Ken Danby – At The Crease

Starting tonight with some good news stories.

In the New York Times, Stephen Marche writes a brilliant opinion piece: We Are All Canadians Now (gift link)

…American aggression and American decline are of a piece. As Mr. Carney has announced a slew of measures aimed at boosting Canada’s electric vehicle industry, nobody has argued for a moment that American equivalents could compete. By ending E.V. tax credits, Mr. Trump may have all but ensured that the American electric vehicle will one day be a thing of the past. America has decided not to compete. It would rather pose. If you are integrating yourself into the American sphere of influence, or whatever Mr. Trump’s national security apparatus calls it, you are integrating yourself into antiquity — or worse.
At the same time, America is becoming synonymous with dangerous randomness. The constitutional system is in collapse. The legislative branch, made up of both Democrats and Republicans, is missing in action. The Supreme Court debates the legal equivalent of how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, while the legal order that has held the country together for 250 years sputters toward an ignominious end. Nobody knows what America is anymore — not Americans, not their enemies, not their friends.
Coming to terms with this reality has not been easy in Canada. American exceptionalism is a hell of a drug; it’s hard to break the habit of thinking of Americans as the good guys. For Canadians, what is unfolding in Minnesota and elsewhere is happening to our friends, our neighbors, our colleagues, our kin — it is happening to people we love and understand better than anybody. But “the rupture,” as Mr. Carney calls
And now, the work begins. For better or for worse, what people most admire in Canada, certainly more than success, is the capacity to endure — no doubt a product of the brutality of the landscape. Atanarjuat, the hero of Inuit legend, survived a murderous plot by running through the snow naked. Terry Fox, as every Canadian schoolchild knows, ran a marathon a day for 143 days on a single leg to raise money for cancer. The idols of our national sport spit out their teeth and get back in the game. Mr. Carney’s speech offered a glimpse of that spirit, too. What liberal democracies need now, more than ever, is the sheer will to go on, without nostalgia for what once was.

The West is feeling its betrayal turn into rage. The world is waking up to both its vulnerability and its value. But better late than never: We’re all Canadian now.

As the weeks go by after Carney’s Davos speech, we are seeing even more clearly what an impact it is having on the world.

Crowd sings Oh Canada as Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand raises Canadian flag to officially open Canadian consulate in Nuuk, Greenland 🇨🇦🇬🇱

🎥 Credit CBCOlivia / via 𝕏
❤️🍁🇨🇦TEAM CANADA FOREVER🇨🇦🍁❤️
❤️🍁🇨🇦VIVE LE CANADA 🇨🇦🍁❤️

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— 🍁🇨🇦Team Canada Forever🇨🇦🍁 (@teamcanadaforever.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 5:50 PM

In Italy, Canada walks on stage:

Here’s a good one:

And wasn’t it funny when Vice President JD Vance got vigorously booed:

Moving on, I sure do seem to be saying “scum” a lot when I see US news these days:

ICE Gestapo scum

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— Cathie from Canada🍁 (@cathiecanada.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 8:54 PM

At Wonkette, Evan Hurst writes Trump Fed Kicks Schnauzer Puppy In Memphis, Because That’s What Happens Now Nothing is too on the nose.

… The dog’s name is Yoshi, and it’s a Schnauzer.
“My dog came out running,” said Hollingsworth in the video and article. “He was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And so the US Marshal had kicked him very hard, forcefully, for no reason.”
Hollingsworth took the puppy to the vet, whereupon she learned the fed had broken one of the puppy’s ribs. Hopefully Yoshi will be OK.
… the Memphis Safe Task Force is sort of a hybrid of Trump’s federal takeover of DC and his unleashing of the immigration Gestapo on Minneapolis, New Orleans, and other cities. …
… Puppy with broken ribs. Probably a paid agitator.
Trump’s thugs are nailing it with this hearts and minds shit.
Protect your fur babies, there’s bad guys out there….

ICE must be reined in. In Texas and everywhere else: Vote out the GOP, who are letting them run rampant.

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— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 6:00 PM

And today they scheduled a sudden hearing to try to deport the Ramos family again:

Breaking MS NOW:

The Department of Homeland Security *unsuccessfully* sought to expedite deportation proceedings against the family of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, according to a local school official.

At an asylum hearing Friday, the family was granted a continuance.
www.ms.now/news/dhs-rep…

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— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 6:25 PM

And it should be no surprise to anyone that Trump is a racist scum too.
Wednesday night, Trump posted this vile attack on the Obamas:

Last night, Trump posted a video to his social media platform that contained a racist clip showing Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys. It’s still up:

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— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 5:34 AM

Reaction was immediate, widespread, and horrified.

yeah, this explicitly does not happen in Trump admins. They view anything like this as weakness, if they actually got forced to take it down, the background noise was intense.

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— Schnorkles O’Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 11:19 AM

America has become a shit hole state of hate.
The White House posts KKK, Neo-Nazi trash but CNN reassures us that there is “bipartisan” outrage.
As if having a couple of Republicans get upset will make everything okay.
Nope.
Canada has a racist hate regime on our border.

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— Charlie Angus (@charlieangus104.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 6:12 PM

NEW STORY: Trump admits he was the one who found the video and asked that it be posted from his Truth Social account. Refuses to apologize.

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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 6:48 PM

As much as we want to rip them a new one for getting us into this mess, when people on the right come forward and apologize and admit they were wrong, we should probably welcome them to the light.

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— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) February 6, 2026 at 11:17 PM

Hakeem Jeffries isn’t equivocating any longer:

Here is the video of Hakeem Jeffries saying “fuck Donald Trump” for posting that racist video of the Obamas. (originally from his official Instagram account) www.instagram.com/reel/DUbeoy5…

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— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 4:05 PM

Here is one Canadian conservative politician with courage to call out Trump:

This is how the story ends:

American courage still exists.

Here is W. Kamau Bell talking to a Minneapolis coffee shop owner about what the courage of Minnesotans now:

I guess the Resistance is now called the “Anti-ICE Movement” by US media?

why do they keep making us sound so fucking cool

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— Cake or Death (@johngcole.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 8:15 PM

“the anti-ice movement”

the fucking anti-ice movement is sharon who has been a girl scout leader for 27 and phang li who carpools your kids to t-ball and James the guy from the deli who was apolitical until he watched ICE beat his buddy for looking brown

that’s the fucking anti-ice movement

— Cake or Death (@johngcole.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 8:23 PM

Like this guy:

Citizens of all types are stepping up to fight for our rights! Thankful for flight monitors like Nick Benson.

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— Sandia Blanca (@sandiablanca.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 12:19 PM

In his substack, Paul Krugman writes American Decency Still Lives When pushed far enough, Americans will do the right thing

… Yes, Americans still name the economy as the most important political issue. But moral outrage over the Trump administration’s brutality (and its corruption, but that’s a subject for another post) has exploded as a political force over the past two months.
There was substantial resistance to ICE’s attempts to intimidate Los Angeles and Chicago. But the response since the invasion of Minneapolis (and now all of Minnesota) began in December has been on another level, a mass nonviolent uprising reminiscent of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the color revolutions in the former Soviet empire.
MPR News reports that nearly 30,000 Minnesotans have been trained as constitutional observers, with another 6,000 volunteers registered to deliver food, give at-risk families rides, and so on. This is time-consuming, exhausting, dangerousactivism. Yet ordinary Americans in large numbers are willing to do it.
Cell phone cameras and whistles can’t completely stop ICE’s brutality and lawlessness. For some reason I’m especially troubled by tales of the many cars found abandoned in the middle of the street, their windows smashed and their occupants obviously abducted. But the resistance is throwing sand in the gears and producing acute frustration among the masked thugs, who have repeatedly been filmed drawing guns on citizens doing nothing but observing them.
And the public is not on the side of the thugs.
…an additional reason Democrats should go all out in opposing Trump’s deportation policies: They are an issue that won’t go away, while some of the economic issues might.
Here’s what I mean: Trump is not a consistent economic ideologue. He may instinctively side with oligarchs against workers, but he’s sometimes willing to coopt progressive ideas — as he did in calling for a cap on credit card interest rates. I don’t think he can turn around negative perceptions of the economy, but he will surely try.
But hatred of and brutality toward people of color are fundamental to Trump’s identity. He and his minions have responded to revulsion against their ethnic cleansing efforts by denying the reality of that revulsion, claiming that all the protesters and resisters are paid activists, and by doubling down on the brutality. I don’t think MAGA will change course; I don’t think it can change course.
So Trump’s war on immigrants is turning into a war against the decency of the American people. And it would be stupid as well as immoral to refuse to choose sides.

Inspirational:

Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.

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— Kieran Healy (@kjhealy.co) February 5, 2026 at 7:07 AM