First of all, how were the “specific Republican states” chosen as targets by Canada? Are these the states where data shows the greatest malice for Canada to be focussed? Is Canada trying to target individuals in fairness. No, it has nothing to do with that.

The retaliatory tariffs are chosen to cause pain in the US without too much pain for Canadians (where Canadians can easily find substitutes). Mostly, they were chosen in the hopes that the individual States will apply pressure on the US administration to change policy. In other words, the most effective tariff targets will be States that actually like Canada and hope federal tariffs get dropped but where Canada can do immediate economic harm too. It is not Canada targeting only the bad guys like you seem to be implying. Do we target individual States to drive changes in their individual policy? No. Talk about an “overly simplistic take”.

Trump did not win because of his popularity. He won with the support of 31% of the voters. It is largely a story of people not bothering to show up to stop him.

So, while I do not vilify any particular individual American and do claim to know their mind, I also don’t have a lot of sympathy for the “it is not the people” talk either. This shit has a real impact in my world and 2 out 3 Americans are directly implicated in the result. As a group, they are absolutely culpable.

In addition, saying “people did not understand” is a weak argument. Trump was pretty vocal and explicit. At best, this is just a “I could not be bothered” argument. I could not be bothered to be informed means “I could not be bothered to defend my democracy”. Not a great defence.

But that is not even what matters. What matters is that they are, collectively, attacking me and mine. I am supposed to ignore that?

If you go to war and you find yourself engaged with enemy troops, you do not pause to consider the possible philosophical positions of each individual enemy soldier. The opposing military is either at war with you or it isn’t. It is attacking you or it is not. It does not matter if it is composed of hundreds of thousands of human beings. You need to treat it as a singular entity with the strategic, tactical, and policy goals of the leadership. You do not choose targets based on the ideology of the people being targeted. You choose targets that do damage to the enemy, to apply leverage against them in the hopes of driving them to capitulation. This is not some sort of “simplistic take”. I am not writing an academic paper identifying underlying causes. I am defending against aggression. A real attack. One with consequences.

Many of my friends in America do not like Trump and did not vote for them. That is nice. They can come visit me and some have. Good people. That does nothing to protect me from the government that acts in their name. So, I will absolutely boycott and act in opposition to their economy and their county at every opportunity. If the administration changes or radically changes their current policy of aggression, my position could change. Until then, it is not that complicated.

Should I let my country fall to the invaders because some of them might not agree with the invasion? In my view, that would be the truly naive position.