I have a recurring dream where, like Alice in Wonderland, I am tumbling down a rabbit hole. But unlike Alice, I don’t fall into wonderland. I land outside the gates of hell and I’m struggling to crawl out of the hole before the gates open, and I tumble in and then must spend eternity with a whining, snivelling, grievance grinding, moronic, psychopathic Trump and his sycophantic barbarians. When Alice wakes up, she shares her adventures with her sister and tells of the strange creatures she met, before gleefully going off to play. If I woke up and told my sister about the strange creatures in my dream, she would ask me if I were on drugs and then tell me to “get a grip.” Instead, I wake up and promise myself to keep my eyes open for rabbit holes.

As I write this, the 56 days since Trump took over the Oval Office have seemed like years, not days. It would evoke my sympathy for the American people if the chaos he creates was restricted to their country, but the chaos is global, and it evokes resentment and/or mistrust from American allies and reinforces the hatred from its enemies. Aside from money, power, and control, what he wants is respect, because he knows globally, he does not have the respect of other nations, and he has eroded the respect other nations may have previously had for the USA. He does not understand that you cannot buy or bully respect from others – you earn it.

His disrespectful treatment of Ukraine’s President Zelensky left the rest of the free world disgusted with him and his henchmen. What Trump wanted was Zelensky to sign an agreement to allow America to plunder and pillage the resources of Ukraine, and what Zelensky asked for was assurance that America would protect its borders if Russia did not honour a peace agreement. Neither got what they wanted and Zelensky was thrown out of the White House. To justify what happened, Trump’s knuckle-dragging sycophants said Zelensky showed disrespect to Trump by not wearing a suit and tie to the meeting. Huh? Zelensky has been to the USA previously, spoke to Congress and the Senate, and received a standing ovation each time. He met with then President Biden, all the while wearing his military garb.

 I am led to believe that is the norm in wartime cases. However, if that is deemed disrespectful, what was Elon Musk’s attendance in the Oval Office for a press conference, wearing a MAGA ballcap, T-shirt, sneakers and dragging his four-year-old kid along? The kid, having picked his nose, wiped the snot on Trump’s desk said to him, “You’re not the President and you should leave now.” Disrespectful?

Did Musk get escorted out of the White House? Trump’s issue with Zelensky is because, prior to the 2020 election, Zelensky refused to manufacture scandalous dirt on the Bidens as requested by Trump. Now a nation has to be sacrificed to assuage that bruised ego. Was it disrespectful when under the guise of peace talks between Israel and Palestine, Trump announced the USA would take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into a resort in the Middle East.

As for the Palestinians, they could simply be shuffled off, a few here and there, to other surrounding countries. Yes, those ladies in the Middle East could shuck off their burkas and don string bikinis. Was it disrespectful to refer to our country as the 51st State and our prime minister as a state governor? At the beginning, I thought that perhaps the aging Trump might be a little feeble minded, along with the fact that he knows little about his own country, much less knowing anything about ours. It soon became clear that he was intentionally insulting Trudeau and dismissing Canada as a backwater nation. What he wants is the Arctic and its resources, and if he could relocate Canadians he would.

Was it disrespectful for Trump to announce that he will be taking Greenland, one way or another, regardless of what Denmark or the Greenlanders say? Was it disrespectful for Trump to announce he will “taking back” the Panama Canal, which the USA has never owned? The USA built and had control over the canal under The Panama Canal Treaty which provided that the canal would be returned to the Panamanians in 1999. It’s along the same line as the British having to return Hong Kong to China when its lease expired in 1997. Was it disrespectful for Trump to announce he is renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America? What a joke. Since the 1500s this body of water was recognized as the Gulf of Mexico and the rest of the world will continue see it as the Gulf of Mexico with perhaps the exception of Google maps, whose owner is catering to Trump by already mislabelling some of Canada’s provincial parks as state parks.

I have read on several occasions that some Americans are offended by Canada’s negative reaction to joining their country. But why would Canadians (or their offspring) want to inherit the USD $35.8 trillion debt of a declining empire? Or adopt a substandard public education system where instead of learning their ABCs they learn active shooter drills. It sickens me to think about schools corralled by fencing topped with barbed wire with armed guards at the gates or patrolling the school hallways. My heart broke when hearing the proposal that gun violence at schools can be solved by arming teachers. And no matter how many students die, Americans will never give up guns. And who wants to live in a neighbourhood were everyone is armed and ready to shoot first and ask questions later? Then there is the local militia who think the laws do not apply to them. Our health care system is struggling and desperately in need of overhaul. However, it is better than what is offered to the masses in the USA.

Tens of millions of citizens in the USA have no health care and if they or their children get seriously ill, they lose everything and in many cases their lives. The setback for women in America makes me weep. American females now have Uncle Sam or his state equivalent, dictating their obstetric and gynecologic health needs and rights. Why would we want our daughters or granddaughters growing up in a country were their human rights come second to the political whims of a state? Canadians live in a country that is relatively pristine. With the exception of the overpopulated cities, our air is clean, and our water is potable. Do we want our beautiful national parks to be desecrated by Trump’s “Drill Baby Drill” program? Trump has stated that Canada has nothing that the USA needs. Then why try to annex us? He has stated that his intent is to collapse our economy and thus make us vulnerable to a takeover. He threatened if Canada introduced retaliatory tariffs, he would double down and make his tariffs more severe. Then, when Ontario Premier Doug Ford first tried to introduce a tax on electricity, Trump then had audacity to say: “Can you imagine Canada stooping so low as to use ELECTRICITY, that so affects the life of innocent people, as a bargaining chip and threat?”

Not all Americans agree with what Trump is doing, but the majority support him. Their elected congressmen and women are cowards, and their high court seems corrupt. All the safeguards of their democracy are failing. Regrettably, we will pay some of the price of their bad choice in the last election. However, we are a strong people and we have something worth fighting for. It is going to be a long hard battle to maintain our sovereignty, but for the sake of our children and grandchildren, it is a battle we must fight.

Elbows Up!

– Elaine Hnatyshyn