"The big picture is that the U.S. government is choosing to isolate itself through its transactional and exploitative approach to trade and its race towards authoritarianism. The rest of the world is turning away and making other arrangements." Sandford Borins
I am trying to make sense of U.S.-Canadian relationship under Trump by likening it to a relationship breakup. The U.S. is acting like an entitled and abusive boyfriend, the guy with the big muscles, the big house, and more money than everyone else. He is convinced he has a right to be entitled.
The rest of the world thinks the U.S. is acting like a jerk. They are adjusting to the new reality. Canada is doing what any prudent girlfriend of an entitled jerk would do: try to protect herself and begin making new friends. Mark Carney is trying to be politic about the pull-away, saying nice things to Trump as Canada withdraws.
Canada acts as an institution under a leader, Mark Carney, who acknowledged that a breakup was underway. Canada is made up of citizens. Canadian citizens make their own decisions on how to relate to the changes going on in their southern neighbor.
Sandford Borins is Canadian. He is a college classmate. He has written guest posts here explaining Canada. Today he shares how he personally feels. Sandy is Professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Toronto. He has his own website, https://sandfordborins.com, where this post appeared earlier this week.
Borins, diplomas behind him, wearing a 50th college reunion tee shirt
Guest Post by Sandford Borins
East Berlin 1983, Okay; Boston 2026, Not Okay?
I usually don’t continue to think about a blog I have posted, but I have been thinking aboutmy previous one, in which I concluded I would boycott travel to the U.S. Part of the impetus was recent events. The day after I posted, Trump called off his threats of invading Greenland and imposing tariffs on the European nations that sent a military presence there. On the other hand, Prime Minister Carney’s high-profile speech at Davos has evoked anger towards Canada from the Trump Administration.
I was also thinking of instances in the past when I visited countries whose governments were widely held in ill-repute and even were the target of boycott movements. As my title asks, were my choices then consistent with my choice now?
Personal Diplomacy in Undemocratic Countries
In my mid-thirties, I visited three countries with questionable governments. I went to South Africa in 1984, invited by a Canadian colleague who was working for a government-supported transportation research agency. I was curious about the apartheid regime. As discussed in aprevious post, I stayed a month, travelled widely, and spoke to a wide range of people. I left disgusted by the regime and held out little hope for change. If someone then had predicted a peaceful transition to majority rule within a decade, I would have told them they were delusional.
In Germany for a conference in 1983, I visited a friend in West Berlin for a weekend. On Sunday, he took me through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. The starkest contrast was between streets and parks full of people enjoying themselves on Saturday in West Berlin and the deserted streets, squares, and plazas (especially Potsdamer Platz) in East Berlin. In many other ways, it was clear this was a police state, and one day there was more than enough for me.
I went to the People’s Republic of China in 1984 and again in 1986. The Canadian International Development Agency sponsored a partnership program between Canadian and Chinese management schools, and I was the guest of Nankai University in Tianjin. The students were inexperienced with free market institutions, but eager to learn. When I visited in November 1984 it was unseasonably cold. Here is a photo of me teaching in a chilly classroom.
And here I am in Tienanmen Square.
Reflecting on my decision to visit these three countries, despite my opposition to their governments’ policies, I was trying to learn from their people, share with them my life experience as a Canadian and, when possible, my expertise in management and economics.
Choosing to Boycott the U.S.
Prime Minister Carney’s Davos speech was a closely reasoned analysis of the impact, particularly on middle powers, of a sea-change in international relations characterized by the desire of hegemonic nations ruthlessly to monetize and exploit their advantages. Carney did not refer to the U.S. explicitly, but he was referring to any and all regional hegemonic powers. I noticed, though few commentators mentioned it, that Carney’s speech drew on economic concepts such as public goods, economies of scale, and game theory.
The reaction to Carney’s speech and Canada’s sectoral trade agreement with China by Trump and Bessent (apparently his point person for Canada) proved Carney’s point: threats of economic disruption (100 percent tariffs if Canada negotiates a wider agreement with China) and interference to support the “leave” side in a likely Alberta referendum on separation, not to mention name-calling (ingrate and “Governor”). This is not the behaviour of an ally or a partner. The National Security Strategy provides the bigger picture: dominance of the western hemisphere enforced with an iron fist.
If this isn’t enough to justify a Canadian travel boycott of the U.S., add to the picture the Trump Administration’s attack on the civil liberties of citizens and non-citizens who are in the U.S. As I’ve discussed in the previous blog, my criticism of the Trump Administration, if noticed by a BCP agent, would be sufficient grounds to prevent me from entering the U.S. I do not intend to travel to the U.S. during the Trump Administration. The 55threunion for my class at Harvard is in June, and I know I will regret missing it.
The U.S. Choosing Isolation
The big picture is that the U.S. government is choosing to isolate itself through its transactional and exploitative approach to trade and its race towards authoritarianism. Therest of the world is turning awayand making other arrangements. Hence the recent trade deal between the E.U. and India, and the set of trade deals Canada is pursuing, of which the China deal is the first. A travel boycott is a personal replication of a national policy.
I hope the result of this collective action, both by nations and individuals, is that Americans will realize that, under Trump, their nation and society are becoming isolated and weaker. I hope they will remember that their alliances and soft power were a source of strength. And I hope they will remember this when choosing Trump’s successor in 2028.
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Trump's complaint is that the IRS did not adequately screen and control a contractor who leaked to The New York Times and ProPublica copies of his tax returns. The leak took place in 2019, when Trump was president.
Trump is suing his own department because its leader -- ultimately Donald Trump himself -- failed to do his job.
Under the theory of the unitary executive, the theory that Trump uses to consolidate executive power in the presidency, Trump is suing himself. The president has complete responsibility for executive departments and therefore the right to direct how they do their work. The president is in charge, period.
The conflicts of interest grow. Trump appointed the people at the IRS and Justice Department who are facing his lawyers in this lawsuit. So Trump-chosen lawyers are on both sides of the issue.
The leaked report showed that Trump paid no taxes at all for several years, and that he paid exactly $750 in taxes for tax years 2016 and 2017, the year Trump was elected president and his first year in office. The $750 was not the amount of money Trump owed to settle up with the government after calculating his taxes. No. He paid exactly $750 as the entire tax owed for the year.
There would be complications for this lawsuit, were it to be litigated. Was the leaker really the responsibility of the IRS or of his accounting firm employer that contracted with the IRS? Whose fault is this really? Is the lawsuit within the statute of limitations? Is the amount of damages capped at $1,000 per incident? The government -- i.e., the citizens of the U.S. -- has a variety of defenses against paying Trump any money.
I expect this lawsuit to settle with an agreement that Trump-appointed lawyers on both sides will agree upon. The $10 billion claim gives lots of latitude for making a "reasonable" settlement.
There is one limiting factor: How much additional grift and kleptocracy will Americans tolerate from Trump?
Constitutional watchdogs in Congress have given up on complaining about Hatch Act violations, emolument violations, corporate gifts and tributes, crypto meme coin bribes, deals with Middle East kingdoms, and non-monetary tributes to Trump. Democrats cannot stop Trump, and Republicans fall into line and have forgotten how upset they were with Hunter Biden's nepotism. Whatever Trump wants is OK. Whatever Trump's family wants is also OK.
What about the $40 million paid to Melania Trump for her story, the grease-the-wheel money paid by Amazon? That's OK. It is the cost of doing business for Amazon in Trump's America. No one has to see the movie. The rights payment to Melania was the whole point. It is just another way for money to make its way to the Trumps. Norms of behavior have been moved. No amount of self-dealing is too much.
Corruption used to be hidden, when possible. Politicians were embarrassed about it. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez (D) hid his gold coins in the closet. Trump taught America something: If you take grift openly and proudly, Americans think it must be OK. No one stops you! They let you steal! Is this a great country, or what?
The United States is a giant buffet, and it is all-you-can-eat.
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"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." Attributed to American author Sinclair Lewis
Town hall security grabs man who sprayed unknown liquid on U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar
When President Trump was asked by an ABC reporter if he had seen video of the attack on Representative Omar, Trump answered:
No. I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud. I really don’t think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.
One of the indicia of fascism is a casual -- even favorable -- attitude toward violence directed at the political opponents of the leader. Sometimes it comes from agents of the government. Sometimes it comes from supporters of the leader. Either way, the violence is pardoned, condoned, or laughed off as well-justified. It is a message to Americans: Opponents risk injury or death. Comply. Obey.
Change often sneaks up a little at a time. A populist leader ignores constitutional guardrails, sidelines the legislature, ignores court orders, initiates wars, creates a private army to intimidate citizens, extorts businesses, demands a compliant media, targets and stigmatizes minorities within the country, and demonstrates that dissenters and political opponents are subject to summary violence. I am talking, of course, about Nazi Germany.
Jack Mullen reflects on the events of 90 years ago in Germany. Jack and I thinned and picked pears in local orchards in our youth. He studied history at the University of Oregon. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Jack Mullen with wife Jennifer Angelo
Guest Post by Jack Mullen
Germany 90 years ago.
The Nazi Party snookered Germany in 1932.
The Weimar Republic was deeply fragmented in 1932. No party held a majority. Political parties were in disarray. The Nazi Party, running on a platform that promised economic recovery, jobs, national revival, rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, and virulent nationalism and antisemitism, won a plurality of votes in the July 1932 election and remained the largest party after losing seats in November.
Titans of German industry and leading conservatives convinced the aging president, Paul von Hindenburg, that if he appointed Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as chancellor, they could restrain him. Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933.
Did ordinary Germans understand what the 1932 elections had unleashed? The Enabling Act of March 23, 1933, gave Hitler’s cabinet the power to pass laws without the Reichstag, effectively dismantling constitutional democracy. President von Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. Hitler then merged the offices of president and chancellor and declared himself Führer.
Under Hitler, Germany reduced unemployment, largely through rearmament, public works, and the exclusion of Jews and others from economic life. At the same time, Germany cast off the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. By 1936, the regime had a story to tell the world — and a powerful propaganda machine to tell it. Many abroad, and many Germans, accepted that narrative.
In 1936, Germany hosted the Winter Olympics in February and the Berlin Summer Olympics in August, using both events as global propaganda showcases. Unemployed workers found jobs in expanding steel and armaments factories.
At the same time, many middle-class Germans saw violent, strong-armed actions by the SA, SS, and secret police but did not view them as signs of the totalitarian system tightening around them.
Any lingering illusions should have shattered in November 1938 during Kristallnacht — the Night of Broken Glass — when Nazi paramilitary forces, aided by civilians, attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany and Austria while authorities largely stood aside.
In 1938, Hitler expanded Germany’s territory: Austria was annexed in March, and the Sudetenland was absorbed in October after the Munich Agreement. These moves fulfilled his promises to revise Germany’s borders and restore great-power status.
Less than a year later, in September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and World War II began.
There are lessons to be drawn for America from Germany in the 1930s, including the danger of executive overreach, the use of security forces for political purposes, territorial ambition, and a compliant legislature and judiciary. While many Germans were slow to recognize their country’s slide into dictatorship, recovery is possible if we remember:
--- Free and fair elections matter.
--- A constitution is only as strong as the citizens who defend it.
--- This is a pivotal moment in history as we try to uphold the principles set forth 250 years ago in the Declaration of Independence and preserved in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
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Public attention is focused. A majority of Americans don't like ICE's methods. Especially what happened in Minneapolis.
That's the opportunity.
A majority of Americans do like ICE's overall mission.
That is the point where Democrats may screw this up.
The New York Times published a poll showing Americans' views on the tactics ICE uses. A significant number of Americans don't think the tactics are rough enough, A majority of Republican voters approve of ICE tactics. They look at the protests and believe Trump when he says those "paid agitators" deserve what they get. They like that Trump is a bad-ass.
This poll is consistent with the Reuters/Ipsos poll I cited yesterday. A majority of Americans support the ICE mission to deport people here illegally. A majority of Americans -- but far from all -- are unhappy with their current methods.
Jeff Mauer's "I Might Be Wrong"Substack displayed a graph that describes the peril for Democrats.
Democrats have lacked a national spokesperson for a decade. Joe Biden never had the communication skills to voice a clear national message, and Trump is, as always, the loudest voice in any arena. Biden walked a tightrope within factions of the Democratic Party, some of whom wanted open borders, some of whom want amnesty for some people, and nearly all of whom recognized the conflict between the contributions immigrants make combined with the unfairness of rewarding lawbreakers. There is no Democratic message. There is only objection to Trump's.
A clear, principled Democratic position is certain to disappoint some people. Every policy includes cruelty and arbitrariness because the situation is complicated. There are mixed-status families. Some people committed some law violation; some did not. Some people own businesses and pay taxes; others do not. Some people arrived as infants; some arrived as adults intentionally breaking the law.
Democrats are not starting at zero in search of a policy. President Obama voiced a clear, but nuanced one.
So this is not going to be a free ride. It's not going to be some instant amnesty. What's going to happen is you are going to pay a significant fine. You are going to learn English. You are going to -- you are going to go to the back of the line so that you don't get ahead of somebody who was in Mexico City applying legally. But after you've done these things over a certain period of time you can earn your citizenship, so that it's not -- it's not something that is guaranteed or automatic. You've got to earn it. But over time you give people an opportunity.
Now, it only works though if you do all the pieces. I think the American people, they appreciate and believe in immigration. But they can't have a situation where you just have half a million people pouring over the border without any kind of mechanism to control it. So we've got to deal with that at the same time as we deal in a humane fashion with folks who are putting down roots here, have become our neighbors, have become our friends, they may have children who are U.S. citizens. That's the kind of comprehensive approach that we have to take.
Some Democrats will object. Some see people entering the U.S. as a human right, therefore trumping the value of fairness. Some don't think learning English is a priority. They think it cruel to require people who have roots here to return. Obama said we need to do all the pieces of this for it to seem fair to Americans.
Democrats lost all credibility on the issue of immigration enforcement. During the first three and a quarter years of Biden's presidency the U.S.allowed open, flagrant gaming of the system, using the "amnesty card" and "catch and release" enforcement. Democrats must have a message of change from the discredited Biden policy. This is a democracy, and Democrats claim to be the party preserving it. Americans want a president who will enforce the law, and that means deportations. That means ICE or something like it. That means Democrats need to support enforcement of immigration rules.
We can do it in a Democratic way or a Trump way.
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I will start with a quote from an unlikely source, a Medford, Oregon, provocateur, internet troll, and Trump-supporting Republican, Curt Ankerberg. He left these words in a comment on this blog on Sunday:
I own four guns. I also have a concealed permit. My guns are for home protection. I don't carry a gun when I'm out in public, but I legally could. The situation doesn't call for it, and it's asking for trouble if I do. . . .You don't fuck with the police, particularly if you are carrying a weapon. . . If I were Trump, I'd bring in the military, and stomp out the paid rioters. You don't fuck with the police.
Readers can draw two takeaways from Ankerberg's comment. One is recognition that a large segment of MAGA Republicans welcomes Border Patrol and ICE rough behavior. A Reuters/Ipsos poll reports that 23 percent of Republican think Trump's policy is not strong enough. They consider Renee Good and Alex Pretti to have gotten exactly what they deserved. The violence is on-brand for Trump.
The other takeaway from Ankerberg's comment cuts the opposite direction. Ankerberg -- and Trump administration spokespeople -- said to leave guns at home, that they don't belong around police.
Republican officeholders defend an absolutist view of the Second Amendment. They argue that guns are the way citizens protect themselves from tyrants who might take away your freedom. Guns are peacekeepers. A good guy with a gun is how you stop a bad guy with a gun. What better place for good guys with guns than at trouble spots?
Both Border Control Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino and FBI Director Kash Patel were sharply critical of Pretti for exercising his Second Amendment right. Patel said:
"You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple."
Trump's people are scrambling to walk this back, but body language of the shooting of Pretti is more persuasive than words. The world saw it. You can be shot by Trump's agents on first glimpse of your gun.
Trump realizes he is losing support both with swing voters dismayed by ICE's roughness and with gun rights supporters objecting to the notion that gun possession is grounds for summary execution.
Trump changed the Bill of Rights, but this messaging error may restore them:
-- Under Border Patrol and ICE standards, theFirst Amendment right of speech, press, and assembly exists so long as you don't say anything objectionable or video-record officials. Then it is obstruction of justice. You are subject to being killed in a scuffle that ICE initiates.
-- The Fourth Amendment right of privacy for your person, possessions, and dwelling exists in theory, but don't exercise the right in the context of ICE enforcement and demand to see a judicial warrant. If you resist you can be accused of obstructing justice and be killed in the scuffle. Comply.
-- The Second Amendment right to carry a firearm exists -- as long as the gun is locked away and not carried where police might see it. Police are free to see a person carrying a weapon as a bad guy and a lethal threat. As Ankerberg put it, "You don't fuck with the police." Police are free to take your guns from your cold, dead hands, just as the poster says.
Trump's political base accepted the loss of the First and Fourth Amendments, but has finally become uncomfortable with the loss of the Second. The claim that the Second Amendment protects the other rights might turn out to be true after all.
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Kent State: May 4, 1970. Four college students about like me were shot and killed. Nine more were injured.
I felt shock. This isn't abstract. This is real. So this is where the country is. Oh.
It seemed very personal.
Americans are experiencing another "Kent State" event. Shock. Dismay. Realization that agents of our government might turn deadly force on us.
Joe Yetter sent me his reaction to the shooting death of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Joe is a retired U.S. Army physician who trained in military and VA hospitals. He worked with people like Alex Pretti.
Joe was a pathologist and a family physician here and abroad, taught in multiple residency and fellowship programs, and continues to care deeply about public health and democracy. He was a Democratic candidate for Congress in 2022.
Guest Post by Joe Yetter
I’m enraged. But I’ll not be entrapped.
I’m not proud of my rage, but it’s in me, all the same. The rage burns in others, too, and I tremble for my country. Our rage is what Trump wants and would use it against us. Do not let him.
Joe Yetter
I felt real sorrow for the millions of strangers who will die because Trump killed USAID. I was angered by the gutting of science and biomedicine that will extinguish many thousands of American lives. I grieved for Renee Good and for her family in a way that was far more personal, because she was an individual, identifiable American.
But this murder—the murder of Alex Pretti by federal agents—was different. Was different for me, at least. I have some ties to nurses, to intensive care units, and to the VA.
Nurses taught me a lot of what I needed to be a good physician. I’ve loved a few of them. A few others likely saved my life, and a few others definitely saved my career.
Alex Pretti was a nurse. More than that, he was an ICU nurse in a VA hospital. I never met Alex, but Iknowhim. He was loved by his family and his colleagues, and if I—an Army veteran and VA patient—ifIever had rolled into his ICU in desperate straits, I’d have wanted him there.
I wish Alex could be right there, right now, working in his ICU, saving lives, mentoring students, sharing that life-saving profession.
I can imagine Alex there on the slab, stiff and cold and pale, drained of blood by multiple gunshot wounds. Flip him face down, I can see neat little entry wounds, each with a ring of dark grease where the bullet shed gun oil, smoke, and metal debris. Flip him over, I can see ragged exit wounds.
Last week began with the mourning of Renee Good, shot and killed by ICE; Renee dying while ICE prevented a physician coming to her aid. Last week ended with federal agents killing Alex Pretti—shooting him in the back as he was on the ground, unarmed and brutally restrained by multiple federal agents. Agents delayed yet another physician from rendering aid, aid that would have been useless, as multiple agents had fired multiple shots into Alex’s dying body.
Border Patrol, ICE, and Trump’s other goons quickly made up lies about Alex Pretti, just as they had sullied Renee Good. They quickly removed evidence, instead of preserving the scene.
Alex Pretti had gone to the aid of a victim of brutality, and was attempting to defend her. He was, after all, a person who made a career of healing and protecting others.
I struggled to watch the videos. I managed to watch enough to know that Border Patrol lies, ICE lies, Bovino lies, Noem lies. Alex Pretti was murdered. A caring, loving, protective nurse was murdered for the crime of protecting another human being.
So, yeah, I’m enraged. I’m not proud of this rage, but it’s in me. I worry that others may act on a similar rage—and act violently. I try to be cerebral about this, to sayof course, this is exactly what Tim Snyder wrote about in On Tyranny, this is one more step, and this is how we resist,and columnists Michelle Goldberg and M. Gessen are right.
It’s not a stretch to think that other people, like me, enraged and anguished, will engage in lethal violence toward federal agents. For all I know, right-wingagents and provocateursmight. Either way, I believe that Trump, along with Stephen Miller and many of Trump’s goons actively want this. It is the plan. They will escalate until violence triggers more violence. Then comes repression and a police state.
So I’m going to embrace my rage and grieve privately. Resist, but don’t fall into the trap of escalating violence. Do rally, do march, do participate in local and national strikes and every peaceful anti-fascist action. Do call your congressional representatives, every time you can. Do vote down tyranny and violence. We are better than they are.
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"The handgun was in a holster on his belt. After agents sprayed him with pepper spray, they took him to the ground, and beat him in the face with a canister. An agent then removed the gun from his holster, which he never had in his hand, and an agent shot him 10 times. That's what I see when I watch the videos."
ICE stumbles into an attack on the Second Amendment.
Noem: "This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement."
Rough enforcement by ICE is a body-language message to people contemplating entering or remaining in the U.S. illegally: The U.S. is a frightening and dangerous place for you. Don't come. Get out or else.
This strategy is working. Immigration has reversed direction.
SWAT-style immigration enforcement is also a message to Trump's political opponents. It is the domestic version of bombing boats from Venezuela. Trump can and will use violence against you without regard for laws or the Constitution.
The Second Amendment isn't my favorite. I think widespread possession and carrying of firearms is dangerous. But a significant segment of Americans disagrees, and demands that people be free to carry firearms. Alex Pretti was exercising that right. Video of the encounter shows no evidence that he withdrew or brandished that firearm or threatened anyone with it. Video shows it was taken from him by an ICE officer. That justifies his immediate killing, according to ICE.
A body-language message has entered the public consciousness: An ICE agent can kill on sight a person exercising the right to bear arms near them. The officer is immune from punishment. The citizen will be vilified publicly by one or more Cabinet secretaries. You have the right -- but better not exercise it.
This killing will muddle the political waters. Gun rights groups do not defend gun carry by people of color -- the NRA is still silent on the Philando Castile case -- but Pretti is White, with a clean criminal record, and he had a gun permit.
This shooting is different from the one that killed Renee Good. Net-net, ICE having killed Renee Good helps Trump with his MAGA base. She was one of "theirs," a lesbian with a wife who shouted insults. The ICE agent spoke for MAGA when he called her a "fucking bitch." She deserved it, even though she was exercising her first amendment rights.
But Pretti was shot because he possessed a gun, a Second Amendment right. Trump's rough immigration enforcement was never about the law. It is about who. Who are the good guys, who gets Trump's protection, and who suffers Trump's wrath? White firearms-carriers are the good guys.
"Every peaceable Minnesotan has the right to keep and bear arms—including while attending protests."
Kristi Noem's words are already out there and cannot be taken back. Republican officeholders see the emerging problem. Gun rights advocates are beginning to voice their complaint. Trump's ICE shot the wrong person for the wrong reason. It cannot be wrong to carry a gun.
Trump's media machine will try to fix this. They will need to blame Pretti, as they double down on blaming Renee Good. He deserved what happened to him. Maybe he was gay. Or trans. Or a Democrat. Or something other than a nurse at a veterans hospital exercising his Second Amendment rights. That is what got him killed, but that must be denied.
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"Yes, you can use my name. I DO hate this." Denise Meer, on Main Street in Medford, Oregon
Denise Meer
The road to discord is paved with good intentions.
Today's post is hyper-local. It is about striping the lanes on Main Street in Medford, Oregon.
Main Street was re-striped to encourage bicycle travel by making bicycling more convenient and safer. The state of Oregon gave the city of Medford a million dollars to do it. The new traffic pattern slowed traffic on Main Street, toward the goal of revitalizing downtown Medford as a business and commercial district. It made the prior three-lane, one-way Main Street less of a thru-fare and more of a destination for businesses and shoppers.
The strategy was to put a two-way bicycle path alongside the left curb in the place where cars would normally park. Then put a parking lane to the right of that, separated by traffic bollards. Then have two traffic lanes to the right of that -- one fewer lane than before.
The bicycle lane on the left looks like this:
Bike lane, then bollards, then parking lane, and travel lanes to the right.
Facing the other direction
The theory is that more people will travel by bicycle if it is safer and they are protected from traffic by parked cars. The goal is a farsighted, non-coercive, good-government solution toward a sustainable future, where bicycling was normalized.
Real life interferes. It turns out that parallel parking between a striped line and a bollard, without the cues of a curb, and with the possibility of bicycle traffic on one side and vehicle traffic from the rear on the other, gives people the willies when trying to park. I watched drivers attempt it. It requires parking in what feels like the middle of the street, while avoiding hitting a post.
I smiled and nodded encouragement at Denise Meer as I watched her park. I did my best not to look threatening or judgmental as she moved her car back and forth five times as she slid into the slot without hitting anything. Apparently I managed to look harmless, so she willingly rolled down her window and answered my question: "How to you like this parking arrangement?"
She said she hated it, as did every single person I have ever talked to about this innovation.
Her car, successfully parked
Medford's eight-person City Council and mayor voted unanimously this week to end this experiment. The only disagreement within the Council was whether to go back to the former system, with three travel lanes, or to go to a modified system, with a dedicated bicycle lane on the right, with parking on the right curb, and two travel lanes. No more bollards.
Here is the diagram of the choices the City Council examined:
Two travel lanes would be more than enough to carry the traffic, but to break a four-four tie on in the council, the mayor voted to take option two, back to square one, thus assuring the public that city leaders got the message.
Oregon is a blue state. It has been a leader in encouraging good-for-us-all ideas. These include statewide land use planning, tight urban growth boundaries, subsidies for buses, road diets, demand that a new bridge over the Columbia River have mass transit, energy efficiency standards, access to abortion, DEI initiatives, trans athletes in high school women's sports, expanded Medicaid, sanctuary for immigrants, tax credits for solar, tax credits for electric cars. The list goes on.
There is a risk to having the votes to win big. Government must not be too good for the people it governs. Few of us would choose chopped kale for dessert, even though it is better for us than typical desserts. Oregon Democrats risk that. It would have been possible to have retreated a half-step back, and keep the fully-adequate two lanes of traffic as shown in the Buffered Bike Lane option. But the public was fed up, so the city leaders demonstrated that they got the angry message and made a total retreat from bicycles having their own space.
Democrats have a supermajority in the legislature. Why not run up the score when one has the votes? The reason to tread carefully is that over-reach sows the seeds of its own destruction. People want what they want. People get angry and revolt if government seems oppressive.
Trump is making the same mistake. He claims a landslide mandate. He is running up his score with tariffs, Greenland, extorting media companies, ICE cruelty, Trump cryptocurrency cronyism and much, much more. His list goes on, too.
He is over-reaching and losing his mandate.
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"Peter, I know the importance of the hook and how you use rock songs to draw people into your posts. The problem is when too many commenters respond to the hookrather than the message."
Comment from a college classmate
The title of this blog post is from Helen Reddy's feminist anthem, "I Am Woman."
Helen Reddy
And I've been down there on the floor No one's ever gonna keep me down again
Whoa, yes, I am wise But it's wisdom born of pain Yes, I've paid the price But look how much I gained If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong) I am invincible (invincible) I am woman (ooh)
She belts out the song. She is assertive and proud. Feminine is a good thing, a strong thing. I am male, but I feel entirely entitled to express what kind of feminism I like. I like Helen Reddy's kind. Confident. Not the #MeToo kind, where women complain of long-past injuries where they got injured but didn't say anything. I like the in-your-face, I-demand-respect-now kind.
I suggested that readers send me appropriate song lyrics for the Canada-USA relationship. The popular music world is full of breakup songs. Canada is publicly breaking up with the USA, voiced in the speech in Davos by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
I wanted people to notice that Carney wasn't longing for the good old days and getting back together. Readers needed to find lyrics where the singer initiated the breakup because the former sweetheart became violent toward her and others. He begun hanging out with a bad crowd. He justified taking things from others. She wasn't that kind of girl and would not stand for it.
Notice that Carney didn't say that the USA suddenly "went bad" under Trump. He said the USA had always been a bully, that the USA had always felt entitled to demand that the world bow to its interests. The USA has been a self-righteous hypocrite from the moment it survived World War II with its industry and military intact. The difference now is that the selfishness is celebrated by Trump, not denied under the guise of being a benevolent policeman. Carney said that Trump exposes the truth about the relationship. The strong do as they will; the weak suffer as they must.
Probably no American politician can dare say what Carney said. It would be insulting America, and we don't want to hear an unpleasant truth. Americans understand our nation to be the shining beacon of truth, justice, and international law. We are Ronald Reagan's virtuous city on the hill. Possibly that self-image made the U.S. a better, less hypocritical, great power than we would otherwise have been. We wanted to live up to the hype.
Carney admitted that the Pax Americana of the past 80 years has had some benefits for Canada. That is why Canada could accept the relationship for so long.
Reader comments suggest that people engaged with Carney's speech. Several mentioned "You're No Good." I became aware of that song when Linda Ronstadt recorded it in 1974. It captured Carney's statement that great powers had always been hypocrites, and that Canada feels great to be moving on.
Feeling better now that we're through Feeling better 'cause I'm over you Learned my lesson, it left a scar Now I see how you really are (Chorus) You're no good, you're no good, you're no good Baby, you're no good
Others mentioned Kelly Clarkson's 2004 song, "Since U Been Gone."
But since you been gone I can breathe for the first time I'm so movin' on, yeah, yeah Thanks to you Now I get, I get what I want Since you been gone
Taylor Swift writes brilliantly and often about hurt. Her song "Mean" has these words:
You, with your words like knives and swords And weapons that you use against me You have knocked me off my feet again Got me feeling like a nothing
Taylor Swift writes for this generation, not mine. I am old, still stuck back in the 1960s and 1970s. I don't hear anger or hurt in Carney. As with Helen Reddy, I hear resolve and clear-headed purpose in Carney's speech. It's a new world for middle powers like Canada.
You can bend, but never break me 'Cause it only serves to make me More determined to achieve my final goal And I come back even stronger Not a novice any longer 'Cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul
I am strong (strong) I am invincible (invincible) I am woman
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I don't know the song lyrics for this, but a new relationship is being established:
Canada is going to start dating other guys.
Michael Nesmith of The Monkees wrote a song that almost works. Linda Ronstadt, then singing with The Stone Poneys, made the song popular: "A Different Drum," The lyrics don't quite explain the situation:
Goodbye, I'll be leavin' I see no sense in this cryin' and grievin' We'll both live a lot longer if you live without me
The problem with the song is that in the song the guy is too clingy and solicitous, and Ronstadt wants the opposite. She wants freedom from a guy being too nice. In the case of Canada, the problem is that the guy is a bossy jerk. The guy has started hanging out and admiring tough guys who get into fights. He barely pretends to be good. He steals stuff. He takes advantage of her. He hits her. The two can still be polite to one another -- after all, they are next door neighbors and have been through a lot together -- but for her own well-being, she is going to date other guys. Lots of other guys. Guys in different cliques. And she is going to start hanging out with other independent-minded girls like herself, maybe form a club with them.
I don't know the song for this situation. But I know the speech. Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote it himself. I have three points to share.
1. This speech is what a national leader sounds like. Clear-headed, reasonable, intelligent. It communicates reliability and purpose. The contrast with Trump's performance is night and day. So was the response by national and business leaders.
2. Carney announces a new era in its relationship with the U.S. There is no walking back Trump's words and behavior. This isn't a TACO -- Trump Always Chickens Out -- kiss-and-make-up situation. The Greenland threats are part of a big pattern that cannot be ignored. The United States boyfriend is now fundamentally unreliable. He isn't trustworthy. And he is violent. He has hit Canada on purpose, and there is no hiding the bruises. If you are dating a batterer, you've got to break up, for your own safety, and if you want to keep your self-respect.
3. Carney is letting the U.S. know that there will be other guys hanging out in the neighborhood, doing defense deals, trade deals, joint development deals. The U.S. took for granted that Canada wouldn't do anything to make it jealous. That deal is over. She will date who she wants when she wants.
Request of readers: if you know the right song and lyrics for Canada's situation, please put it in the comments or email it to me at peter.w.sage@gmail.com.
Here is the speech that got a thunderous standing ovation:
Address by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.
This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable - the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.
It won't. So, what are our options?
In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. In it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself? His answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: "Workers of the world, unite!"
He does not believe it. No one believes it. But he places the sign anyway - to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists. Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false. Havel called this "living within a lie."
The system's power comes not from its truth but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing - when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack.
It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down. For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works.
Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics laid bare the risks of extreme global integration.
More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot "live within the lie" of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination. The multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied — the WTO, the UN, the COP-the architecture of collective problem solving — are greatly diminished. As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains. This impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options.
When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let us be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable. And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the presence of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from 'transactionalism' become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. Buy insurance. Increase options. This rebuilds sovereignty-sovereignty which was once grounded in rules—but which will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.
This classic risk management comes at a price. But that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortress. Shared standards reduce fragmentation. Complementarities are positive sum. The question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to this new reality.
We must.
The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls — or whether we can do something more ambitious. Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture. Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security is no longer valid.
Our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb has termed 'values-based realism' — or, to put it another way, we aim to be principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights. Pragmatic in recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values.
We are engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for the world as we wish it to be. Canada is calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values. We are prioritizing broad engagement to maximize our influence, given the fluidity of the world, the risks that this poses, and the stakes for what comes next.
We are no longer relying on just the strength of our values, but also on the value of our strength. We are building that strength at home. Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and business investment, we have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade, and we are fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, Al, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and beyond. We are doubling our defense spending by 2030 and are doing so in ways that builds our domestic industries.
We are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE, Europe's defence procurement arrangements. We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in the last six months. In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines, Mercosur. To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry- different coalitions for different issues, based on values and interests. On Ukraine, we are a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors to its defence and security.
On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland's future. Our commitment to Article 5 is unwavering. We are working with our NATO allies (including the Nordic Baltic 8) to further secure the alliance's northern and western flanks, including through unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, submarines, aircraft, and boots on the ground. On plurilateral trade, we are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, creating a new trading block of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we are forming buyer's clubs anchored in the G7 so that the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. On Al, we are cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure we will not ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyperscalers.
This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on diminished institutions. It is building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. And it is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.
Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu. Great powers can afford to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong - if we choose to wield it together.
Which brings me back to Havel. What would it mean for middle powers to "live in truth"? It means naming reality. Stop invoking the "rules-based international order" as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion. It means acting consistently. Apply the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.
It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the hegemon to restore an order it is dismantling, create institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion. Building a strong domestic economy should always be every government's priority.
Diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it is the material foundation for honest foreign policy. Countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation. Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world's largest and most sophisticated investors. We have capital, talent, and a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively.
And we have the values to which many others aspire. Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse, and free Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable, reliable partner—in a world that is anything but—a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term. Canada has something else: a recognition of what is happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is. We are taking the sign out of the window.
The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just. This is the task of the middle powers, who have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from a world of genuine cooperation. The powerful have their power. But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together. That is Canada's path. We choose it openly and confidently.
And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.
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