Imagine the
following scenario.
The CEO of a
massive company that dominates all the markets it’s in holds a news conference
and announces, in all seriousness, that he has invented a perpetual motion
machine.
The reporters
who have been on the science beat for a while chuckle, turn off their tape
recorders and put away their notebooks. They stay at the news conference,
though, in expectation of some laughs and free coffee and pastries afterwards.
The general
assignment reporters might be skeptical. But in view of the CEO’s prominence, they
stay and take notes and collect the press kits afterwards.
Upon their
return to their newsroom, their editors chuckle just like the science reporters
did.
They tell
the reporters to spike the story. Or at least to phone up some physicists at
the local university to debunk the CEO’s claims and put their quotes high up in
the piece.
The gaggle of
“influencers” and “podcasters” also at the news conference react differently.
They post excited, fawning, uncritical pieces to their massive audiences, if
they haven’t already live-streamed the entire news conference.
But in mainstream
discourse, the idea the CEO had achieved perpetual motion would soon dissipate,
perhaps retaining an afterlife as a punchline for late-night talk show hosts
and the subject for some appropriately outrageous memes.
Now let’s
tweak the scenario slightly.
In this timeline,
the CEO adds that his perpetual motion machine can also “teleport” matter from
one location to another, just like the transporter in Star Trek, only more “beautiful.”
And he’s
going to use that capacity to teleport a squad of 19-year-old engineers into
the buildings of one of his competitors, a successful but much smaller rival
whose campus is located right next door.
Their orders
will be to engage in wholesale rape and pillage, destroying the other company
as a stand-alone entity and plundering whatever assets he wants to take.
He adds that
his competitor isn’t a “real company,” that the separation of their assets is
based on some “imaginary” legal fictions, says its natural role is to be a
subsidiary of his company, and tells sundry and assorted other lies about it.
After the
takeover, the rival company will continue exist, but only as a “cherished” subsidiary.
What should
the media people – real journalists and influencers alike - say about the CEO’s statement in this scenario?
I would
suggest they should not report on any details, particularly the ideas that the smaller
company can simply be annexed and doesn’t really exist.
I think,
both in headlines and in the body of their stories, they should confine themselves
to reporting the CEO was threatening the smaller company, or trying to bully or
intimidate it, without going into any of the egregious details.
In both
instances, the CEO’s basic assertions conflict with the fundamental laws of
physics, and reporting on them as if they were fact would be doing a disservice
to readers.
Unless you’ve
been deep underground or sequestered in the Arizona desert in preparation for
some deluded billionaire’s lamebrained attempt to colonize Mars, the scenarios
I’ve outlined are intended to parallel Trump’s campaign of intimidation against
Canada.
Here, in
what we reluctantly call the “real world,” I believe real journalists and the
pretend kind – influencers and podcasters – should abstain from reporting Trump’s
references to unilaterally annexing Canada.
The notion
of it becoming the “51st State” should be treated in the same way as
the reporters would treat the CEO’s patently absurd assertions about perpetual
motion in either of my scenarios.
That’s
because Trump’s conception of “annexing” Canada and it becoming the “51st
State” contradicts the logic of real-world geopolitics almost as completely as
perpetual motion defies the logic of physics.
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly took precisely the right stance at the meeting of G7 foreign ministers in La Malbaie, Quebec last week, when she told US Secretary of State Marc Rubio that annexing Canada was not a thing.
“What I said
to the secretary is Canada's sovereignty is not up to debate, period," she
said at the closing news conference of the G7 foreign
ministers meeting.
"There's
no argument, there's no conversation about it, there's no need to talk about
it," she said.
Rubio
attempted to depict it as a “disagreement.”
"There's
a disagreement between the president's position and the position of the
Canadian government," he said.
It’s not a
disagreement. It’s a non-sequitur.
We should
respond to Americans talking of annexation the same way we would respond to Americans
telling us that they had managed to square the circle, or had proven that
light, “injected directly into the body” would cure COVID-19, or had found a
principled Republican.
Trump talks
that way he does about Canada because he doesn’t live in the same world we live
in, whether that’s regarding science, history, sociology, or politics, domestic
or global.
As far as I
can discern, Trump’s world view is similar to that of a student in Grade 5 or 6,
a child around 10 or so, which would be broadly compatible with the average reading
level of adult Americans.
It’s a simple,
one-dimensional world view with big objects and bright lights, simplistic
dichotomies and broad definitions, but no nuance or complexity.
Like a lot
of 10-years who think they’re being clever, Trump sometimes seizes on one aspect
of a complex situation that seems peculiar or interesting to him
He notices
for instance, that borders are just lines artificially drawn on maps.
Trump then mistakenly construes from fact that borders are socially
constructed the idea that they don’t really exist and can simply be erased.
(I wonder if
thinks the border between the US and Mexico is different from the border
between Canada and the US because it follows a geographical feature, the Rio
Grande River, rather than the 49th parallel.)
All that Trump has really demonstrated is that
he doesn’t understand that a border is complex entity, a network or assemblage of
things both physical and mental.
It includes a
line on a map and the treaty that created it, but also the broad conventions
and agreements that sustains the international order, and physical things like the
border guards and customs and immigration agents that staff it.
It also incorporates
loyalties of the people who live on either side of in, including those in the
respective militaries.
Only a
simpleton would think that could just be “erased” at his behest.
The fact
that borders and nations and treaties are socially constructed points to a significant
difference between Trump’s belligerent posturing toward Canada and my imagined
CEO announcing his perpetual motion machine.
The physical
laws that make a perpetual motion machine impossible are not socially
constructed. The international order that creates borders and nations and
agreements between them is.
That does
mean those entities don’t exist or can be altered at some demented president’s
whim.
It does
mean, though, that they can be altered, over time, by the belief systems of the
people who participate in them.
As this may
be in part why Trump keeps repeating his absurdities about Canada.
By braying
away about them loudly and repeatedly, Trump could theoretically change the underpinnings
of the international order by eroding the belief systems that sustain it.
It’s a Big
Lie that, repeated often enough, comes at least partially true.
I don’t know
if that reflects a “method” to Trump’s madness or it’s just plain madness, but,
in a sense, it doesn’t really matter. The net effect, an attempt to undermine
the autonomy and sovereignty of another national and its peoples, is the same.
That’s
another reason I don’t believe journalists – or anyone else really – should
attach any credibility to Trump and his minions’ non-sequiturs about Canada by
repeating them as if they were legitimate conversational points.
It’s an awkward position for me.
When I was a
working journalist, I always believed in the policy of “give ‘em enough rope.”
I believed reporting people’s nonsensical statements as fully – and accurately –
as possible would reveal to readers their inherent lack of sense.
But the last
few years have demonstrated that people’s capacity to believe in absurd ideas
and narratives – and then act on them - is almost inexhaustible.
So perhaps
it’s best to convey the essence of Trump’s stance – to bully and belittle long-standing
ally and friend – without delving into the impossible visions conjured up by
his addled thought process.
That might
help ensure, in a small way, that the border remains in place.
And becomes, as well as the dividing line between two increasingly divergent countries, the place where the nonsense finally stops.
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