[ The original version of this article is incorrect, so I’m substituting its content with this gem from business pundit Scott Galloway on the tariffs being levied by the U.S. on products from Canada. I’ve preserved the original article at the end. ]
Scott Galloway appeared on Amanpour & Co. yesterday, and tells this story about Canada that includes a Holocaust survivor’s definition of “friend”:
Think about Canada, Hari. It’s the largest undefended border in the world. What does that tell you about our relationship to this point with Canada?
They joined us in World War I, they were in World War II before us, training Allied Pilots, they were side by side with us in Kosovo in our fights against the Taliban, amazing economic Prosperity — we have NBA and NHL teams in America and in Canada respectively.
And I love that question, Hari, that was presented by a holocaust Survivor around evaluating who are your real friends, and that is it comes down to one question for her: “Who would hide me?”
And that’s a really puncturing kind of rattling question to evaluate your friends by, but by that standard Canada is one of our best friends.
In the Iran hostage crisis, they hid American diplomats and under great personal risk, ensured their safe escape from Iran, and they stayed behind —and had they been caught, there was a good chance they would have been hanged from from cranes. So Canada has hid us. They are real friends, and for us to recklessly, irrationally, and inexplicably try to hurt them in exchange for what might be some “big beautiful deal” — the damage here to unwind and repair will take the better part of the 80 years it took to make these amazing prosperous relationships that quite frankly, the administration, in my view, is
irrationally taken for granted.
Here’s Galloway’s interview on Amanpour & Co., with the video set to start at the part about tariffs and Canada:
As a Canadian living in the U.S. and married to an American, I hope it won’t take decades to repair the damage that the Trump administration has done to the relationship in mere weeks, but their capacity, willingness, and maniacal enthusiasm for doing that isn’t going to stop anytime soon.
The original version of this article
Once again, the material below is not correct — I’m leaving it here to help spread the fact that this popular argument is, in fact, not true.
Here’s a photo of U.S. Customs (yes, you clear U.S. Customs on the Canadian side, meaning you don’t have to do it when you land in the U.S.!) at Toronto’s Pearson Airport from spring break 2024:
…and here’s a photo from spring break 2025:
That’s what happens when you betray, slander, and threaten to annex a long-standing good neighbor, trading partner, stalwart ally, and friend.
This isn’t an abdication of American power. This isn’t mismanagement. This is a deliberate disassembly of the building blocks of American power, and security, and safety.
This isn’t anything that I would think any American would ever want, much less orchestrate, which has pushed me into the realm of some conspiracy theories.
I think we now need to consider that the Russians really have penetrated the White House.
And while I think it’s a stretch to say that this is like a Manchurian Candidate sort of situation, there are too many things happening that seem too tailored to hobble American capacity long run, and everything that was on this list is something that the Russians have tried before:
NATO is something they’ve been trying to destroy since the fifties, and now we have the possibility of the U.S. just walking away.
The military has been the bulwark of global security, and so gutting it from the inside is something they would love to see.
Our intel system has been the canary in the coal mine and it appears that Trump is either not receiving or not reading the daily brief that the agency produces for him every day.
The food supply situation in the United States has long been the world’s safest, and now we’re not even testing to maintain it?
The demographics of Russia is one of the main reasons why the Russians are facing such a bleak long-term future, but if you interfere with the vaccine schedule in the United States, you can start increasing the death rate in Americans — not just under 20, but under 5 — and start to equalize that situation.
Watch the video, which is the first in a series on events from the Russian perspective — how they see the world, influence world events, and “given the chance, how they would redirect American policy to serve their interests.”
Lesson 3 from Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: “Beware the one-party state.”
In the past couple of Notes for the kakistocracy, I posted the first two lessons from historian Timothy Snyder’s book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Here’s lesson 3: Beware the one-party state.
Timothy Snyder’s message here is loud and clear: If you don’t want to live under a dictatorship, don’t let one party take over everything. Simple, right? But history says we tend to miss the warning signs until it’s too late.
Look at Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or any number of regimes that started out with elections and political competition — until they didn’t. One party (or one leader) rigs the system, crushes opposition, and suddenly, democracy is just a decorative word they slap on sham elections. At that point, voting becomes about as meaningful as clicking “Accept All Cookies” on a website — you don’t really have a choice.
So what can you do? Give a damn. Vote. Pay attention when politicians start talking about “reforms” that make it harder to vote or easier to sideline opponents. Call out power grabs when you see them. Democracy doesn’t clean up after its often messy self — it only works if enough people actively keep it from rusting over.
TL;DR: If you don’t want to end up in a country where elections are just a formality, make sure the system stays fair while you still have a say. Because once a one-party state is locked in, good luck getting it unstuck.
The better Vance: JD Vance’s cousin Nate was a volunteer soldier in a Ukrainian battalion
JD Vance’s cousin, Nate Vance, fought on the front lines in Ukraine, and was pretty good at it too. When he heard that cousin JD was telling falsehoods about Ukraine and Zelenskyy, he tried contacting him several times — unsurprisingly but disappointingly, to be met with silence.
The (formerly conservative-by-French-standards, now centrist-by-French-standards) French newspaper Le Figaro, which has been around since the early 1800s, has an exclusive interview with Nate Vance.
Since the original article was in French and in a paper that many Americans might not have heard of, I’ve posted an English translation of the article. Check it out!
Canadian quote of the moment: “Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.”
Because I am a Canadian, I’m familiar with this aphorism attributed to Canadian clergyman-turned-author Basil King:
Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.
This is actually a shortening of what he wrote:
Go at it boldly, and you’ll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.
Not only is it a time for boldness, but also for forming mighty forces. If you see someone being bold, be part of those forces that come to their aid.
Le Figaro, a daily newspaper in France that’s been around since 1826, has published an exclusive story and interview with Nate Vance, JD Vance’s cousin, who spent three years in Ukraine, two and a half of which were in combat.
Nate definitely doesn’t agree with his cousin or his cousin’s boss, saying “Donald Trump and my cousin clearly think they can placate Vladimir Putin. They are wrong. The Russians are not about to forget our support for Ukraine. We are Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots.”
Read the whole article below — then share it! The fact that it’s in French and from a newspaper many Americans might not have heard of may limit its exposure within the U.S., and it’s something people should know about.
‘We are Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots’: Nate, JD Vance’s first cousin and volunteer fighter in Ukraine
EXCLUSIVE – The Texan spent three years in Ukraine, two and a half of which he fought on the bloodiest fronts. He despairs of the position of his cousin and Donald Trump.
When Nate heard his cousin JD Vance attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office of the White House, he flew into a rage. In his camper van, lost on the roads of the American West that he has been crisscrossing since his return from Ukraine in January 2025, Nate was disappointed. Disappointed in this cousin, a few years his junior – Nate is 47 – whose integrity he has never stopped defending. ” JD is a good guy, intelligent, ” he explains . “When he criticized aid to Ukraine , I told myself that it was because he had to please a certain electorate, that it was the game of politics. But what they did to Zelensky (with Donald Trump, Editor’s note) was an ambush of absolute bad faith ,” he fulminates.
Nate and JD share grandparents: JD’s mother Beverly is the sister of Nate’s father, James. The two men have vacationed together, in Middletown, with JD’s family, or in California, where Nate’s family briefly lived. JD Vance’s career took off in 2016 when he published Hillbilly Elegy , which chronicles his chaotic childhood as a “little white boy” in Appalachia. In 2023, he was elected senator from Ohio. The following year, in 2024, he became the 50th vice president of the United States alongside Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Nate chooses to embark for Ukraine and its muddy trenches, to fight the Russians.
Vance family photo, New Year’s Eve 2012. JD poses with his wife in the center, Nate is on the right.
“ Being your family doesn’t mean I’m going to accept you killing my comrades ,” Nate Vance fumes. The soldier methodically responds to his cousin’s argument, stressing the benefits the United States has gained from its involvement in the war, the good use of American equipment on the front lines… “ I was disappointed. When JD justifies his distrust of Zelensky by the “reports” he’s seen , I thought I was going to choke, ” he complains. “His own cousin was on the front lines. I could have told him the truth, without pretense, without personal interest. He never tried to find out more ,” he sighs. However, Nate has tried several times to contact his cousin. “ From Ukraine, reaching a senator is not easy ,” he admits. “ But I left messages at his office. I never heard from him ,” the soldier laments.
“I wanted to help”
Nate Vance’s service record tells the story of the conflict. The Texan took part in the deadliest battles of the war: Kupiansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Pokrovsk … In the few photos that retrace his three years spent in Ukraine, Nate displays the discreet confidence of a professional soldier. The colossus whose gray beard eats into his cheeks blends into the mass of his Ukrainian comrades. However, he chose to hang up his weapons in early January, a few days before his cousin’s inauguration as vice president. Until then, Nate had always been discreet about his relationship with Donald Trump’s running mate. ” It had become complicated to stay. I couldn’t take the risk of being captured ,” he says simply.
Nothing really predisposed Nate Vance to enlist in a Ukrainian volunteer battalion to fight the Russian army. Nate did spend four years in the army, in the Marines, but that was twenty years ago, between the ages of 18 and 22. From 2001 to 2022, he led the quiet life of an average American in San Antonio, Texas. For years, he patiently climbed the ladder of an oil company. His social media footprint shows a man of deep-rooted Republican convictions, practicing hunting and sport shooting.
When war broke out in 2022, Nate quickly realized that this conflict was different from others. “ I wanted to go see. Out of curiosity. And for the adventure too. It’s not very admittable, but it’s the truth ,” he confides. In March 2022, three weeks after the invasion began, Nate went to Lviv, in western Ukraine, which had become, during the first months of the war, the nerve center of international humanitarian assistance. “ I wanted to help in some way, in logistics or medical support. I could see that history was being written in front of me, I wanted to be part of it ,” he continues.
Nate Vance (left) in the town of Tetyanivka, on the front line, with another soldier from the Gonor unit.
One morning, at a hotel, the former Marine meets a British volunteer, looking for foreigners with military experience. The Ukrainian army was integrating thousands of new fighters each week, who had to be trained before sending them to the front. ” They were looking for anyone who had ever held a weapon in their hands. It was the most basic training,” Nate remembers. Under his authority, workers, bartenders, teachers parade… For just one week. “A lot of them were so young. Almost children. It was terrifying ,” the former soldier recalls. So, when a group of particularly motivated young volunteers offered to accompany him to the front, Nate accepted. He returned to the United States for a few weeks , to return in June 2022. This time, he headed to Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, where the fighting was raging.
Trench warfare
“ He was much older than us. Much older than the other foreign volunteers, even, ” recalls Dima, who fought with him in the battalion, nicknamed “Da Vinci’s Wolves,” after the unit’s founder. “ On the first day, we went to the shooting range. He took a simple Kalashnikov, without a sight, and set up 800 meters from the target. Everyone laughed at him. When he hit the metal target five times in a row, the laughter stopped ,” he laughs. In the evening, the unit’s officers gather to plan upcoming operations. “ A lieutenant was listing our equipment needs. The commander interrupted him: ‘I only need Nate and his Kalashnikov.’ That’s how Nate got into the group ,” adds another of his comrades.
Nate joined Honor, a group of Ukrainian nationalists who were already on the front lines in 2014 during the Maidan revolution. “Some of them were just kids. But they had a rage, a strength ,” he confides. Over the weeks, Nate learned to navigate among these new comrades, who all volunteered to join the front. “ There were lawyers, teachers, engineers… They left everything to defend their homeland ,” he sighs.
Nate Vance in the frontline town of Tetyanivka, resting in a bunker a few hundred meters from the Russian lines across the river, in the summer of 2022.
Despite the language barrier, Nate helped professionalize this volunteer unit , which was not yet formally integrated into the regular army. “ It was more of a militia than a unit. A group of citizens who organized and equipped themselves to defend their country ,” describes the Texan. “ And the real difference between a militia and a professional unit is the effectiveness of communication. So that’s what we worked on ,” he adds. In the unit, few soldiers spoke English, and the beginnings were difficult, until he met “Alf,” a muscular nuclear engineer and father who spoke fluent English. “ He became my Ukrainian chaperone ,” he jokes.
Faced with incomprehension
For two and a half years, Nate lived with this brotherhood he had chosen for himself. His unit evolved. From a volunteer regiment assigned to support missions, the “Da Vinci Wolves” were given increasingly demanding assignments. ” Now we are an assault unit. Our job is to attack positions or defend them ,” summarizes Serhii Filimonov, the current commander of the battalion. ” I have to admit, it was not the same as my missions with the Marines in Europe ,” laughs Nate. Modestly, the veteran recounts the trenches and the death, the mud and the blood. The comrades who fell, the enemies he killed. ” Giving death is not trivial, that’s for sure. But there is not much to say. You compartmentalize your mind. You don’t think about it ,” he says simply.
“ Nate is an excellent fighter, with remarkable composure ,” recalls Serhii Filimonov, the battalion’s current commander. In his command center near Pokrovsk, where his unit holds the southern flank of the city, the imposing 30-year-old tries to count the times he thought he was going to die alongside Nate Vance. “ Fifteen times we should have died. Fifteen times we got away ,” he smiles. Serhii recalls the trench in the Bakhmut region where the two men were trapped for hours in 2023 under the methodical pounding of Russian artillery. “ That time, we said goodbye ,” he recalls.
Retired from the battlefield, Nate is now looking for a publisher to publish his war memoirs. “ I hope to continue to defend Ukraine in a different way, it needs it, ” he says, modestly. A lifelong Republican, he now faces incomprehension from people with whom he has always agreed. Even in his own family. On Facebook, his mother, Donna, adopts JD Vance’s vehemence against Volodymyr Zelenky, going so far as to call him a “ pretentious little shit . ” From the arid roads of the American West that he now crisscrosses, Nate despairs over the latest developments in the conflict and the American turnaround. “ Donald Trump and my cousin clearly think they can placate Vladimir Putin. They are wrong. The Russians are not about to forget our support for Ukraine. We are Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots ,” he laments.
Maybe the real fraud was the fraud that DOGE made up along the way
The Legal Eagle YouTube channel’s latest video is a great summary of the fraud that Elon Musk and his DOGE minions have found — and it’s nowhere near as much as they claim.
Among some of the points made in the video:
Much of the spending that DOGE have tried to cancel was already approved by the Congress — that is, the legislature. In other words, that spending was law. If there are problems with such spending, there’s a process for reviewing and changing it, and DOGE ain’t part of it.
DOGE made a lot of false claims, such as “Condoms for Gaza.” The truth:
60% of the federal workforce work at the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, and Trump promised not to touch them (although 1,000 people in Veterans Affairs have already been let go). The remaining 40% account for $108 billion, and even if you managed to fire 1 in every 3 of them, you’d have a $72 billion in savings. That’s paltry compared to what you’d save if you cut what the government pays in subsidies to the very profitable oil industry: $757 billion.
I’m fine with auditing government spending, but by actual auditors, and not Dollar General Lex Luthor.
So it’s with some distaste that I quote him here, but what he said in his summary of the mobster-style shakedown that Trump give Volodymyr Zelenskyy last Friday, but damn it, the philandering milquetoast has a point…
Brooks:
I was nauseated, just nauseated. All my life, I have had a certain idea of about America, that we’re a flawed country, but we’re fundamentally a force for good in the world, that we defeated Soviet Union, we defeated fascism, we did the Marshall Plan, we did PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) to help people live in Africa. And we make mistakes, Iraq, Vietnam, but they’re usually mistakes out of stupidity, naivete and arrogance.
They’re not because we’re ill-intentioned. What I have seen over the last six weeks is the United States behaving vilely, vilely to our friends in Canada and Mexico, vilely to our friends in Europe. And today was the bottom of the barrel, vilely to a man who is defending Western values, at great personal risk to him and his countrymen.
Donald Trump believes in one thing. He believes that might makes right. And, in that, he agrees with Vladimir Putin that they are birds of a feather. And he and Vladimir Putin together are trying to create a world that’s safe for gangsters, where ruthless people can thrive. And we saw the product of that effort today in the Oval Office.
And I have — I first started thinking, is it — am I feeling grief? Am I feeling shock, like I’m in a hallucination? But I just think shame, moral shame. It’s a moral injury to see the country you love behave in this way.
Presidential counselor Alina Habba on veterans fired by DOGE: “Perhaps they’re not fit to have a job at this moment.”
She said:
You know, we care about veterans tremendously. But at the same time, we have taxpayer dollars, we have a fiscal responsibility to use taxpayer dollars to pay people that actually work.
That doesn’t mean that we forget our veterans by any means, we are going to care for them in the right way, but perhaps they’re not fit to have a job at this moment or not willing to come to work.
And we can’t, you know, I wouldn’t take money from you and pay somebody and say sorry, you know, they’re not going to come to work. It’s just not acceptable.
In the previous Notes for the Kakistocracy, I posted the first lesson from historian Timothy Snyder’s book, On Tyranny, which was “Do not obey in advance.” Here’s the second: Defend institutions.
“Elbows up!”
Kudos to fellow Canadian and Torontonian Mike Myers — not just for his performance as Elon Musk in Saturday Night Live’s cold open last Saturday, but for his T-shirt at the closing…
…and this gesture, which any good Canadian will recognize:
That’s “elbows up!”, a hockey (and also boxing) expression that means “protect yourself and fight back,” and it’s become a popular catchphrase in light of the Trump tariffs, which are completely unjustified and whose purpose is to weaken Canada to make it easier to take over.
Another Sunday, another “picdump!” Here are 200+ memes, pictures, and cartoons floating around the internet that I found interesting or relevant this week. Share and enjoy!
There’s a photo that’s been making the internet rounds — the one on the right — that I inlcuded in this picdump. Turns out that it’s AI generated; Snopes has the receipts. I’m leaving it here, but clearly marked so you’ll know which photo it is and that it’s a fake.
Kakistocracy, meaning a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. Its root is the Greek work kakistos, meaning “worst.”
This is a regular series of posts on The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century on surviving, thriving in, and countering the kakistocracy in the U.S. and around the world.
Last Week Tonight on Facebook and Content Moderation
If you haven’t yet watched this Last Week Tonight piece, watch it now. Note that at the end of the segment, John Oliver shows you how to make yourself less valuable (and less profitable) for Facebook.
The National Lawyers Guild of Detroit and Michigan remind you: “Shut the fuck up!”
There’s a reason why the first line of Miranda is “You have the right to remain silent.”
Lesson 1 from Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: “Do not obey in advance”
History professor Timothy Snyder has been studying European tyrants throughout history and has derived 20 lessons that are applicable in the U.S. under Trump. Here’s the first one, and it’s key: Do not obey in advance.
Adam Conover: No one is coming to save us (so we’d better do it ourselves)
Adam Conover reminds us that if you want to see change in this country from its current state of ass-clownery (and remember, it hasn’t even been two months since the inauguration — image the damage MAGA can do over a year), it requires organizing and taking action, and there are plenty of historical precedents.
