Last weekend’s summary execution of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection agents in Minnesota highlighted to millions of Americans the nature of the Trump administration. First, they killed a disarmed man in cold blood after these poorly trained thugs with a badge freaked out, or simply decided they could do it with impunity. Afterwards, the administration issued bald-faced lies about what happened, while taking the line that no one would get hurt if everyone simply shut up and stopped resisting.

This is the easiest thing to do when the other side has all the power, which makes Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s defiance all the more remarkable. The Trump administration has given the same mafioso ultimatum to Canada that it has to protesters, but on a grander scale—with the threat of annexation.

At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Carney’s speech was a pointed, stinging rebuke of Donald Trump and his jingoistic foreign policy. He referred to Trump as a “hegemon” and called for a break in existing U.S.-Canadian relations. “This bargain no longer works,” he declared.

This speech is historic, as it represents the most open, direct rebuke of and break with Trump and the United States by former allies to date. Carney mentioned the writings of Václav Havel, which explored how corrupt systems that clearly no longer work sustain themselves through fear, compliance in advance, and people refusing to contradict what is clearly a lie. However, the system (communism, in Havel’s analogy) crumbles when the first person refuses to go along with the lie and suffers no consequences as a result. In essence, Carney is doing exactly what you need to do to break the bystander effect.

Trump responded........

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