[a_cardboard_box]

As a Canadian I've never seen us so united on anything political. Canadians are extremely proud of how slightly-not-American we are. It's our defining cultural identity. Telling us we should become the 51st state, threatening a trade war, and being impolite about it? Oh you betcha we're mad.

[sympil]

We’ve threatened taking over all of or parts of Denmark, Canada, and Panama. It is a long term losing strategy to threaten allies. I don’t understand why Maga supporters in the U.S. thinks it’s a good idea to threaten our allies. I wish my state would secede and join Canada. I no longer want to be a part of the U.S.

[inverted_flag]

> I don’t understand why Maga supporters in the U.S. thinks it’s a good idea to threaten our allies.

They take for granted the US's position at the top of the global order. They assume these countries have now choice but to kowtow to the US.

[basementcat]

My understanding is an electoral majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the current "globalist" world order in which many parts of the world are gradually converging towards cultural homogeneity. As an example in the past few months I’ve enjoyed deliciously unhealthy Tteokbokki in Aix-en-Provence, Budapest, Kyoto and Oakland.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tteokbokki

My conservative friends prefer a more isolationist foreign policy with less trade and fewer alliances. Furthermore they prefer that "food in America should stay American, food in China should stay Chinese" and cultures should not be "polluted" by foreign influence.

[eesmith]

Your conservative friends sound as xenophobic as the Americans a century ago who derided wine as being non-American, as part of their hatred of (Catholic) southern European immigrants.

What, pray tell, is American food?

Hawaiian Poi? New Mexican green chile stew? Crock-pot Possum? Fried okra? Alligator tail? Kanuchi soup? Rocky Mountain oysters? Geoduck? It's hard to get more American than those.

While of course we all know that pizza and spaghetti aren't American.

FWIW, the fortune cookie (from California) and General Tso's chicken (New York City) are American creations, making them equally as American as hot dogs and hamburgers.

You know we have ways to encourage cultural diversity, right? Fund local arts and crafts. Place a high tax on large chain restaurants and prepared foods. Ensure affordable housing and raise minimum wage or provide UBI so people have the time to make their own tteokbokki if that's what they want.

We can look to efforts to revitalize Gaelic, or support Quebecois culture as examples. And I would love it - the US culture these days is getting so homogenized. We've lost our regional dialects, and our regional building styles, and our regional politics, and our regional allegiances in these days of mass media and mass food and mass transport.

OTOH, "diversity" is the first letter in DEI, which seems decidedly NOT what conservatives want.

I suspect that what they want instead is an American world order, where "American" is very specifically defined to include them and exclude everyone else, including other Americans.

[sympil]

If real life was a Civ 6 game the U.S. would have won a cultural victory a long time ago. When you’ve outsourced the manufacturing of your car parts, phones, tvs, chips, etc. to other countries then threatening your allies is stupid.