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PaperclipPerfector  20d ago (text post)   31993 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 10, 2025

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On the American side, I can see a case to be made for "stronger together" generally, but I feel like if Trump were serious about this, he's going the wrong way: winning hearts and minds would be the first step to doing so.

On the other hand, there are relatively few (peaceful) examples of nations unifying successfully. Notionally the EU seems to intend to do that, with discrete steps taken, but hasn't agreed to form, say, a single army together yet. The US Constitutional Convention maybe counts as an example, and IMO proves the point that we are stronger united as 50 states, but if you were trying to do it today, I can't imagine getting Texas, Florida, California, and New York to agree both to throw in their lot together and to let DC be in charge of them.

What I want most of all, is something like the EU - total trade union (so no customs at all), and free movement. If we ended up with that, I would build Donald a statue

Hey, thanks to Trump you might finally get a customs union within Canada.

Totally, if anything this might actually create political capital to build some pipelines, get rid of internal trade barriers, etc.

It's a real mind fuck to want Trump to lose but not to lose so soon that everyone goes back to business as usual.

I think that would have been possible as a goal six months ago. Less so, today. Although that would probably require more harmonization of national security and immigration concerns, I think compromises could have been worked out.

total trade union (so no customs at all)

*customs union

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