reportedly written by the oil and gas industry and provides a blueprint for how the next president can turn “drill, baby, drill” into federal policy. Notably, the industry is already producing record amounts of oil and gas under the Biden-Harris administration, all while holding thousands of unused drilling permits. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Media Matters, 8/8/24; Vox, 3/13/24; PolitiFact, 3/29/22]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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