00:00:00
Speaker 1: Today's guest is Brian Rathbun, Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. We are having a conversation about U.S.-Canada relations. I'm your host, Ramses Jha, and we were just talking about... Canadians and people outside of the United States not really appreciating how a person like Donald Trump could be elected and still be supported even at this point by as near as makes no difference 40% of the US population that would conceivably go out and vote for this guy again that's a fantastic place for any politician to start off on how could these people vote for this man again knowing what all he stands for. So I mentioned that I would put a thought out there and I'd love to get your thoughts, Brian, on your take. And then of course, to see if Canadians might accept that explanation. So around here, one of the things that we have to wrestle with on this show is telling the truth as we see it and wrestling with the reality that people will say, oh, we have a victim mentality, right? Black people have been victimized, certainly in this country, repeatedly by the government. It's well documented. It was well documented long before I was born. However, when you pull up the documentation and you say, hey, this country has not only racist history, has done racist things, but is actively engaging in racist behavior. And there are these structural elements in a society that continue to support white supremacist goals and continue to subjugate and marginalize the historically disenfranchised. That's not just black people, but it's primarily black people in this country. There are people that are very comfortable pushing back on that. Once you say racism, they check out of the conversation. However, I'm not just talking about the structural racism. I'm talking about the prejudices that lie in everyone's heart, right? And so there was a gentleman, he was, to be fair, a far right thinker that had an interview a long time ago with an Asian man. And I thought he gave some brilliant insight into what many people might be thinking. This is going to be a long road, but I hope you'll let me take you on this trip.
00:02:40
Speaker 2: I'm there. I'm right behind you.
00:02:42
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Okay, so this Asian man, this white man was sitting down. The Asian man poses the question. This is for Trump 1.0, not 2.0. He says to the white man, he says, Donald Trump's policies don't make any sense. He says, you're an intellectual. You know that Donald Trump's policies don't do anything for anybody but Donald Trump. You know that. This cannot stand up to any reasonable scrutiny. How can you justify your support of Donald Trump? And the white man says, you know, I appreciate that, you know, what effectually what he's communicating back, you know, I don't know it, you know, word for word, but he says, you know, I appreciate it, of course, all these things. And he says, the truth of the matter is that Donald Trump's policies, if implemented, will slow the dispossession of the United States of America from white people. And I think that.
00:03:37
Speaker 2: Some people have replacement stuff, right?
00:03:40
Speaker 1: Exactly.
00:03:40
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: Now, some people have that projected in the front of their mind. Tucker Carlson was guilty of that. Despite his about face, he's definitely guilty of putting the great replacement theory out there. And there's a lot of people that espouse that conspiracy theory and continue to to wield it to to garner support and stoke fear. However, there are some people that don't have it quite as pronounced in the front of their mind. And they simply have it resting in the back of their mind. And Donald Trump provides a sense of security to them, even though his policies make everything worse, even though they might not have cast a vote for Donald Trump because they hate Canada. They just wanted Donald Trump so bad because Donald Trump provided them that comfort. It's very scary for people who have felt like, okay, the history in this country has been problematic in the opinion of black people, whether or not I agree with or disagree with black people, but the opinion or sorry, the history has been problematic in their estimation for them. Barack Obama got elected. So black people are feeling a little bit more up now. If we elect a woman, namely Hillary Clinton, then we don't get our lick back. We're losing our country. We're losing our identity. We're losing who we are. And we've grown up very comfortable in this country. And we don't want to be uncomfortable. We don't want to walk down the street with people that don't fear us and fear the consequences of what our actions might introduce into their lives. And so Donald Trump provides a sense of, comfort to those folks. And so everything that comes with Donald Trump, Elon Musk, cutting agencies that really protect the intellectual future and interest of this country, strained foreign relations, we're clearly talking about Canada now, and on and on. It's a laundry list. All that just comes with it.
00:05:38
Speaker 2: Right, right.
00:05:39
Speaker 1: So I.
00:05:41
Speaker 1: So in short, I wanted to put that at your feet and see if that feels reasonable outside of my head, outside of this studio, outside of my worldview. And maybe Canadians might accept that as, okay, United States is racist and they're coming to terms with the changing attitudes with respect to race. And Donald Trump is a function or a symptom of their changing attitudes. they're, they're pushed back to those changes, I suppose. All right. Your thoughts.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this is, so this is a big, this is a big debate in, in the American politics fields. I'm a political scientist. I have a focus on foreign affairs, but I'm also interested in ideology and how ideology affects foreign affairs. So I follow this stuff, the research and what we know about the ideological dynamics within domestic politics in the United States. Right. And so one of the things you hear in the media, like how do we explain Trump? How do we explain right-wing populism writ large, Western Europe in particular, right? Like if we think that, you know, the AFD in Germany and the national rally in France and the foreign party in the UK and Trump are all birds of a feather, right? How do we explain that? And one of them is one of these kind of, the thing you see most often in the media is the idea that this is, This is a coalition of left behind people. People feel like, OK, globalization is screwing them over all their jobs or leaving for overseas, etc. There's not a lot of empirical data for that. Right. It's not a personal pocketbook thing. It's not like, oh, I lost my job. Therefore, I'm going to vote for this guy. It seems like there's much more empirical data for what's sometimes called status anxiety. And that statics, which is I used to be on top. I'm not on top anymore. And that status anxiety itself is oftentimes is really tied to race.
00:07:41
Speaker 1: I can see that.
00:07:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so and so it's like you're watching the community that you grow up with and you think it's not the community I recognize anymore. And and oftentimes it's because there's this expression that artwork. It's because racially it doesn't seem like it was before. And yet at the same time, there's this other vein of research that shows the people who are most hostile to immigration are places where there isn't immigration. So I don't really know how to square those circles, but it does seem this is not just about economics. It's about status. And there's definitely a racial component to it. Now, like one way of thinking about it is like, what is it like up here? Um, and it gets to some, I think that when you, when you look at the Canadian experience, I think what you start to see is how the American experience is quite unique. Um, and, and the big thing, I think that the United States it's, you know, it's original sin as if I think it's been called slavery. Right. Slavery means, uh, you know, slavery for the United States. We live it today because the consequences are there today. Right. fraught racial relations in the United States are always gonna be fraught because of slavery, right? Because there's the guilt question, right? But then there's the downstream economic consequences of slavery, of reconstruction, right? Of Jim Crow, all of that, right? And that you don't feel in Canada. And so this is something I noticed when I got here. what American relate racial relations are always fraught, right? Like when, when, um, when a white person and a black person in the United States interact, right. Race is always on their mind. It's just always there. Right. And even for well-meaning people, I'm talking, I'm not talking for, you know, it's obviously on your mind. If you're overtly prejudiced, if you, if you, if you, if you judge people by the, by the color of their skin, but even the sensitivity that comes with, uh, with, feeling guilty about slavery, wanting to do something about it, is going to color the way that I interact with Black people in America. And it's a curse, right, in a certain way, right? And I don't think Canadians, because they don't have that direct experience with slavery, there's, of course, there's racial tensions here. There's histories of discrimination here. Um, we do not have a great track record in terms of antisemitism. Um, a lot of, a lot of the, uh, of the slaves who escaped, um, uh, after, uh, through the underground railroad and who came up here after the American revolution left. Right. Um, because they couldn't quite feel comfortable here because they did feel that there was prejudice here, um, in the economic opportunity. So it's not like this place is perfect. But I think because we don't have that history of slavery that just colors everything, we don't have the same status anxiety concerns on the part of white people when it comes to immigration and things like that. So our immigration debate, when I was here, when I arrived two years ago, Canada had this big immigration boom. They had been giving a lot of visas, particularly student visas, to people from all across the world, a ton from the global south, right? And the student visas could then be turned into residence visas, right? And so there was this feeling like it was pressing on the housing market I don't know economically whether that's true or not, right? But there was definitely resistance to further immigration and it's gone too far. It didn't feel to me racially hostile. It felt to me more economic. Now I could be wrong. And of course, like you mentioned, right? A lot of this is implicit. We might say housing prices are too high because of all these immigrants, right? I might say that. Is that what I really think? Or do I just not like the idea that the demographic composition of my of my country is changing. So maybe we do have the same problems the Americans do, but it will always be easier for Canadians. I think because, um, because not everything is filtered through the lens of the past. Even if you don't know the past in the U S you feel the past, even if you don't know it. Yeah.
00:12:33
Speaker 1: I'd go with that. I appreciate that. Um, that that's not an experience I've had because I think to your point, everything is always felt very racial, right?
00:12:42
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
00:12:43
Speaker 1: With all this hair, I take a lot of blackness into every room that I walk into. And so you're not wrong in that, you know, you definitely feel that. Well, you've been very generous with your time and certainly providing us with some insight. I'm certainly hopeful. You know, I think in the back of a lot of people's minds over the years before Donald Trump, you know, you always think of Canada as this place where you can go and feel Like you're not just black people, but like if you get sick in the U.S. and nobody cares, you can go to Canada. They'll take care of you.
00:13:16
Speaker 2: Right.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: So so, you know, it always felt like this bad turns to worse. There's Canada. You know what I mean? And so my hope is that, you know, the day will come when, you know, obviously no man lives forever. You know, no movement lasts forever.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Right.
00:13:37
Speaker 1: The nature of all things is to change. Right. And so, you know, I'm the optimist out of me and Q. I'm more the optimist. Q is more the realist. He's certainly not a pessimist. But I want to ask before you go, what do you think the future holds for U.S.-Canada relations? Do you think that we're in a quasi-permanent, you know, frozen state of animosity and anger?
00:14:07
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't say so. And going back to what I was saying before, it's I think, you know, my guess and I think we know this a little bit from the polling information out there. This is really a Donald Trump issue. It's not it's it's not it's not a people to people issue. But at some point, like I met, like I also said, right, we Canadians are going to stop understanding that as an excuse. Right. And they also have to, even if they understand it, they have to prepare for the uncertainty and the unpredictability of the relationship. Right. And that's, that's, that's a huge conversation in Canada right now. And it's, it's, it's both on the military side and the economic side.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: Well, give me some.
00:14:59
Speaker 2: Oh, okay. So what that means is like, if, if we at any moment in time, the United States might decide to, hey, by the way, that trade agreement we just signed with you for the third time, right? We're going to get rid of that. We think we can get a little bit more out of it. That creates uncertainty in your economic environment. So you want to have alternative markets because the domestic market's not big enough. This is our big problem, right? It's our size. All right. The challenge is geography because We're far from everybody but the U.S., right? We've got to put stuff on tanker ships, things like that. And for the longest time, we were neglecting that. So depending on how you feel about fossil fuels, right, which I'm not wild about, but this is what we got. We have a lot of fossil fuels here. Okay, well, we couldn't really export those very well. We can't export our natural gas because we don't have a port that can handle that. This is what the Carney, Prime Minister Carney is trying to do, is trying to diversify our trading relationships so that we can prepare for the instability of the United States. And then the military side, similarly, right? So we have, on the one hand, we have an American ally that's increasingly unreliable. We don't know if they're going to be there for its alliance partners, right? Are they going to do something if a NATO ally is attacked, right? that thing. And then of course, we've got the 51st state stuff, which is that, oh crap, we might be the target. I don't think that's, I'm not terribly worried about that. And yet at the same time, what I, but like as a practical, as you know, as a, as an actual tangible thing, what I'm worried about is the American public willing to elect a man who will say stuff like that. Right. And that's what, and that's what Canadians are really worried about. Like this country is just, It's unstable, so how much can we rely on an unstable place? And unfortunately, right, I'd like to be optimistic, but these things take time to change. It's not just one election. And that's why I think 2020 was, sorry, 2024 was so difficult for us as Americans, which was, okay, fine, you try this disruptor out for four years, And, you know, he he changes everything and he throws everything into chaos. And then everyone, oh, God, they come to their senses and they and they, you know, they get rid of them. And then he comes back. And I think that's just it's huge for us as Americans. Right. Because, OK, this is bigger. This is not just a temporary moment of frustration. This is deep. It's structural. It's reflecting something like you said, like status, anxiety or all this, whatever it is. Right. This is not going away soon. And then, of course, like the the foreign partners of of the United States also have to deal with that fact. Right. This is not going away. That it's going to be at the very best erratic. And that uncertainty is terrible for providing security for yourself, military security. Right. And it's also terrible for providing economic security. So you have to hedge. And and that's what the Carney government is in the is in the process of doing.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that, uh, at least as far as the, um, the Trump base, the MAGA movement, uh, those people are now more emboldened than ever. Um, and so that's something that you, you definitely feel. Uh, and I, I would imagine that Canadians, they're concerned for those types of individuals, uh, that American exceptionalism on steroids, um, is, is definitely something that would cause Canadians to rethink their relationship with individual Americans. Real quick points. I want to circle back to this, but real quick point. I feel like, and I've said this quite a bit on the show, and I have a little bit of data that, that supports this thinking, but I feel like, uh, the U S is Joe Biden's in particular support of Israel, uh, in their response to the attacks on October 7th and the devastation of the leveling of the Gaza Strip really caused a lot of people to simply sit the election out who would have otherwise voted for a Kamala Harris or a Joe Biden. But Kamala Harris, she was fighting an uphill battle with that one hanging over her, even though it wasn't her administration. So not all Americans were for Donald Trump. Some people, I don't know why the logic eludes me, but some people are like, you know what? I just won't get involved. Now let me circle back, as I mentioned. um, I, I, I think I would do my listeners a disservice if I did not ask a question that I, I do ask frequently on this show, which is what can we do? And that doesn't really work in this context, but I think I got a way to ask. I got a way to ask it.
00:20:07
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:20:08
Speaker 1: So tell us, in your opinion, as a person who went from the U.S. to Canada and maybe has observed people that come from the U.S. to Canada, what Canadians think about Americans, the individuals, not Donald Trump and not necessarily MAGA folks, but decent folks who might listen to this conversation and might interact with Canadians or find themselves in Canada. Uh, what do Canadians think about Americans? What do they misunderstand about American Americans? And perhaps what can Americans know to be better, uh, neighbors, brothers and neighbors to Canadian folks if, and when we actually do interact.
00:20:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, I think the, the number one thing is that, uh, you know, I'd like to, I'd like to ask Americans, your, your listeners, right. My, my countrymen, um, to know more about Canada, right? The big thing that Canadians think about Americans is that, is not that what Americans think about Canada, it's that they don't think about Canada at all. Right? They take it for granted as this benign, very nice, kind of boring place up north where it's really cold. And And what does that mean? They don't come up here. They don't really know us.
00:21:30
Speaker 1: Right.
00:21:31
Speaker 2: And they don't and they don't they don't know our country. And we go down there and spend all our money and visit all their great national parks and, you know, and take timeshares and Boca Raton or whatever. Right. But they're not up here. And so what I'd like to say, you know, just be no more about Canada, your neighbor. right? It's a country that has great affinity for the United States. All the Canadians, I haven't met any Canadian ever. And, you know, we're talking about ordinary people that, you know, that I meet in the context of my daily life, my colleagues, right? The various leaders that come through the monk school, which we're fortunate enough to have, right? None of these people People relish this, right? Almost all of them love the United States in certain ways, right? They recognize its faults, right? But they don't want this. And so I'd like Americans to know that, and I'd like Americans to think more about Canada because they're like, yeah, of course, at any point in time, you can pick on someone who has a hard time fighting back, but why would you want to do that? What does that say about you as a person? Um, and as a, and as a citizen of country, why would you want to do that? Like that's, uh, that's what I would, that's what I would recommend. And it's a simple thing, right? Um, you know, and if you're, you know, if you're, if you're hurt somehow, you're an American business and you're getting hurt by the tariffs, okay, write your Congressman, do all that thing that's already happening. Um, and it's, it's unclear whether that has any effect because this, this administration operates, operates on a different set of, a different understanding of politics is not responsive to the voters. It's only, you know, we're thinking about he'll be gone in two years. We all hope, right. Not all of us hope, but, um, I think even Republicans hope frankly, right. Uh, cause I'm not saying this is a Democrat or a progressive or whatever. I'm saying this as a, uh, as an American, right. I think we want, we want, uh, more adult leadership. It'd be good on, um, So it will, it will to some degree, right itself, but there's going to be a certain amount of, uh, uh, repair that's necessary. And I think that can happen at the level of, of the, uh, of the, of basic human level interaction, right? Just come up here, talk to us, um, learn what's great about the place. I think you'll like it.
00:24:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hey, I'll take that, man. Uh, I think your point is well-made when you, when you mentioned that, um, you wouldn't want to pick on someone who's smaller than you just because, uh, I, if I may, I'd like to take that a step further because I recognize that, um, if you weren't picking on this person, you would have one less adversary. And in the case of Canada, you'd have one more full fledged ally. We didn't get to get into the military relationship too much between the U S and Canada, but it is deep enough to be something worth considering. However, um, I remember reading that Canada has about the same population. It's a huge country, but it has about the same population as the state of California. And California, of course, is a very big state. And it's in very economically prosperous state. California does very well. And my understanding is that Canada does too, historically so. But as you mentioned, it's largely based on the relationship with the US. And so why Donald Trump needs to put his name or the name America on everything is, I mean, I have my suspicions, I kind of delineated a few, you know, is, you know, the things that he's done, you know, to kind of confirm my suspicions, or at least illuminate where they come from. But But yeah, you know, his obsession with creating chaos or changing names or whatever it is he's trying to do can strain that relationship. But I think reasonable, sensible people that understand that we are stronger together, regardless of how strong we are, we're going to be stronger together. And another thing that I mentioned on a recent episode when we first talked about the straining of this relationship was that One of the great advantages that America enjoys is that we are kind of surrounded. Once upon a time, this was a little bit more true, but you'll appreciate this. We're surrounded. We have an ocean on either side of the country. So it's hard to get to us from the sea. We have a fantastic infrastructure. We got roads and crisscross the whole country. So we can get missiles and bombs and tanks all over the place. And, you know, to the north and to the south. we have strong allies. So a ground invasion, uh, would be very challenging. Um, if someone were to try to, you know, they'd first have to, you know.
00:26:48
Speaker 2: Provide all these, we provide all these, um, you know, we're in, we're in this, um, this, uh, uh, thing called NORAD, which allows us to coordinate our defenses and allows us to sort of look over the horizon, which was huge during the cold war, right? Sure. That we, the Americans want to know if something's coming and who could tell them, We can.
00:27:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:27:06
Speaker 2: So Trump oftentimes complains that we're taking advantage of the U.S. in terms of military security. And that's not really true. We've got those oceans and the fact that that, you know, a good part of this country is frozen solid. That's that's that's our ultimate defense. What can the Russians do in the North Pole and freeze to death? Yeah. So, yeah, and that relationship is longstanding and the militaries really don't want to disrupt it. Right. The the generals really don't like messing with this relationship because it's mutually beneficial. Anyway, so, yeah, like why would you make turn a friend that you're in which in which. So friendships, you know, friendships are are social bonds.
00:27:47
Speaker 1: Right.
00:27:48
Speaker 2: But they're also friendships are reciprocity based. Right. You provide support to you, provide support to us. And why would you go and make, and why would you go and turn a mutually beneficial relationship that also has a strong social foundation to it? Why would you mess with that? And I think that's, I think maybe Canadians wouldn't necessarily articulate it precisely that way, but that's what they feel. That's what's going on. When you get mad, you're like, dude, I thought we were good. What's going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:20
Speaker 1: Well, you know, not all of us feel that way. Some of us feel like we were good and we want to get back good. And conversations like that.
00:28:28
Speaker 2: But you still got to pay attention to it some more, Ramses. This is what I'm saying. Yeah.
00:28:32
Speaker 1: And then I think that we're doing our job the right way to move us back in that direction. So I appreciate your time. I'm sure our listeners appreciate your time as well. Come back anytime and talk to us more as things develop.
00:28:46
Speaker 2: Happy to do so. Yeah, yeah.
00:28:47
Speaker 1: Once again, today's guest, is Brian Rathbun, Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. Do me a favor real quick. Any social media you want to plug? Anything like that so people can.
00:28:59
Speaker 2: No, man, I'm off the grid. Okay, stay off the grid, man.
00:29:02
Speaker 1: Don't worry. Keep your peace. Not mad at you. Just wanted to give you the opportunity, but we do appreciate it.
00:29:07
Speaker 2: I got a website. You can look me up. I assume it's operational. I have no idea. Oh, just Google me Brian Rapp in my school. Fair enough.
00:29:16
Speaker 1: That works for us. All right, man. Well, again, thank you for coming on. It's been a joy and hopefully we'll be able to talk soon under better circumstances.
00:29:25
Speaker 2: All right. I hope so too, Ramsey.
Speaker 1: Today's guest is Brian Rathbun, Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. We are having a conversation about U.S.-Canada relations. I'm your host, Ramses Jha, and we were just talking about... Canadians and people outside of the United States not really appreciating how a person like Donald Trump could be elected and still be supported even at this point by as near as makes no difference 40% of the US population that would conceivably go out and vote for this guy again that's a fantastic place for any politician to start off on how could these people vote for this man again knowing what all he stands for. So I mentioned that I would put a thought out there and I'd love to get your thoughts, Brian, on your take. And then of course, to see if Canadians might accept that explanation. So around here, one of the things that we have to wrestle with on this show is telling the truth as we see it and wrestling with the reality that people will say, oh, we have a victim mentality, right? Black people have been victimized, certainly in this country, repeatedly by the government. It's well documented. It was well documented long before I was born. However, when you pull up the documentation and you say, hey, this country has not only racist history, has done racist things, but is actively engaging in racist behavior. And there are these structural elements in a society that continue to support white supremacist goals and continue to subjugate and marginalize the historically disenfranchised. That's not just black people, but it's primarily black people in this country. There are people that are very comfortable pushing back on that. Once you say racism, they check out of the conversation. However, I'm not just talking about the structural racism. I'm talking about the prejudices that lie in everyone's heart, right? And so there was a gentleman, he was, to be fair, a far right thinker that had an interview a long time ago with an Asian man. And I thought he gave some brilliant insight into what many people might be thinking. This is going to be a long road, but I hope you'll let me take you on this trip.
00:02:40
Speaker 2: I'm there. I'm right behind you.
00:02:42
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Okay, so this Asian man, this white man was sitting down. The Asian man poses the question. This is for Trump 1.0, not 2.0. He says to the white man, he says, Donald Trump's policies don't make any sense. He says, you're an intellectual. You know that Donald Trump's policies don't do anything for anybody but Donald Trump. You know that. This cannot stand up to any reasonable scrutiny. How can you justify your support of Donald Trump? And the white man says, you know, I appreciate that, you know, what effectually what he's communicating back, you know, I don't know it, you know, word for word, but he says, you know, I appreciate it, of course, all these things. And he says, the truth of the matter is that Donald Trump's policies, if implemented, will slow the dispossession of the United States of America from white people. And I think that.
00:03:37
Speaker 2: Some people have replacement stuff, right?
00:03:40
Speaker 1: Exactly.
00:03:40
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: Now, some people have that projected in the front of their mind. Tucker Carlson was guilty of that. Despite his about face, he's definitely guilty of putting the great replacement theory out there. And there's a lot of people that espouse that conspiracy theory and continue to to wield it to to garner support and stoke fear. However, there are some people that don't have it quite as pronounced in the front of their mind. And they simply have it resting in the back of their mind. And Donald Trump provides a sense of security to them, even though his policies make everything worse, even though they might not have cast a vote for Donald Trump because they hate Canada. They just wanted Donald Trump so bad because Donald Trump provided them that comfort. It's very scary for people who have felt like, okay, the history in this country has been problematic in the opinion of black people, whether or not I agree with or disagree with black people, but the opinion or sorry, the history has been problematic in their estimation for them. Barack Obama got elected. So black people are feeling a little bit more up now. If we elect a woman, namely Hillary Clinton, then we don't get our lick back. We're losing our country. We're losing our identity. We're losing who we are. And we've grown up very comfortable in this country. And we don't want to be uncomfortable. We don't want to walk down the street with people that don't fear us and fear the consequences of what our actions might introduce into their lives. And so Donald Trump provides a sense of, comfort to those folks. And so everything that comes with Donald Trump, Elon Musk, cutting agencies that really protect the intellectual future and interest of this country, strained foreign relations, we're clearly talking about Canada now, and on and on. It's a laundry list. All that just comes with it.
00:05:38
Speaker 2: Right, right.
00:05:39
Speaker 1: So I.
00:05:41
Speaker 1: So in short, I wanted to put that at your feet and see if that feels reasonable outside of my head, outside of this studio, outside of my worldview. And maybe Canadians might accept that as, okay, United States is racist and they're coming to terms with the changing attitudes with respect to race. And Donald Trump is a function or a symptom of their changing attitudes. they're, they're pushed back to those changes, I suppose. All right. Your thoughts.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this is, so this is a big, this is a big debate in, in the American politics fields. I'm a political scientist. I have a focus on foreign affairs, but I'm also interested in ideology and how ideology affects foreign affairs. So I follow this stuff, the research and what we know about the ideological dynamics within domestic politics in the United States. Right. And so one of the things you hear in the media, like how do we explain Trump? How do we explain right-wing populism writ large, Western Europe in particular, right? Like if we think that, you know, the AFD in Germany and the national rally in France and the foreign party in the UK and Trump are all birds of a feather, right? How do we explain that? And one of them is one of these kind of, the thing you see most often in the media is the idea that this is, This is a coalition of left behind people. People feel like, OK, globalization is screwing them over all their jobs or leaving for overseas, etc. There's not a lot of empirical data for that. Right. It's not a personal pocketbook thing. It's not like, oh, I lost my job. Therefore, I'm going to vote for this guy. It seems like there's much more empirical data for what's sometimes called status anxiety. And that statics, which is I used to be on top. I'm not on top anymore. And that status anxiety itself is oftentimes is really tied to race.
00:07:41
Speaker 1: I can see that.
00:07:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so and so it's like you're watching the community that you grow up with and you think it's not the community I recognize anymore. And and oftentimes it's because there's this expression that artwork. It's because racially it doesn't seem like it was before. And yet at the same time, there's this other vein of research that shows the people who are most hostile to immigration are places where there isn't immigration. So I don't really know how to square those circles, but it does seem this is not just about economics. It's about status. And there's definitely a racial component to it. Now, like one way of thinking about it is like, what is it like up here? Um, and it gets to some, I think that when you, when you look at the Canadian experience, I think what you start to see is how the American experience is quite unique. Um, and, and the big thing, I think that the United States it's, you know, it's original sin as if I think it's been called slavery. Right. Slavery means, uh, you know, slavery for the United States. We live it today because the consequences are there today. Right. fraught racial relations in the United States are always gonna be fraught because of slavery, right? Because there's the guilt question, right? But then there's the downstream economic consequences of slavery, of reconstruction, right? Of Jim Crow, all of that, right? And that you don't feel in Canada. And so this is something I noticed when I got here. what American relate racial relations are always fraught, right? Like when, when, um, when a white person and a black person in the United States interact, right. Race is always on their mind. It's just always there. Right. And even for well-meaning people, I'm talking, I'm not talking for, you know, it's obviously on your mind. If you're overtly prejudiced, if you, if you, if you, if you judge people by the, by the color of their skin, but even the sensitivity that comes with, uh, with, feeling guilty about slavery, wanting to do something about it, is going to color the way that I interact with Black people in America. And it's a curse, right, in a certain way, right? And I don't think Canadians, because they don't have that direct experience with slavery, there's, of course, there's racial tensions here. There's histories of discrimination here. Um, we do not have a great track record in terms of antisemitism. Um, a lot of, a lot of the, uh, of the slaves who escaped, um, uh, after, uh, through the underground railroad and who came up here after the American revolution left. Right. Um, because they couldn't quite feel comfortable here because they did feel that there was prejudice here, um, in the economic opportunity. So it's not like this place is perfect. But I think because we don't have that history of slavery that just colors everything, we don't have the same status anxiety concerns on the part of white people when it comes to immigration and things like that. So our immigration debate, when I was here, when I arrived two years ago, Canada had this big immigration boom. They had been giving a lot of visas, particularly student visas, to people from all across the world, a ton from the global south, right? And the student visas could then be turned into residence visas, right? And so there was this feeling like it was pressing on the housing market I don't know economically whether that's true or not, right? But there was definitely resistance to further immigration and it's gone too far. It didn't feel to me racially hostile. It felt to me more economic. Now I could be wrong. And of course, like you mentioned, right? A lot of this is implicit. We might say housing prices are too high because of all these immigrants, right? I might say that. Is that what I really think? Or do I just not like the idea that the demographic composition of my of my country is changing. So maybe we do have the same problems the Americans do, but it will always be easier for Canadians. I think because, um, because not everything is filtered through the lens of the past. Even if you don't know the past in the U S you feel the past, even if you don't know it. Yeah.
00:12:33
Speaker 1: I'd go with that. I appreciate that. Um, that that's not an experience I've had because I think to your point, everything is always felt very racial, right?
00:12:42
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
00:12:43
Speaker 1: With all this hair, I take a lot of blackness into every room that I walk into. And so you're not wrong in that, you know, you definitely feel that. Well, you've been very generous with your time and certainly providing us with some insight. I'm certainly hopeful. You know, I think in the back of a lot of people's minds over the years before Donald Trump, you know, you always think of Canada as this place where you can go and feel Like you're not just black people, but like if you get sick in the U.S. and nobody cares, you can go to Canada. They'll take care of you.
00:13:16
Speaker 2: Right.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: So so, you know, it always felt like this bad turns to worse. There's Canada. You know what I mean? And so my hope is that, you know, the day will come when, you know, obviously no man lives forever. You know, no movement lasts forever.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Right.
00:13:37
Speaker 1: The nature of all things is to change. Right. And so, you know, I'm the optimist out of me and Q. I'm more the optimist. Q is more the realist. He's certainly not a pessimist. But I want to ask before you go, what do you think the future holds for U.S.-Canada relations? Do you think that we're in a quasi-permanent, you know, frozen state of animosity and anger?
00:14:07
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't say so. And going back to what I was saying before, it's I think, you know, my guess and I think we know this a little bit from the polling information out there. This is really a Donald Trump issue. It's not it's it's not it's not a people to people issue. But at some point, like I met, like I also said, right, we Canadians are going to stop understanding that as an excuse. Right. And they also have to, even if they understand it, they have to prepare for the uncertainty and the unpredictability of the relationship. Right. And that's, that's, that's a huge conversation in Canada right now. And it's, it's, it's both on the military side and the economic side.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: Well, give me some.
00:14:59
Speaker 2: Oh, okay. So what that means is like, if, if we at any moment in time, the United States might decide to, hey, by the way, that trade agreement we just signed with you for the third time, right? We're going to get rid of that. We think we can get a little bit more out of it. That creates uncertainty in your economic environment. So you want to have alternative markets because the domestic market's not big enough. This is our big problem, right? It's our size. All right. The challenge is geography because We're far from everybody but the U.S., right? We've got to put stuff on tanker ships, things like that. And for the longest time, we were neglecting that. So depending on how you feel about fossil fuels, right, which I'm not wild about, but this is what we got. We have a lot of fossil fuels here. Okay, well, we couldn't really export those very well. We can't export our natural gas because we don't have a port that can handle that. This is what the Carney, Prime Minister Carney is trying to do, is trying to diversify our trading relationships so that we can prepare for the instability of the United States. And then the military side, similarly, right? So we have, on the one hand, we have an American ally that's increasingly unreliable. We don't know if they're going to be there for its alliance partners, right? Are they going to do something if a NATO ally is attacked, right? that thing. And then of course, we've got the 51st state stuff, which is that, oh crap, we might be the target. I don't think that's, I'm not terribly worried about that. And yet at the same time, what I, but like as a practical, as you know, as a, as an actual tangible thing, what I'm worried about is the American public willing to elect a man who will say stuff like that. Right. And that's what, and that's what Canadians are really worried about. Like this country is just, It's unstable, so how much can we rely on an unstable place? And unfortunately, right, I'd like to be optimistic, but these things take time to change. It's not just one election. And that's why I think 2020 was, sorry, 2024 was so difficult for us as Americans, which was, okay, fine, you try this disruptor out for four years, And, you know, he he changes everything and he throws everything into chaos. And then everyone, oh, God, they come to their senses and they and they, you know, they get rid of them. And then he comes back. And I think that's just it's huge for us as Americans. Right. Because, OK, this is bigger. This is not just a temporary moment of frustration. This is deep. It's structural. It's reflecting something like you said, like status, anxiety or all this, whatever it is. Right. This is not going away soon. And then, of course, like the the foreign partners of of the United States also have to deal with that fact. Right. This is not going away. That it's going to be at the very best erratic. And that uncertainty is terrible for providing security for yourself, military security. Right. And it's also terrible for providing economic security. So you have to hedge. And and that's what the Carney government is in the is in the process of doing.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that, uh, at least as far as the, um, the Trump base, the MAGA movement, uh, those people are now more emboldened than ever. Um, and so that's something that you, you definitely feel. Uh, and I, I would imagine that Canadians, they're concerned for those types of individuals, uh, that American exceptionalism on steroids, um, is, is definitely something that would cause Canadians to rethink their relationship with individual Americans. Real quick points. I want to circle back to this, but real quick point. I feel like, and I've said this quite a bit on the show, and I have a little bit of data that, that supports this thinking, but I feel like, uh, the U S is Joe Biden's in particular support of Israel, uh, in their response to the attacks on October 7th and the devastation of the leveling of the Gaza Strip really caused a lot of people to simply sit the election out who would have otherwise voted for a Kamala Harris or a Joe Biden. But Kamala Harris, she was fighting an uphill battle with that one hanging over her, even though it wasn't her administration. So not all Americans were for Donald Trump. Some people, I don't know why the logic eludes me, but some people are like, you know what? I just won't get involved. Now let me circle back, as I mentioned. um, I, I, I think I would do my listeners a disservice if I did not ask a question that I, I do ask frequently on this show, which is what can we do? And that doesn't really work in this context, but I think I got a way to ask. I got a way to ask it.
00:20:07
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:20:08
Speaker 1: So tell us, in your opinion, as a person who went from the U.S. to Canada and maybe has observed people that come from the U.S. to Canada, what Canadians think about Americans, the individuals, not Donald Trump and not necessarily MAGA folks, but decent folks who might listen to this conversation and might interact with Canadians or find themselves in Canada. Uh, what do Canadians think about Americans? What do they misunderstand about American Americans? And perhaps what can Americans know to be better, uh, neighbors, brothers and neighbors to Canadian folks if, and when we actually do interact.
00:20:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, I think the, the number one thing is that, uh, you know, I'd like to, I'd like to ask Americans, your, your listeners, right. My, my countrymen, um, to know more about Canada, right? The big thing that Canadians think about Americans is that, is not that what Americans think about Canada, it's that they don't think about Canada at all. Right? They take it for granted as this benign, very nice, kind of boring place up north where it's really cold. And And what does that mean? They don't come up here. They don't really know us.
00:21:30
Speaker 1: Right.
00:21:31
Speaker 2: And they don't and they don't they don't know our country. And we go down there and spend all our money and visit all their great national parks and, you know, and take timeshares and Boca Raton or whatever. Right. But they're not up here. And so what I'd like to say, you know, just be no more about Canada, your neighbor. right? It's a country that has great affinity for the United States. All the Canadians, I haven't met any Canadian ever. And, you know, we're talking about ordinary people that, you know, that I meet in the context of my daily life, my colleagues, right? The various leaders that come through the monk school, which we're fortunate enough to have, right? None of these people People relish this, right? Almost all of them love the United States in certain ways, right? They recognize its faults, right? But they don't want this. And so I'd like Americans to know that, and I'd like Americans to think more about Canada because they're like, yeah, of course, at any point in time, you can pick on someone who has a hard time fighting back, but why would you want to do that? What does that say about you as a person? Um, and as a, and as a citizen of country, why would you want to do that? Like that's, uh, that's what I would, that's what I would recommend. And it's a simple thing, right? Um, you know, and if you're, you know, if you're, if you're hurt somehow, you're an American business and you're getting hurt by the tariffs, okay, write your Congressman, do all that thing that's already happening. Um, and it's, it's unclear whether that has any effect because this, this administration operates, operates on a different set of, a different understanding of politics is not responsive to the voters. It's only, you know, we're thinking about he'll be gone in two years. We all hope, right. Not all of us hope, but, um, I think even Republicans hope frankly, right. Uh, cause I'm not saying this is a Democrat or a progressive or whatever. I'm saying this as a, uh, as an American, right. I think we want, we want, uh, more adult leadership. It'd be good on, um, So it will, it will to some degree, right itself, but there's going to be a certain amount of, uh, uh, repair that's necessary. And I think that can happen at the level of, of the, uh, of the, of basic human level interaction, right? Just come up here, talk to us, um, learn what's great about the place. I think you'll like it.
00:24:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hey, I'll take that, man. Uh, I think your point is well-made when you, when you mentioned that, um, you wouldn't want to pick on someone who's smaller than you just because, uh, I, if I may, I'd like to take that a step further because I recognize that, um, if you weren't picking on this person, you would have one less adversary. And in the case of Canada, you'd have one more full fledged ally. We didn't get to get into the military relationship too much between the U S and Canada, but it is deep enough to be something worth considering. However, um, I remember reading that Canada has about the same population. It's a huge country, but it has about the same population as the state of California. And California, of course, is a very big state. And it's in very economically prosperous state. California does very well. And my understanding is that Canada does too, historically so. But as you mentioned, it's largely based on the relationship with the US. And so why Donald Trump needs to put his name or the name America on everything is, I mean, I have my suspicions, I kind of delineated a few, you know, is, you know, the things that he's done, you know, to kind of confirm my suspicions, or at least illuminate where they come from. But But yeah, you know, his obsession with creating chaos or changing names or whatever it is he's trying to do can strain that relationship. But I think reasonable, sensible people that understand that we are stronger together, regardless of how strong we are, we're going to be stronger together. And another thing that I mentioned on a recent episode when we first talked about the straining of this relationship was that One of the great advantages that America enjoys is that we are kind of surrounded. Once upon a time, this was a little bit more true, but you'll appreciate this. We're surrounded. We have an ocean on either side of the country. So it's hard to get to us from the sea. We have a fantastic infrastructure. We got roads and crisscross the whole country. So we can get missiles and bombs and tanks all over the place. And, you know, to the north and to the south. we have strong allies. So a ground invasion, uh, would be very challenging. Um, if someone were to try to, you know, they'd first have to, you know.
00:26:48
Speaker 2: Provide all these, we provide all these, um, you know, we're in, we're in this, um, this, uh, uh, thing called NORAD, which allows us to coordinate our defenses and allows us to sort of look over the horizon, which was huge during the cold war, right? Sure. That we, the Americans want to know if something's coming and who could tell them, We can.
00:27:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:27:06
Speaker 2: So Trump oftentimes complains that we're taking advantage of the U.S. in terms of military security. And that's not really true. We've got those oceans and the fact that that, you know, a good part of this country is frozen solid. That's that's that's our ultimate defense. What can the Russians do in the North Pole and freeze to death? Yeah. So, yeah, and that relationship is longstanding and the militaries really don't want to disrupt it. Right. The the generals really don't like messing with this relationship because it's mutually beneficial. Anyway, so, yeah, like why would you make turn a friend that you're in which in which. So friendships, you know, friendships are are social bonds.
00:27:47
Speaker 1: Right.
00:27:48
Speaker 2: But they're also friendships are reciprocity based. Right. You provide support to you, provide support to us. And why would you go and make, and why would you go and turn a mutually beneficial relationship that also has a strong social foundation to it? Why would you mess with that? And I think that's, I think maybe Canadians wouldn't necessarily articulate it precisely that way, but that's what they feel. That's what's going on. When you get mad, you're like, dude, I thought we were good. What's going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:20
Speaker 1: Well, you know, not all of us feel that way. Some of us feel like we were good and we want to get back good. And conversations like that.
00:28:28
Speaker 2: But you still got to pay attention to it some more, Ramses. This is what I'm saying. Yeah.
00:28:32
Speaker 1: And then I think that we're doing our job the right way to move us back in that direction. So I appreciate your time. I'm sure our listeners appreciate your time as well. Come back anytime and talk to us more as things develop.
00:28:46
Speaker 2: Happy to do so. Yeah, yeah.
00:28:47
Speaker 1: Once again, today's guest, is Brian Rathbun, Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. Do me a favor real quick. Any social media you want to plug? Anything like that so people can.
00:28:59
Speaker 2: No, man, I'm off the grid. Okay, stay off the grid, man.
00:29:02
Speaker 1: Don't worry. Keep your peace. Not mad at you. Just wanted to give you the opportunity, but we do appreciate it.
00:29:07
Speaker 2: I got a website. You can look me up. I assume it's operational. I have no idea. Oh, just Google me Brian Rapp in my school. Fair enough.
00:29:16
Speaker 1: That works for us. All right, man. Well, again, thank you for coming on. It's been a joy and hopefully we'll be able to talk soon under better circumstances.
00:29:25
Speaker 2: All right. I hope so too, Ramsey.
