The Democratic National Convention wrapped up Thursday night with Kamala Harris accepting the party’s nomination for president. It was a rousing end to a four-day party in Chicago’s United Center, one that was jam-packed with big-name speakers, bumping musical performances, and unbridled enthusiasm over Harris’ campaign, which is somehow only a month old with the election right around the corner.
The DNC has been lauded as a success, providing a powerful launchpad for Harris and her running mate Tim Walz to bring home their campaign for the White House — but the week still featured its share of WTF moments. The logistics around the arena were not ideal, the fossil-fuel industry was present, and the Democratic Party refused to allow a pro-Palestine voice to speak onstage.
Here are some of the most memorable moments from the convention, good and bad:
THE BEST
Harris and Walz blowing the roof off the arena
If Walz is the campaign’s coach, Harris is its quarterback, and the two are in lock-step.
On Wednesday, Walz delivered what he described as a “pep talk” for the nation from their coach. “Let me finish with this, team,” he said. “It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball. We’re driving down the field. And boy, do we have the right team. Kamala Harris is tough. Kamala Harris is experienced. And Kamala Harris is ready.”
That message carried into Friday, when Harris delivered her own acceptance speech and made the case for herself as the best candidate to take on Trump. “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she said, but the consequences “of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”
The two speeches exemplified the balance between the candidates on the Democratic ticket, with Walz acting as the campaign’s motivator and hype man while giving Harris the space to lean into her career roots and prosecute the case against Trump.
The roll call
The most reliably boring part of every party nominating convention is the roll call vote, during which delegates from every state and territory cast their votes for the prospective candidates. It wasn’t boring at the 2024 DNC.
DJ Cassidy, whose resume includes Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s wedding as well as Obama White House parties, selected songs to represent every delegation — in many cases with help from the delegations. Highlights included Chappell Roan for Missouri, Kendrick Lamar for California, Tom Petty for Florida, Kansas for Kansas, and the Dropkick Murphys for Massachusetts.
But the unquestionable star of the roll call was Georgia, whose moment in the spotlight featured an in-person appearance by Lil Jon, who performed his hits “Shots” and “Turn Down for What.”
The return of Michelle Obama (and also her husband)
It’s been more than 10 years since former First Lady Michelle Obama gave a nationally televised address, and her return to the DNC blew the roof off of the United Center.
Obama called back to the election of her husband, former President Barack Obama, speaking about “the contagious power of hope” generated by the enthusiasm surrounding Harris’ campaign.
The former first lady has never been shy about calling balls and strikes, but Tuesday’s speech was a far cry from her infamous declaration that “when they go low, we go high,” and she had no qualms about publicly eviscerating Trump. “I want to know who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?” she said.
“If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top. We put our heads down. We get to work in America, we do something,” she added to ground-shaking cheers from the audience.”
Michelle’s address may have stolen the show from her husband’s headlining speech, with the former president even quipping that he’s “the only person stupid enough to speak after Michelle Obama.”
That big Project 2025 book
Ideas can often be hard to translate into real-world action. Conservatives hoping for another Trump presidency decided to write all of their worst ones down in Project 2025, a 900-page plan to restrict the rights of Americans and give the president an unprecedented amount of power.
Multiple DNC speakers used a giant physical copy of Project 2025 as a prop to represent the Republican agenda.
Host Keenan Thompson stole the bit though, asking the audience if they’d ever seen “a document that could kill a small animal and democracy at the same time? Here it is.”
Taking aim at Trump
Democrats have long been propping Trump up as a menacing force set to dismantle American democracy. Speakers at the DNC appeared to adopt a new tactic in taking on the former president: reframing Trump as a subject of mockery.
Democrats trolled the president Sunday night by projecting “Trump-Vance Weird as Hell” onto Trump Tower in Chicago. The next night, Golden State Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr joked that in November “we can tell Donald Trump ‘night night,’” mimicking Steph Curry’s famous sleep celebration. The next night, the Obamas both made fun of Trump, with Michelle making a dig about how the presidency could be a “Black job” and Barack mocking his obsession with crowd sizes, making a gesture with his that many took to represent the small size of something else. Earlier that night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called him a “two-bit union buster who thinks of himself as more of a patriot than a woman who fights to lift working people up every single day.” On Wednesday, Bill Clinton made fun of Trump’s obsessions with Hannibal Lecter while turning the focus to his self-obsession, imploring Ameircans to “count the I’s, not the lies” when he speaks. Walz called him “weird” again later that night. Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger said he was a “weak man pretending to be strong, a small man pretender to be big” on Thursday, before Harris labeled him as “unserious” during her acceptance speech. Harris cautioned, though, that the consequences should he win in November would be plenty serious.
The musical performances
Beyonce may not have performed as was rumored on Thursday night, but the DNC still featured a star-studded rolodex of musicians who helped turn the convention into a spectacle. Stevie Wonder, John Legend, The Chicks, Pink, and Maren Morris were all featured in the lineup. Lil Jon also made a surprise appearance during the delegation roll call, and the Chicago Bulls’ drumline made the convention feel like a party.
The emotions
For all the performances and inspirational speeches, the DNC was also a deeply emotional event, full of heart-wrenching testimony about the way policy has impacted the lives of Americans.
On Tuesday, several women shared their experiences attempting to secure life saving reproductive care in states with abortion bans. On Wednesday, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American hostage kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, delivered an emotional plea for the return of their son, the other remaining hostages, and a ceasefire that “ends the suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza.” On Thursday, gun violence survivors, their families, and classmates spoke of the trauma they lived through.
The gut wrenching segments echoes the very personal stories shared by some of the convention’s biggest names. President Joe Biden shared an emotional moment with his daughter, Ashley, who introduced him before his primetime speech on Monday night — which included plenty of gratitude from the crowd for the president. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) teared up on Tuesday while sharing a story about Harris’s support for her when she first arrived to Congress, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had to take a moment to collect herself after receiving a more than a minute long standing ovation on Thursday.
Walz’s speech on Wednesday was also highly emotional. His story about conceiving using fertility treatments and a profession of his love for his family in the audience led to tears from just about everyone. “Hope, Gus, and Gwen: you are my entire world and I love you,” Walz said.
THE WTF
Palestinian erasure
The DNC snubbed the Uncommitted Movement — which represents more than 700,000 voters who voted “uncommitted” during the primary to show their support of Palestine — refusing give a pro-Palestine voice time to speak in the United Center.
“I was working on it every day for the past week or more,” James Zogby, a former member of the DNC’s executive committee, told Rolling Stone. “The campaign made a mistake — an unforced error. This didn’t have to happen the way it did and now needs to be fixed.”
Democrats provided a forum that wasn’t televised for the movement, which held a sit-in outside of the arena when they learned they wouldn’t be allowed into the main event Wednesday night. “I was incredibly honored to be considered,” Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American and member of Georgia’s legislature who hoped to give a speech at the convention, told Rolling Stone on Thursday.
Fossil-fuel companies sponsoring events
Not only has the climate crisis not exactly been at the forefront of the Democratic Party’s messaging lately, an off-site event hosted by Punchbowl News was sponsored by ExxonMobil. Climate activists, including DNC member RL Miller, disrupted the event. “Exxon lies, people die!” they chanted.
“Companies like Exxon should have no place at the DNC,” the Sunrise Movement said in a statement. “Exxon has spent decades misleading the public about the climate crisis and buying off politicians. If the Democratic Party wants to be taken seriously by our generation on climate change, they need to walk the talk.”
Conservatives going “undercover”
Is that three raccoons in a Kamala Harris bomber? Or is it just right-wing extremist Matt Walsh wearing a wig?
Members and supporters of the opposite party are always present at nominating conventions, but, for some reason, several prominent Republican figures thought putting on the equivalent of chunky glasses and a mustache would make them unrecognizable to the most politically obsessed crowd in the nation.
Walsh was spotted wearing what looked like a dollar-store wig and an array of Harris pins. Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec attempted to infiltrate a pro-Palestinian protest outside of the DNC wearing sunglasses and a keffiyeh. Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe opted for a mask, glasses, and beanie to cover most of his face.
Probably the most embarrassing display came from MyPillow founder and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, who shaved his mustache and donned a jaunty fedora in an attempt to disguise his identity — only to be outed by 12-year-old political influencer Knowa.
Did Lindell try to debate a 12-year-old? Yes. Did he lose? Also yes.
Conservative freaking out because Democratic families love each other
Conservatives took to social media to call Doug Emhoff “weird” for having what appears to be a good relationship with his daughter Ella — whose tattoos and fashion sense have been a lightning rod for buttoned-up conservatives — and Biden “creepy” for hugging his daughter Ashley after she introduced him on Monday.
They later mocked Tim Walz’s son Gus, who has a non-verbal learning disorder, for crying as his father expressed his love for his family during his acceptance speech on Wednesday. “Talk about weird,” Ann Coulter wrote.
Bad fact-checks
Fact-checking politicians is a critical charge of the American press, but during the DNC some outlets have been inexplicably twisting themselves into pretzels to soften Trump’s position on key electoral issues.
The New York Times rated President Joe Biden’s claim that Trump “created the largest debt any president had in four years,” as “misleading,” because — even though Trump did “rack up more debt than any other in raw dollars” — the debt incurred under Obama during his eight-year term was larger. Four versus eight … math is hard, but not that hard.
When Biden said on Monday that Trump wanted to cut Medicare, PolitiFact rated the statement “mostly false” even though Trump repeatedly proposed cutting Medicare during his presidency and in March told reporters that “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting, and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements.” But because Trump has backpedaled from the position now that he’s running a tight race for the White House, voters should apparently take him at his word.
Perhaps the most egregious “fact-check” came from The Washington Post, which attempted to push back on Biden’s claim that “Donald Trump says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again.” The Post countered that “Trump just hasn’t said that he would accept. And he has previously said the only way he loses is if the Democrats cheat.”
Make it make sense.
Logistical chaos
The DNC was beset by organizational mishaps, with people waiting hours to get into the United Center on Monday. The programming suffered some setbacks, as well, with delays forcing the cancellation of a performance from James Taylor so Joe Biden could take the stage at a reasonable hour on Monday. He still wasn’t able to come on until after primetime, however, with his speech wrapping up after midnight on the East Coast. The DNC blamed the delays on the “raucous applause” causing speakers to take longer than anticipated.
The issues weren’t confined to Monday. The DNC reportedly told journalists on Thursday that they could not be guaranteed entry if they left the arena to go to the bathroom, and at a certain point stopped letting people onto the floor, even turning away Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who spoke at the convention earlier that night.
Trump’s counter-programming
Trump did all he could to wrest the spotlight away from the DNC … kind of. The former president held a series of events during the week, but he wasn’t able to muster much energy — or anything new to say outside of sprinkling fresh batch of sensationalism on his well-worn talking points. “You can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread or you get shot,” he claimed, absurdly, during an event to address crime in Michigan. “You get mugged, you get raped, you get … whatever it may be.”
He was also on the defensive. During an event intended to focus on the economy in Pennsylvania, Trump tried to convince factory workers that he’s normal, despite Democrats now regularly alleging that he and his running mate J.D. Vance are weird. “I think we’re extremely normal people,” he insisted.
Trump didn’t do much for his argument that he’s totally not weird by having a full-fledged, multi-platform meltdown during and after Harris’ acceptance speech on Thursday.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at a press conference in Ottawa, Ontario, on Aug. 22, 2026.
How Mark Carney Became Leader of the Free World by Standing Up to Trump
In Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Donald Trump has finally met an adversary who truly understands the art of the deal — and it could threaten the entire premise of his presidency.
There have been many self-inflicted catalysts to Donald Trump’s ruination: epic corruption, inflation and the soaring price of gas, the ceaseless angry old man posts and memes, ICE’s assault on the rule of law, the Supreme Court’s mullah-like extremism, his vanity, self-pity, cruelty, and of course the unprovoked, catastrophic failed war on Iran. They are all derived from Trump’s delusional belief in his nonexistent superpowers. But the downfall of Trump will also be forever dated to a small, inexplicable and quixotic folly: his attack on Canada.
Despite the president’s incessant, bizarre claims that he can destroy Canada economically as he wages a trade war against America’s neighbor to the north, in the last few weeks Prime Minister Carney has quietly but effectively ended Trump’s ability to lead the free world in any way other than as an extortion racket and disorganized crime syndicate.
In a potlatch, in the tradition of indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, a head man would display his tribe’s wealth and power by lighting their most precious possessions on fire. The destruction appeared pointless to European eyes, but First Nations peoples understood the significance of the rite: If the chieftain of the tribe could squander incredible riches, what possible hope did a rival have in waging war against such an overwhelmingly powerful enemy? The mindless waste of resources in a potlatch, as every Canadian schoolchild learns, was actually a finely tuned demonstration of dominance, and a way to avoid conflict.
Trump, the self-described big chief of America, has concocted a new and perverse version of the potlatch that better resembles setting himself on fire. By lawlessly declaring an unprovoked trade war on Canada, Trump has set alight the most valuable assets of the United States: international alliances, the Constitution, respect, friendship, trust, goodwill, the rule of law (hell, the whole idea of law). Instead of displaying his power, Trump has demonstrated his fundamental weakness and loosening grip on reality. In Trump’s form of chaotic destruction, with his historical illiteracy and rat-like cunning combined with his desire to humiliate his perceived enemies, he isn’t pursuing trade policy or a geopolitical strategy. For Trump, domination is the point. The absurdity of farmers and fishermen and auto workers on both sides of the Canadian border having their lives set ablaze in service of the president’s ego trip is the end in itself.
Measured in a simpleton’s economic terms, America appears to have the upper hand in a trade war with Canada. The economy of the United States is more than a dozen times as large as Canada’s, so a trade war that represents a national cataclysm north of the border will barely register in Trump’s America. Trump’s pretextual use of an alleged “trade deficit” to justify his trade wars is concocted according to his whims, urged on by fanatical anti-trade sycophants and enablers, the ever-changing metric a means of blackmail, the nonstop stream of insults and half-witted social media posts somehow managing to be simultaneously enraging and mind-numbingly boring to my fellow Canadians.
“Just watch,” Trump trolled last week as he promised to gratuitously punish Canada, like an old drunk sitting in his underwear yelling at his television set — only with the powers of the commander-in-chief. “All we have to do to cut our trade deficit with a country is not trade with them,” he said in the Oval Office over Labor Day weekend, adding that America will also stop trading with Europe, Mexico, and Switzerland, threatening in one unhinged rant to end trillions of dollars in commerce. As if to underscore his madness, he followed it up with a meme showing the American colors covering all of North America, as well as Greenland and Iceland. But for reasons known only to himself, he has focused his true menace on my home and native land: “If we don’t do any trading with Canada, if we just end all trade with Canada, we’d save ourselves $90 billion. Canada would be in a heap of trouble. I don’t think they’d exist. Because, again, they do 95 percent of their business with us.”
If you don’t think this is the unhinged talk of a confused old fool showing signs of dementia, take a look at the bond market.
After Trump illegally breached America’s free trade agreement with Canada last year, imposing tariffs that were based on transparent lies about fentanyl crossing the border, he proceeded to gaslight America’s ally with a steady stream of infantile ALL CAPS derision.
Living inside a constant reality TV show, with fake deadlines and formulaic melodrama, Trump then imposed a 30-day timeline for a new accord, or he would unilaterally impose additional 50-percent tariffs relying on a never-before-used statutory justification — a preposterous gambit under America’s binding trade treaty with Canada. Confronted with the prospect of constantly changing trade terms in an increasingly lawless America, Prime Minister Carney didn’t take the bait, engaging in talks in good faith but with eyes wide open (and elbows up, as they say in Canada). Using one of the oldest tricks from an increasingly pathetic and obvious set of bullying tactics, Trump then prematurely announced that a deal with Canada had been reached when there was no such agreement — an attempt to box Carney in. But again, Carney didn’t cave like so many other world leaders.
Like the many con men I’ve written about over the years, Trump is convinced of his own genius, certain that the world is a ship of fools and that he — and he alone — can see through the tissue of lies and deceptions. The problem, inevitably, is that grifters are never as smart as they think they are, a fatal flaw compounded when they start to believe their own lies — and then encounter someone who can see through their act.
As his second term has illustrated, Trump is certain that everyone will cow in the face of his “Hulk Smash”: the Supreme Court, television networks, Ivy League universities, white shoe law firms, the abject former UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer chasing after the president’s windblown papers like a schoolboy — an image that quickened his downfall. Changing the basic terms of the proposed agreement at the last moment is a classic power play in any negotiation. So it was with Canada this summer. At the last minute before Trump’s invented time limit expired, as the clock ticked towards midnight, Trump’s minions attacked Canada’s profoundly important French culture — ridiculing the notion that there is such a thing as a distinct Canadian nation at all. He slapped tariffs on the automobile industry, lumber, steel, aluminum, and for kicks and giggles, hockey sticks to shove his version of reality directly up the ass of the milquetoast Canadians.
Under the new terms Trump purported to impose, the United States (which is to say Trump) would have control over any other Canadian trade agreements. Trump then reserved the right to change the deal at any time in the future, for any reason, with no notice — meaning the deal wouldn’t be worth the pencil it was written in, as Carney noted.
Lake Ontario, that’s now Lake America, and your prime minister is a governor, and you’re going to wish that you were the 51st state by the time I get through with you.
But then something bizarre happened to Trump’s bonfire of the vanities. In Carney, the president discovered that he had encountered a man who was not looking for a fight — but who equally wasn’t afraid of him. For all the bluster and menace and braggadocio, Trump didn’t realize that he had walked into a trap. By agreeing for negotiations to happen this summer, a year ahead of the larger deal for the renewal of the North American treaty, Carney had picked the time and place for the inevitable looming confrontation; with Trump vulnerable in the coming election, the canny Carney had managed to create real leverage. Carney then cleverly enlarged the dispute and raised the stakes by accurately calling America’s attack a declaration of war, surprising the flat-footed American negotiators who apparently didn’t take Trump’s threats seriously themselves — adding another layer of leverage to Canada’s supposedly weak hand.
In Carney, it turned out, Trump has met a leader of real strength, the understated but steely and confident kind reflecting Canada’s national character. The irony is that Carney was elected last year almost entirely as a result of Trump’s Kafkaesque trade war, defeating a weak-kneed conservative who very likely would have meekly submitted to America’s neocolonialist threats. Another irony is that the politically inexperienced Carney turns out to have genius-level instincts. The whippet-thin banker is an unassuming figure, the opposite of Trump, but every bit as ruthless in his way. He is a self-made man and intellectual with degrees from Harvard and Oxford, who epitomizes the meritocracy. The child of schoolteachers in the far north Alberta, raised in a home that prized education and social responsibility, Carney earned his way to the absolute heights of global finance through his intelligence and diligence. His resume is almost a parody of accomplishment, with stints as the head of the banks of both Canada and England, as well as years with Goldman Sachs and working for the likeminded businessman-turned-politician Michael Bloomberg. Faced with the global financial crisis of 2008 and then Brexit, Carney witnessed the idiocies of economic self-destruction in the 21st century, preparing him with a unique set of experiences to confront Trump’s lawless trade war — to Canada’s great good fortune.
In truth, Carney was elected specifically to deal with such a crisis, and Canada has had decades to prepare for this conflagration. Living next to an elephant requires a certain amount of caution and awareness, so Canadians understand American politics down to the last looney. Knowing your enemy is the greatest asset in war, as the ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu said, and Carney’s deeply intimate awareness of America gives him the ability to exploit Trump’s obvious weaknesses: a thin skin, hubris, impulse control, arrogance
Plan beats no plan is a truism of all crisis management, an acknowledgement that any executive, sports coach, or sentient human being understands. If you want to shape events and succeed, do the work to anticipate and understand what lies ahead so you don’t live in a state of constant surprise, chaos, and disarray. Planning is also the ultimate expression of Carney’s life force, the guiding principle of his meticulously accumulated achievements and triumphs. While Trump, like so many fools throughout time, doesn’t read or listen to contrary opinions or care to prepare, trusting his gut and native intelligence, Carney is a careful student of power dynamics and the deep lessons of history. Control what you can control, Carney explains to Canadians as he describes the need to diversify and de-risk the relationship with a declining United States. Europe might seem distant geographically, but Russia’s attack on Ukraine and self-inflicted withdrawal of its resources from Europe present an opportunity for a resource-rich nation like Canada. Membership of the European Union seems fanciful now, perhaps, but there is no question that Canadian distrust of America is hardening into real anger and dismay. The same logic applies to the countless opportunities in Asia, with Carney traveling the world signing new free trade agreements as Canada pursues a strategy to end its dependence on the undependable Americans. There is also no turning back the clock as Canada duly notes how few friends it really has in the political and media classes of the United States.
Given Trump’s use of Manhattan real estate brute force strong-arm tactics, imagine Carney’s eyes lighting up when he realized that American negotiators were attempting to attack the French-speaking peoples of Canada and the entire notion of a national culture. There was obviously no way the Canadian people were going to accept such humiliation and subjugation at the hands of an amoral gangster. As Trump’s designated thug Howard Lutnick piled on the bad faith, last-minute demands, it became evident that Carney had no choice but to walk away — despite the awful short term pain America could inflict.
Thus Carney’s plan has been put in action, with the backing of a nation unified in outrage at America’s belligerence. Trump can harm Canada, but that street runs two ways. By standing up to Trump, Carney has lured him on to the economic battlefield at the precise moment when his presidency is collapsing, with the calamitous midterm elections looming. Tight races are being run in many states that are heavily dependent on trade with Canada — Ohio, Maine, New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Alaska — the exact jurisdictions Canada will target with long-planned tariffs aimed at specific economically sensitive economic sectors, in order to increase the pressure on the ill-prepared president.
Apart from cheap shots and idiotic put downs, Trump has no history of seeking compromise and no real plan in response, as usual, apart from lashing out like a cornered animal. Trump also has vanishingly little popular support in America for his personal grudge match with Canada, an obsession that looks weirder with each passing insult. The struggling North American car industry has been jerked around by Trump’s vengeful destruction of the electric vehicle, losing billions in the process. and taxes described as tariffs will make life even more unaffordable for working American consumers. Uncertainty and unpredictability are lethal to any investment strategy, as actual business people and union leaders understand. Across the rust-belt industries Trump proclaims he is protecting, his tariff-taxes are disrupting and distorting markets and driving up costs for no purpose other than his insistence on harming America’s neighbor and ally, an enemy only in the president’s fevered imagination.
But to what end? It’s a question with no sensible answer.
Many Americans like to think foreigners draw a distinction between Donald Trump and themselves. But this self-serving piece of evasion is rapidly disappearing for Canadians, as the United States wages a war of aggression to impoverish a friendly nation, and heedlessly attack its history and sense of place and purpose. When Trump threatens the Canadian dollar, implicitly saying that he will do all he can to make the country economically uncompetitive, the statement is front page news in Canada, while it barely rates a mention in the American press. The American politicians who register tepid defenses of Canada are remarkable not so much for standing up for their neighbor or the rule of law, but for how few and far between they are — and how feckless.
As the trade war escalates this week — or evaporates into another TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) — the damage done to America’s reputation will be lasting. Once American arrogance is seen in broad daylight, it suddenly is everywhere, in Secretary of Treasury Scott Besant likening Canada to a “yipping dog,” or in former President Barack Obama distractedly turning up to a speaking engagement in Toronto carrying his cardboard coffee cup as if he can’t wait to collect his fee and return to Chicago to gaze admiringly at the shrine he has built to himself.
Damnatio Memoriae is the Latin term for the ancient Roman ritualistic destruction of all memorials to a tyrant, a kind of reverse branding deal with posterity that Trump is furiously trying to counteract with his White House bunker and ballroom and sad sack victory arch that memorializes no victory — structures very likely to be torn down or repurposed when Trump’s presidency expires.
With a mid-term election tsunami gathering force, Trump has already become a lame duck in the eyes of the world, albeit a particularly dangerous one facing richly deserved corruption investigations and possible impeachment. But the damage to the nation’s brand as ugly Americans and wannabe neocolonialist hegemon will be impossible to erase. As the trade conflict intensifies and Canada retaliates in a measured defensive way, taxing golf clubs to counter Trump’s childish hockey stick impost, Trump’s impulsive provocations will only reveal his inability to formulate anything like the concept of a winning strategy. When reality descends and he leaves office or is forced to finally end his mindless war and inevitably declare himself the winner, as his fragile manhood requires, Trump will further diminish himself and his country in the eyes of the world. Under Trump, America risks ending up like the president: alone, lost, friendless.
Despite Trump’s flailing efforts at waging a mutually destructive internecine war, foreign investment is growing in Canada, with a summit taking place this month for investors representing a trillion dollars to extol the virtues in backing a reliable, trustworthy country governed by the rule of law. Holding Canada’s main weapons in reserve, in accordance with Carney’s disciplined plan, if necessary Canadians can fight back with damaging export taxes on oil, gas, electricity, potash for America’s farmers — truly damaging countermeasures that will be employed only as a last resort. But Canada is already showing the world that it is possible to defy Trump, even when the country has so much to lose. Bullies like Trump can’t survive defiance because it reveals their true nature. In that sense, Mark Carney has become the new leader of the free world, fighting on behalf of nations too afraid to confront the American despot. As a result, incredibly, under Carney’s leadership Canada is becoming a kind of law-abiding underdog badass outlaw nation, in its understated but determined way — a reality I could palpably sense when I was in London in recent days and my 15-year-old English cousin expressed awe at my homeland’s willingness to stare down the bully-boy president.
“I would kill to be a Canadian,” he said.