Not looking hard enough

If your answer is that it doesn't make any sense, it is probably that you are not looking hard enough at what is going on.

The previous few days for Canada have been a wild ride and have raised the standard level of stress in the population a significant degree. Trump's whipsawing of position, statements that do not seem to match the actions, excuses that do not match the reasons, and outcomes that seem to not match the reality of the stated solution make people more than a little confused.

It does not help when the media are asking one dimensional questions about "what Trump wants" to "what is this really about" to "none of this make sense."

The public deserve some better analysis. Weirdly, you do not have to look back too far to find the analysis.

Before Trump was elected, there was a lot of discussions and warnings about what we should avoid doing in response to Trump. Things like avoiding the idea that he means what he says, that we should analyse the psychology of the statements, that we should only pay attention to one of the things instead of looking wholistically at what is happening. We were warned that we should also avoid thinking that there is no plan or that it is all the work of some madman.

The Trump program is not "Trump" only. Trump is the facilitator. He may be in charge in terms of decision making, but he is in charge of a program, of people, and of interests.

The financial and standard press have forgotten all these warnings that they themselves wrote not too long ago in their analysis and reporting on the last few days.

The Trump team has openly said that they plan on attacking the press with multiple things at the same time, knowing they cannot report on the details on all of them. The far-right politics are to dazzle with the ridiculous while doing a bunch of relevant things the press cannot focus on.

This is not to say that the ridiculous do not also have a goal.

In Canada, we are facing this "ridiculous, but grounded in the relevant" narrative. And, making sense of it takes a wholistic view of what is going on in the USA and how it is advancing certain interests.

It is about fentanyl. But, that's not what is driving the policy. I suspect that the policy around fentanyl has to do with:

• a domestic narrative that makes it look like it is being addressed
• a desire to actually do something to stop it but not that big of a desire that they actually want to invest in saving people
• it being a particularly useful excuse to use executive powers for tariffs
• it being a very confusing issue for opponents of Trump to deal with because it is such an obvious issue for the USA

It is an extremely good foil for this kind of strategy.

But, let's look at what is actually driving the policy of tariffs and trade/investment wars.

The far-right playbook in the USA is to destroy the US state and refashion it as an arm of their movement. They see the state as an obstacle to their program because it is too grounded in liberal ideology, facts, and secular visions of American power.

Inside the USA the end-point of neoliberal policy is being carried out. The total privatization of state operations through the complete dismantling of the protective state's operations. This has little to do with the rest of the world, except that the rest of the world has come to depend on the USA's international policing program because the USA made it that way through force.

Since this organization of the state is internal, we tend to forget that the news cycle is having trouble understanding what is going on. They are too focused on the ridiculous things, like launching trade wars with their neighbours, dealing with crises of plan crashes, talk of Venezuela and immigration, watching ridiculous senate confirmation hearings, wondering about invading Panama and Greenland, and hearing that the EU and Canada do not treat their country "well."

It is a show. An attention diverting program of serious problems that cover other serious boring things happening. It is all part of a very serious program of redirecting the USA's and the world's entire politics.

It is about interests. Very specific interests who benefit from all the demands.

• Who benefits from the particular type of militarization of the border?
• Who benefits from the disruption of the operations of the state?
• Who benefits from the move of USAID to under the state department?
• Who benefits from the specific type of trade war rhetoric and/or real actions?
• Who benefits from pointing at Canada's regulated banking sector?

The questions are not one dimensional and the answers are not simply derived.

The liberals are not used to being in this position. History shows us that liberalism works when they are winning and need to respond to singular policy issues. The liberal ideology does not contemplate not winning or being able to advance their arguments to achieve their "perfect capitalist economy."

Our response must instead lean on a clear-eyed view of the whole system from the type of capitalist economics Trump is actually waging to the politics of division and diversions.

Canada's leverage rests on our actual advantages, not in trying to mimic the American advantage.

Our advantage is our solid (but diminished) state institutions that support solidarity across the vast area and array of resources that Canada is. Our strength is the massive diversity within the working class across different cultures and backgrounds that allow connections to every part of the world, it is the ingenuity that comes from the type of work we must engage in to survive in this climate.

We must look to these parts of ourselves to respond to the new threats to our democratic sovereignty and economy.

It is the Left that have these answers and capacity to negotiate. To give here, but take over there.

We have tuned it at our negotiating tables. Hardened it over years of losing but winning enough to stand still in the face of overwhelming power of capital. It the working class who know that power is gained by leveraging solidarity in action but only because we are prepared to use that leverage.

The USA is undergoing what the far-right call a "revolution." It is a false revolution, a revolution of specific capital over the working class.

Let's not forget that revolution is actually our flag. We are going to have to bring that zeal (and strategic knowhow) to the current struggle.