You’re confusing “countries can hold grudges” with “countries will permanently refuse mutually beneficial trade because of a previous administration.”

Countries don’t need to forgive or forget anything. They just need the trade to be in their interests.

Im British. I can see why you dogged on this for so long but there’s no gain in posturing here.

Realistically, there is no reason Canada wouldnt accept a favourable trade deal from the US if offered. That just isnt how the world works, if you think elsewise you haven’t been paying attention.

Yes with the implication being that you are being silly and im matching your energy while still conveying my general intent.

Keep up.

Because countries dont keep grudges with each other decades after the grudge initiator lost power.

Is that a frustrating attribute of a country with constantly shifting values?

Yes. Absolutely.

Will it stop anyone trading with them when those values are good? Not really, because at the end of the day holding grudges is for children.

That being said, if you slinging absolutes in outrage makes you feel better, I support that, you’ve every right to be outraged, but i’ll cant lie to you and say I believe your angry assertions.

Like I said, absolutes are for idiots.

You’re talking about the current situation, as you say, im talking about how it’ll go down the line.

Objectively they are a right wing party, you are a right wing country, nothing overtly left wing is allowed to exist. You might have a handful of policies that are vaguely reminiscent of left wing policies, but the reality is you have a right wing party and an extremely right wing party.

Surprisingly good but obviously very silly.

So losing is convincing, but voting for people who you believe personally benefit regardless of whether they win or lose is the solution?

Whats the mechanism there?

And I think “agree with my electoral strategy or you deserve to be punched in the mouth” rather neatly demonstrates the problem with your conception of politics 😂 you must end up in a lot conversations that frustrate you.

Only the sith deal in absolutes.

Losing is quite convincing. If enough people withdraw their support that you lose an election, you have a pretty strong incentive to win them back.

If you genuinely think threats of violence and terrorism are the only way to exert political pressure, I think we’ve reached a fairly fundamental disagreement. Thats lazy thinking as far as im concerned.

Yeah totally, but it wont stop them from happening, it’ll just reframe the negotiations and the specifics they eventually land on.

And likely heavily in Canadas favour.

You’re conflating habitual non-voters with previously reliable voters deliberately withdrawing their support. They’re not politically equivalent.

A huge group that routinely doesn’t vote, for thousands of different reasons, sends no coherent signal. A measurable part of your coalition abandoning you over specific failures absolutely does.

And “make them fear you” is just a more dramatic way of describing electoral leverage. If losing those voters can cost Democrats elections, they have an incentive to win them back.

Whether they actually respond correctly is another question. But guaranteeing them your vote regardless of what they do certainly gives them less reason to, im sure you can appreciate that much?

Definitely true but they’re saying insanity is more of an excuse, but being a fascist is inarguably condemnable.

Why would they be?

Trump’s deal is bad because he’s economically illiterate and has chosen to follow the advice of a crackpot economist. That doesn’t mean every future US administration will share his priorities or approach to trade.

A subsequent government could quite reasonably decide that rebuilding a stable, mutually beneficial trading relationship with Canada is in the US interest.

Canada would be right to be suspicious and play hard to get at that point, and when that happens they’ll probably do quite well out of it.

It achieves leverage. If a party knows it gets your vote regardless of what it does, it has very little electoral incentive to respond to you.

Withholding support makes that support conditional: adapt sufficiently to win those voters back, or accept the electoral cost of losing them.

You can argue that the cost of doing that is too high given the Republicans, but that’s an argument about whether the strategy is worth the risk, not whether the strategy exists.

And yet, watch what happens.

What you’re saying feels good in the moment, you’re right about that.

I highly doubt that, in a future with a less cunty US government it serves no one to hold a grudge.

Be careful about what’s offered, sure, but grace beats spite every time.

They’ll be crawling back with apologies that Canadians will benefit massively from in a couple of years.

I’m not saying the Democrats themselves are going to create that dystopia, not directly. I’m saying that if people repeatedly vote Democrat and see no meaningful improvement in their lives, eventually some of them will conclude that voting Democrat achieves nothing and either disengage or swing even harder towards the Republicans.

“Vote Democrat because the alternative is worse” can work for a while, but it isn’t a sustainable substitute for actually giving people reasons to believe their lives will improve.

Thats not really a flaw in the above, thats just a separate flaw in the political system that also needs addressing.

Thats a bit of a pivot from the topic, im talking about pressuring the dems to change, not taking to the street. Adapt or fail.

The response would be, to save millions more from a future even worse dystopia that potentially lasts indefinitely.