I really believe you don't need to apologize to Canada. Canadians know who the "good Americans" are; and moreover, who the "good Americans" AREN'T. You're a "good American". Acknowledge that and claim it.
The Canadians I know, whom I, myself have apologized to for the actions of Trump and MAGA and asked what I can do, in a tangible way to support Canada, have all told me that all I need to do is to keep supporting Canada. I'm happy to do that. I can write letters to the premiers of their provinces, and to the Prime Minister of Canada and let them know this American is firmly on their side.
As for Trump: I'm now willing to go so far to say that garbage dumpster fire is NOT my President; he NEVER will be my President; I will NEVER support Donald Trump as my President; nor will I acknowledge him in any way as my President.
If that means I get sent to El Salvador as "an alien" -- never mind that my family co-founded Providence, Rhode Island with Roger Williams in 1635, fought in the French and Indian War, led the troops the Battle of Vincennes and won that battle, and fought in the Revolutionary War so nobody can discount my American pedigree; or I end up being killed because I refuse to bow my head and bend the knee to the Orange AntiChrist -- so be it. (I already have a disease which is going to become terminal within this decade -- and I'm now 70. What are the MAGA going to do? Kill me? Big deal.)
Wonderful!! Your intelligence and your ability to say exactly what is in front of us. Not that you are terminally ill. May your health take a detour to a healing. May your words be shared so everyone can become smart, smarter, smartest!
Thank you!!! I also have relatives who helped settle Rhode Island.
I, too, am thrilled for Canada. They are my next door neighbor and I lived there for a year. Oh, Canada, how I wish the unfeeling, uninformed, hateful, brainwashed electorate in this country could have seen AND could see NOW what they have allowed to happen. Soon, when there are no vegetables to be found, the shelves in stores are bare and the items they depend on everyday from China have disappeared just like the immigrants they so desperately hated, then maybe they’ll see the light…. But it will likely be too late. I wake up every day sad that a few idiots have stolen what this country stood for and literally my children and grandchildren’s future. As Joni Mitchell sang in Big Yellow Taxi, “you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.” I’ll keep standing up and shouting and hope that it does some good. Thanks for being here, John.
Honestly? I think the only thing we did wrong was underestimate how many complete jerks and cowardly fence-straddlers we have in this country. Racists and sexists. Xenophobes and homophobes.
They are the audience of “conservative” media and podcasts not to mention their Christian Nationalist view of the world. This crap has been brainwashing Americans for decades and now here we are.
I just hope and pray that we have midterm elections to turn this ship around.
We need to change the perception of our words like "conservative" and "liberal". The connotations do no match any sane reasoning. Conservatives want to conserve everything for themselves, and liberals want to share with everyone.
Things have been too easy here for too long. It is hard to fathom how the same country that elected JFK also elected this clown, but here we are. Our collective memories are too short—and obviously our educational system is in desperate need of an overhaul. Where is our collective sense of self? When did we abandon our compassion for fellow Americans? Maybe we never really had it. Maybe our true values have always been to worship money and convenience over lifting up the least of us.
I think back to how we were during WWII, and believe that we were much better then because we had less then. We were not the world leader, or the greatest power. Perhaps we needed to be taken down a peg (or 5) so that we are forced to reassess what we really value.
Not that I would ever give Trump credit for this—he is a symptom of our hubris and greed, not the cure. But I hope that indirectly, out of a sense of outrage and disgust at what we have become, we will once again look inward and decide that we can be better than this.
Kick Trump and his entire administration to the curb and start over. Find a Rafael Warnock to lead us. We need moral leadership. We need strength born of compassion. We need hope. If we don’t turn this around soon, we may disappear as a nation.
100% John. We could have had a smart, effective, capable, experienced leader but the racist and sexist voting public decided the shitshow clown car was a better choice. I include the people who stayed home or didn't vote--or who voted stupidly to "send a message" to the Biden administration--in my characterization. May they all reap the "rewards" of their choice.
"... we allowed purity politics, unrealistic candidate expectations, and plain old laziness to allow a 34-count felon to ascend a second time."
When are we going to learn how to vote strategically (or AT ALL) to move this country forward?
When are we going to stop blaming each other in a circular firing squad after we screw up, instead of acknowledging our own complicity, and then UNITING to stop it from happening again?
We can applaud Canada for doing the right thing, but it is a close one. Even though the Conservative Party leader looks like he will lose his seat, the rural center of Canada is just as xenophobic and racist as those in the USA. It's just that the population living in the urban centers on the coasts and in Ontario far outnumber those who live in the Plains Provinces--and they don't have the idiocies of an electoral college to contend with.
I am cheering on my Canadian neighbors for having the good sense to move their country in a direction that benefits all, and not just a small group of sociopaths and narrow minded, selfish racists, homophobes and sociopaths. Why can’t we be more like them?? I can stare across the Detroit River and wonder how nice it must be to live in Canada right now. I hope they don’t hate us too much. I want us to be friends again one day!! They give me hope.
Trump won because all of the misogynistic and racist folks (and there are many many silent ones) voted for Trump. Trump won because 4 years of lies and propaganda fooled the "tuned out of politics" middle of the road undecided voters because our election campaign season is WAY too long. Trump won because Israel would not let Bidens peace deal work, and it turned off the Justice for Gaza voters. And finally, Trump won because as much voter suppression as possible was effected by the Republicans.
Racism, misogyny, citizens united, propaganda, electoral college, netenyahu, and voter supression all has starring roles in the tragedy of November 2024.
And with the advances in AI now being able to convince people that Pope Francis had a dog, it is going to get even harder for anyone to believe anything in two years for the midterm elections, let alone 2028. God help us.
Nearly everyday for the last 40 years I thank my spouse for bringing us from NY & MO to live, work, raise our children & ultimately become citizens of Canada. It is indeed a great blessing.
I confess that I gave my vote to the Liberals this election, forsaking the NDP who better align with my values, for fear of the alternative “rump lite” party taking power.
I am so saddened that my relationship with my NY in-laws has deteriorated.
But they prefer to “trust in God” which is a fairly safe spot for 98 & 66 yr old privileged white females who are blinded to their fragility, casting their votes for hate….Even committing these feelings written word causes me angst.
I just cannot imagine that their professed Christian faith allows them to sleep with such cognitive dissonance.
I appreciate Johns writings and live meetings as they do often express the madness I feel in these dark days of perversion.
My constant prayer/mantra is “God help in the living of these days” &
I was wise enough (although I didn't realize at that time, how unaware of the wisdom to come, I was young and not at all interested in politics), I married a Canadian and became a dual citizen. I lived in Canada for 34 years before migrating back to the US, home of my birth. In that time I've learned a few things about Canada and Canadians. One of those things is what you stated, "They are more informed, more mature, and wiser in wielding their collective power than we are..."
Coming from the US, I used to think the Parliamentary system was weird. I no longer think so. Even though this time around, I guess we'd have the orange man anyway.
Suffice it say, Canada is a stellar country in so many ways. If I could find a job there like I have now, I'd move back. A huge bonus: they have Tim Hortons! (I miss Tim's so much.)
Thanks, John. I feel greatly relieved up here, more than anything else. Having seen two catastrophic outcomes in the past 10 years down south, I didn't take this result for granted.
Americans have been and consistently to this date being brainwashed by “conservative” infotainment channels and podcasts. Christians have been duped into believing that Trump has been truly sent from God to MAGA. Jews are being used to accept the lies about the administration “going after antisemitism”.
Congratulations to Canada! Their election gives me hope. I’d love to know the breakdown of votes AND especially how many people didn’t vote there.
As a Canadian I can say emphatically I am delighted with the results of the election. A few short months ago we to we’re headed in a darker direction. There is a lot of truth in the fact that watching in horror about what has happened to your beautiful country in no small part played a significant role in our election results bringing us together as a country to defeat a common enemy. Please know we don’t consider the United States as our enemy but rather DT and his unruly hoard of syncophants! Our hearts are broken for all of our great American friends and family who are going through this unfathomable nightmare! We are still your friends and family and we’ll hold you up and support you as best we can while you try to wrestle back your country! We know we still have many difficult challenges ahead dealing with this menace but thankfully we’ve elected someone who is strong, competent, kind and respectful to help lead us through.❤️🇨🇦
John, I am a proud Canadian and I read your words daily. I’m not angry at any of the people on this page. Unfortunately, because of your president, I and many of my fellow Canadians, have cancelled trips to your country and cancelled subscriptions to products we used to buy from you and will continue to do so until he is gone. I have seen patriotism in my country for the past 100 days like I’ve never seen before. People are standing up, and collectively doing what we can to keep Canada strong. I’m looking forward to the day that we can once again be neighborly and I pray for all of you every day.
It’s lovely that you have such a regard for my country. However, it might be slightly misguided. Our Trumpy Conservatives increased their support yesterday, despite (or even because of) their promises to increase our carbon emissions, eliminate “woke ideology” in universities and the military, and import failed policies on crime from your country. We dodged a bullet yesterday, and the tariffs and annexation bullshit emanating from the White House helped. In my province, close to 70% of the votes went to the Conservatives, who are led by a career Ayn Randist politician who speaks in three-word slogans, like a malfunctioning robot. We’re no better or wiser than anybody else.
John:
I really believe you don't need to apologize to Canada. Canadians know who the "good Americans" are; and moreover, who the "good Americans" AREN'T. You're a "good American". Acknowledge that and claim it.
The Canadians I know, whom I, myself have apologized to for the actions of Trump and MAGA and asked what I can do, in a tangible way to support Canada, have all told me that all I need to do is to keep supporting Canada. I'm happy to do that. I can write letters to the premiers of their provinces, and to the Prime Minister of Canada and let them know this American is firmly on their side.
As for Trump: I'm now willing to go so far to say that garbage dumpster fire is NOT my President; he NEVER will be my President; I will NEVER support Donald Trump as my President; nor will I acknowledge him in any way as my President.
If that means I get sent to El Salvador as "an alien" -- never mind that my family co-founded Providence, Rhode Island with Roger Williams in 1635, fought in the French and Indian War, led the troops the Battle of Vincennes and won that battle, and fought in the Revolutionary War so nobody can discount my American pedigree; or I end up being killed because I refuse to bow my head and bend the knee to the Orange AntiChrist -- so be it. (I already have a disease which is going to become terminal within this decade -- and I'm now 70. What are the MAGA going to do? Kill me? Big deal.)
Beautifully stated, Mark & John.
The Orange Plague and its repugnant invertebrates will self indulgently devour themselves.
Let’s keep positively protesting and fearlessly speaking up.
Well said, Mark Carpenter!
Courage and patriotism obviously runs in your family! Stay strong! We need you!
Wow Mark!
Wonderful!! Your intelligence and your ability to say exactly what is in front of us. Not that you are terminally ill. May your health take a detour to a healing. May your words be shared so everyone can become smart, smarter, smartest!
Thank you!!! I also have relatives who helped settle Rhode Island.
I, too, am thrilled for Canada. They are my next door neighbor and I lived there for a year. Oh, Canada, how I wish the unfeeling, uninformed, hateful, brainwashed electorate in this country could have seen AND could see NOW what they have allowed to happen. Soon, when there are no vegetables to be found, the shelves in stores are bare and the items they depend on everyday from China have disappeared just like the immigrants they so desperately hated, then maybe they’ll see the light…. But it will likely be too late. I wake up every day sad that a few idiots have stolen what this country stood for and literally my children and grandchildren’s future. As Joni Mitchell sang in Big Yellow Taxi, “you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.” I’ll keep standing up and shouting and hope that it does some good. Thanks for being here, John.
Honestly? I think the only thing we did wrong was underestimate how many complete jerks and cowardly fence-straddlers we have in this country. Racists and sexists. Xenophobes and homophobes.
They are the audience of “conservative” media and podcasts not to mention their Christian Nationalist view of the world. This crap has been brainwashing Americans for decades and now here we are.
I just hope and pray that we have midterm elections to turn this ship around.
We need to change the perception of our words like "conservative" and "liberal". The connotations do no match any sane reasoning. Conservatives want to conserve everything for themselves, and liberals want to share with everyone.
Things have been too easy here for too long. It is hard to fathom how the same country that elected JFK also elected this clown, but here we are. Our collective memories are too short—and obviously our educational system is in desperate need of an overhaul. Where is our collective sense of self? When did we abandon our compassion for fellow Americans? Maybe we never really had it. Maybe our true values have always been to worship money and convenience over lifting up the least of us.
I think back to how we were during WWII, and believe that we were much better then because we had less then. We were not the world leader, or the greatest power. Perhaps we needed to be taken down a peg (or 5) so that we are forced to reassess what we really value.
Not that I would ever give Trump credit for this—he is a symptom of our hubris and greed, not the cure. But I hope that indirectly, out of a sense of outrage and disgust at what we have become, we will once again look inward and decide that we can be better than this.
Kick Trump and his entire administration to the curb and start over. Find a Rafael Warnock to lead us. We need moral leadership. We need strength born of compassion. We need hope. If we don’t turn this around soon, we may disappear as a nation.
You nailed it here: "We were not the world leader, or the greatest power. " Hubris and domination ruin the soul, be it of an individual or a country.
100% John. We could have had a smart, effective, capable, experienced leader but the racist and sexist voting public decided the shitshow clown car was a better choice. I include the people who stayed home or didn't vote--or who voted stupidly to "send a message" to the Biden administration--in my characterization. May they all reap the "rewards" of their choice.
YES YES YES to this:
"... we allowed purity politics, unrealistic candidate expectations, and plain old laziness to allow a 34-count felon to ascend a second time."
When are we going to learn how to vote strategically (or AT ALL) to move this country forward?
When are we going to stop blaming each other in a circular firing squad after we screw up, instead of acknowledging our own complicity, and then UNITING to stop it from happening again?
Canada figured it out. Why can't we??
We can applaud Canada for doing the right thing, but it is a close one. Even though the Conservative Party leader looks like he will lose his seat, the rural center of Canada is just as xenophobic and racist as those in the USA. It's just that the population living in the urban centers on the coasts and in Ontario far outnumber those who live in the Plains Provinces--and they don't have the idiocies of an electoral college to contend with.
I am cheering on my Canadian neighbors for having the good sense to move their country in a direction that benefits all, and not just a small group of sociopaths and narrow minded, selfish racists, homophobes and sociopaths. Why can’t we be more like them?? I can stare across the Detroit River and wonder how nice it must be to live in Canada right now. I hope they don’t hate us too much. I want us to be friends again one day!! They give me hope.
Trump won because all of the misogynistic and racist folks (and there are many many silent ones) voted for Trump. Trump won because 4 years of lies and propaganda fooled the "tuned out of politics" middle of the road undecided voters because our election campaign season is WAY too long. Trump won because Israel would not let Bidens peace deal work, and it turned off the Justice for Gaza voters. And finally, Trump won because as much voter suppression as possible was effected by the Republicans.
Racism, misogyny, citizens united, propaganda, electoral college, netenyahu, and voter supression all has starring roles in the tragedy of November 2024.
And with the advances in AI now being able to convince people that Pope Francis had a dog, it is going to get even harder for anyone to believe anything in two years for the midterm elections, let alone 2028. God help us.
Nearly everyday for the last 40 years I thank my spouse for bringing us from NY & MO to live, work, raise our children & ultimately become citizens of Canada. It is indeed a great blessing.
I confess that I gave my vote to the Liberals this election, forsaking the NDP who better align with my values, for fear of the alternative “rump lite” party taking power.
I am so saddened that my relationship with my NY in-laws has deteriorated.
But they prefer to “trust in God” which is a fairly safe spot for 98 & 66 yr old privileged white females who are blinded to their fragility, casting their votes for hate….Even committing these feelings written word causes me angst.
I just cannot imagine that their professed Christian faith allows them to sleep with such cognitive dissonance.
I appreciate Johns writings and live meetings as they do often express the madness I feel in these dark days of perversion.
My constant prayer/mantra is “God help in the living of these days” &
“Come quickly Lord Jesus”
ELBOWS UP🇨🇦
I was wise enough (although I didn't realize at that time, how unaware of the wisdom to come, I was young and not at all interested in politics), I married a Canadian and became a dual citizen. I lived in Canada for 34 years before migrating back to the US, home of my birth. In that time I've learned a few things about Canada and Canadians. One of those things is what you stated, "They are more informed, more mature, and wiser in wielding their collective power than we are..."
Coming from the US, I used to think the Parliamentary system was weird. I no longer think so. Even though this time around, I guess we'd have the orange man anyway.
Suffice it say, Canada is a stellar country in so many ways. If I could find a job there like I have now, I'd move back. A huge bonus: they have Tim Hortons! (I miss Tim's so much.)
Vive le Canada. (Sorry, no French on my keyboard)
Thanks, John. I feel greatly relieved up here, more than anything else. Having seen two catastrophic outcomes in the past 10 years down south, I didn't take this result for granted.
Americans have been and consistently to this date being brainwashed by “conservative” infotainment channels and podcasts. Christians have been duped into believing that Trump has been truly sent from God to MAGA. Jews are being used to accept the lies about the administration “going after antisemitism”.
Congratulations to Canada! Their election gives me hope. I’d love to know the breakdown of votes AND especially how many people didn’t vote there.
As a Canadian I can say emphatically I am delighted with the results of the election. A few short months ago we to we’re headed in a darker direction. There is a lot of truth in the fact that watching in horror about what has happened to your beautiful country in no small part played a significant role in our election results bringing us together as a country to defeat a common enemy. Please know we don’t consider the United States as our enemy but rather DT and his unruly hoard of syncophants! Our hearts are broken for all of our great American friends and family who are going through this unfathomable nightmare! We are still your friends and family and we’ll hold you up and support you as best we can while you try to wrestle back your country! We know we still have many difficult challenges ahead dealing with this menace but thankfully we’ve elected someone who is strong, competent, kind and respectful to help lead us through.❤️🇨🇦
John, I am a proud Canadian and I read your words daily. I’m not angry at any of the people on this page. Unfortunately, because of your president, I and many of my fellow Canadians, have cancelled trips to your country and cancelled subscriptions to products we used to buy from you and will continue to do so until he is gone. I have seen patriotism in my country for the past 100 days like I’ve never seen before. People are standing up, and collectively doing what we can to keep Canada strong. I’m looking forward to the day that we can once again be neighborly and I pray for all of you every day.
I think the limits on donations to candidates is a huge plus for us in Canada. It keeps people like Musk from donating millions to a single candidate
It’s lovely that you have such a regard for my country. However, it might be slightly misguided. Our Trumpy Conservatives increased their support yesterday, despite (or even because of) their promises to increase our carbon emissions, eliminate “woke ideology” in universities and the military, and import failed policies on crime from your country. We dodged a bullet yesterday, and the tariffs and annexation bullshit emanating from the White House helped. In my province, close to 70% of the votes went to the Conservatives, who are led by a career Ayn Randist politician who speaks in three-word slogans, like a malfunctioning robot. We’re no better or wiser than anybody else.
Thank u for ur honesty and the reality check. I still do think ur country is a step ahead of us though, even more than a step probably.