‘Canada, I Love You’ — My latest Hot Type column for Byline features a Q&A with Dr. Michael MacKay on US Naked Imperialism
Saturday’s Hot Type column Byline offers a reality check from Canadian geopolitical analyst and political philosopher Dr. Michael MacKay
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When I morphed pro-Russian tinpots into a GIF, you can better see how they all look like such cheap gangsters. Here’s a low-res sped up version, feel free to drop it behind enemy lines:
I am always learning more each day from Bette’s incredible global members, and I took some recent interviews from Dr. Michael MacKay, a political philosopher and frequent guest on RadPod and Bette, and fused them together for this week’s Hot Type column in Byline.
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Below is an excerpt from my most recent Hot Type.
There Are ‘Dark, Dark Days Ahead’ — A Warning From a Canadian Realist
Heidi Siegmund Cuda interviews Canadian geopolitical analyst Dr Michael MacKay about Donald Trump, Russia and the era of naked imperialism that is now coming our way
“Canada must face the new reality that the United States is a powerful enemy threatening annexation. For the first time in its history as a French colony, a British colony and a self-governing Dominion, Canada must prepare to defend the nation on its own – like Ukraine.”—Dr Michael MacKay
Whenever I need a pick-me-up, I always seek out Dr Michael MacKay’s Twitter feed. The geopolitical analyst from Ontario, Canada, has a way of cutting through the noise to get to the heart of things.
Likely, this is due to the time he spent working in Ukraine, as a lecturer and election observer. He has documented Russia’s war in Ukraine daily since 2014 on Twitter, now X, and now, he’s documenting America’s threats to Canada and beyond.
Mackay, who received a PhD from the London School of Economics, told me: “Canada must face the new reality that the United States is a powerful enemy threatening annexation. For the first time in its history as a French colony, a British colony and a self-governing Dominion, Canada must prepare to defend the nation on its own – like Ukraine.”
These are heartbreaking words, but it’s been a week of heartbreak. America’s adventurism in Venezuela, threats to Greenland, and Canada, its domestic brownshirts shooting people in the street, and its exiting of 66 global organizations has made a country once loved by so many now feared and even reviled.
The muti-layered Russian operation to install Donald Trump as President has been successful — if by success we mean destroying democratic institutions quickly and denigrating our allies.
As an American, I have loved and respected Canada my entire life — comforted by having a stable and friendly northern neighbor.
Many of my friends now live in Canada, among them former Yale professors and authors Marci Shore, her husband Timothy Snyder, and fascism scholar Jason Stanley.
In this Q&A with Michael MacKay, he expresses both fear and resolve for how to deal with America’s accelerating aggression.
Heidi Siegmund Cuda: I have always leaned on you in times such as these for your clear-eyed take, primarily in relation to the war in Ukraine. Let’s start there, since no matter how we view recent events, everything goes back to Ukraine.
Dr Michael MacKay: I see Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a war against the West, and I think it’s taken a long time, but more and more people see that’s what it is. That’s the context in which I always saw the Trump for President initiative — as a Russian active measure that exploited or poured gasoline on existing divisions in the United States.
But in Russia’s interest, the thinking is, even if Trump can’t do any real good for Russia, he can certainly do harm to the United States. This is the Russian way of thinking…
Getting to the events of the last few days, I see this as a manifestation of the accelerating trend towards fascism, or more properly, Russian fascism or ‘rascism’ in the United States. And I’ve talked a lot about how what is essential to this fascist project is, of course, the leader principle — that you know, ‘Trump is the great leader’, or whoever is the great leader, and the constant putting-down of democracy and the rule of law, but also the subversion of institutions.
And I’d said that the last institution to fall — or the last institution that is necessary to bring on board — was going to be the military. And this, to me, is what is the most concerning about the last month, because we now see that the military does not have any check of their constitutional oath anymore — that they will act on Trump’s whims.
Exclusively, we saw that with the bombing of Nigeria. We saw that with the killing of the drug runners in boats in the Caribbean Sea, and now we see it with this kidnapping of Maduro. It can be covered in so many ways. We see that the bombing of Nigeria was covered as an attack on ISIS, the bombing of the people in the boats was an attack on drug runners. Maduro was a horrible dictator, who had no legitimacy, and Venezuelans are, of course, very happy that he’s out of power. But this is not the reason why these acts were carried out for the Trump regime.
Heidi: I believe the reasons given are always just fig leaves to confuse Europe and placate the masses. And I used to hold hope that the military would defy Trump, but the purge at the top came first.
Michael: I’m very worried that I see the US military following Trump’s whims, his impulses — and we know he has no impulse control — wherever it will take them. And therefore, when Trump immediately goes to threaten Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Greenland, and therefore Denmark, and in the background, of course, there’s Canada with the 51st state talk — I take it very seriously.
It is naked imperialism, and it also suits Russia’s war against the West, because the quid pro quo is that the US will not support Ukraine, will not support European unity, will not oppose Russian or, of course, Chinese imperialism and a return to the spheres of influence.
So we see the attack on NGOs, the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, in fact, a collective security arrangement. This all suits the Russian imperialist NATO narrative, but also the Chinese imperialist narrative against Taiwan.
And now, of course, we see it with Trump. And so I see very, very dark days ahead.
Heidi: As always, I have to ask, do you see any rays of light?
Michael: The one hope that I want to give you of my impression from the last few days is that there’s no grand plan behind this. It is Trump’s impulses here, just like when Putin invaded Ukraine. His grand idea was to, of course, annihilate the Ukrainian people. It’s a genocidal war, but he has no capability or grand plan to carry it out.
When we see the actions in Venezuela, there’s just, ‘Oh, we will take their oil, in other words, we’ll become thieves. Oh, you know, Marco Rubio will govern it’. But it’s ill-formed. So my one hope is that although the United States, if it follows Trump, could certainly seize Greenland militarily, could certainly bomb my country and take it over militarily. But there is nothing behind it for an occupation. There’s nothing behind it for the sustained effort that it would take to maintain an empire.
In other words, the inefficiency and the corruption of the Trump regime means it can do great harm to these other countries, but it cannot build a lasting empire, so is this hope? Because in the meantime, there will be tremendous suffering, and of course, the reputation of the United States, I believe, is irrecoverable after this.
So I want to not react immediately, although, of course, it’s natural to do that. But frankly, these days, I’m concerned about my own country, understandably and our way of life. I want to, of course, analyze this with a cool head, but I’m very angry.
Heidi: That’s completely fair. I just want to read something you wrote today:
“I’m a Canadian. The Western Hemisphere is my home, which I share, respectfully with about 1.2 billion other people. This hemisphere does not belong to Putin puppet Trump, his crime syndicate or the Maga cult.”
It made me reflect back to Trump’s first administration, when Steve Bannon had to explain to him that he couldn’t just take campaign funds. He is lawless, we know that. He is a convicted felon, with the Supreme Court removing any brakes. America has a history of this kind of military adventurism. As our friend Monique Camarra says: “It’s not a new idea. Remember, Trump doesn’t come up with anything new. He just puts gold on it and sells it on TV.”
What’s new is having a president who works for Russia. What’s new is replacing diplomats with crime bosses, as you so aptly taught me when trying to explain why the son-in-law participates in what you call ‘Russia’s war wishlist talks.’ Seems the maskirova is getting less opaque.
Michael: That’s a key point that I want to make: in the months ahead, as we look at the Trump regime’s action against Greenland and possibly Canada, remember that there is no military justification for this whatsoever. There is no threat to US national security. And in fact, the US has the capability to do whatever it wants in its own national interest.
In both Greenland and Canada, they can open up 100 military bases in Greenland and station a million troops; existing agreements would allow them to do that. Of course, there’d be no support in the US for this, but the point is, they could do it in Canada. We’ve had NORAD since the 1950s. If the US wanted to station its entire Air Force and move it up to Canada for forward deployment, go right ahead, if you want to bear that expense and do it. So there is no military justification for it whatsoever.
Heidi: In 2020, a NATO insider shared with me a slide revealing how Trump was consistently pursuing Russia’s aims. I tweeted it out as soon as I received it, and I think about it often today…
Clearly, this list is being achieved wholly and methodically in Trump’s second term, and this week, with the invasion and kidnapping in Venezuela, we have seen a huge acceleration.
Michael: The only reason to target these countries is to destroy NATO, and as we noted, that serves Russia’s interest. Russia wants this above all. And don’t forget, this is the genesis of Trump as a Russian asset. He works for Russia, and therefore he will be the agent to destroy NATO.
Heidi: Michael, in one of our previous interviews, you taught me that Russia’s sloppiness makes them no less dangerous. And even more so, because they truly don’t care about how they’re perceived. It seems Trump has caught that contagion. I do think that part of Trump’s attack on Venezuela was to send a message to Europe, it’s a threat to European sovereignty. Do you see it that way?
Michael: Yes, it’s targeting Europe. And for another bit of hope, to see major leaders, a lot of them, stand with the Prime Minister of Denmark and say, ‘We stand with Denmark and Greenland and their sovereignty and territorial integrity. Just a couple hours ago, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did the exact same thing. He’s in Paris right now. So that is a bit of hope that Trump is not breaking the unity of what remains of democratic countries in NATO.
Heidi: I also did some maths, and added up all of Russia’s oil interest in Venezuela, all the percentages that it had, all the money that it loaned Maduro, et cetera. How sanctions gave Russia the opportunity to swoop in and pal up with Maduro. So I have to believe there are events that we don’t see, behind the events that we do see — like deals made when Putin is invited on American soil. The bottom line, Canadians have every reason to be worried about what’s happening in the United States and elsewhere. And combined with that is the fact that information warfare knows no borders.
Michael: My impression is one of the outgrowths of the 51st state threat is that I see more unity in Canada, less navel gazing, than we are prone to and less playing-up of our regional differences.
But I think there’s also a certain maturity about this, and it comes from the fact that Canada has always been an outward-looking country, open to the world, because we’ve never thought of ourselves as a so-called Great Nation. We’re kind of uncomfortable thinking about that, certainly we’ve never seen ourselves as an empire.
And so Canadians pride themselves on traveling more than most and actually considering other places for what they are as much as we can. And so what I see among people that follow me, for example, is an awareness about the agency of Ukrainians, even though they’re also not a great empire or anything, and they’re faced with a terrible enemy, but they stand up for themselves.
So I see people thinking practical things like, can’t we mass manufacture drones like the Ukrainians do? Because there’s no way we can ever have a conventional military advantage against the Americans. Certainly the numbers aren’t there. But you can see people grasping at something and saying, ‘Yeah, we could do that’.
Or people saying, ‘Canada could, within a short period of time, just a couple of years, revive a nuclear weapons program’, which we shut down in the 1950s, and more than any country in the world, Canada is one that could ramp up such a program very easily. And then it becomes a question, ‘Should we do that?’
So I see people grasping at things like that, which makes me very actually hopeful about my country. And I see all this 51st state stuff. I say, well, come on, that’s the bots. That’s the trolls. That’s being artificially generated. And it’s really not there, just like the whole Russian separatist stuff was in Ukraine starting in 2014 — so people cut through that noise as much as they can. It’s very difficult, and it’s very dark, but I’m actually pretty hopeful about what I see with my fellow Canadians.
I’m also very grateful for our Prime Minister Carney. He was the head of the Bank of Canada, and the head of the Bank of England.
It doesn’t get more impressive than that.
Heidi: Must be a relief to have such a competent leader in this moment in history. In our many interviews, you have always shared such a love for America. And it reminds me to go on loving my country despite the pain it’s causing. You also have reminded me that America has never been very good at dealing with treason. Maybe it’s time to get good at it.
Michael: Yes, past time, I think. And for one more message of hope: I remember that the United States was once the world leader in anti-racketeering. It broke the mobs for the 1920s and 30s, and was a model for the whole world. And we don’t forget that. And I think there’s got to be Americans who don’t forget it either.
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Dr Michael MacKay has a doctorate in political philosophy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has been engaged with Ukraine’s civil society since the renewal of independence, working as a university lecturer, the director of an Internet access project, and an election observer. Since the Revolution of Dignity and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 MacKay has been chronicling the war on Twitter at @mhmck and now on Bluesky at michaelmackay. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
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The above is an excerpt from my Hot Type column. As always, I ask those who can afford to support a small global team of investigative reporters to please take out a subscription to Byline Supplement.
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