Only the sith deal in absolutes.

Yeah totally, but it wont stop them from happening, it’ll just reframe the negotiations and the specifics they eventually land on.

And likely heavily in Canadas favour.

Why would they be?

Trump’s deal is bad because he’s economically illiterate and has chosen to follow the advice of a crackpot economist. That doesn’t mean every future US administration will share his priorities or approach to trade.

A subsequent government could quite reasonably decide that rebuilding a stable, mutually beneficial trading relationship with Canada is in the US interest.

Canada would be right to be suspicious and play hard to get at that point, and when that happens they’ll probably do quite well out of it.

And yet, watch what happens.

What you’re saying feels good in the moment, you’re right about that.

I highly doubt that, in a future with a less cunty US government it serves no one to hold a grudge.

Be careful about what’s offered, sure, but grace beats spite every time.

They’ll be crawling back with apologies that Canadians will benefit massively from in a couple of years.

Probably trying to avoid unintended defenestration.

In no way trying to defend him, hes hardly unique in this regard. Deplorable, but at best hes just overtly deplorable.

I think the shamelessness is the hallmark of this government.

Its a gradual process. Its not due to reach its peak for another few months afaik.

Keep lots of logs of the writing and the sending, pray this actually happens so you can sue and settle out of court.

Sometimes people need to be shocked out of a lazy political engagement pattern, there arent a lot of ways to achieve it consistently.

Your detector is very broken, send it in for repair.

Marxism isn’t non-objective by definition. Your interpretation isn’t objective simply because it’s Marxist. You’re applying a particular theoretical framework to determine what these institutions “really” function to do, then treating that conclusion as proof that other frameworks are invalid.

And I’ve never claimed left and right are a simple spectrum. Something can be multidimensional and still permit relative comparisons along particular dimensions

I comprehend your point. I dispute the premise. You’re asserting that the purpose of unions in imperialist countries is to placate workers and maintain imperialism, and therefore their function can’t meaningfully be described as left-wing. That’s your Marxist interpretation of their systemic role, not an objective property that follows from their existence within imperialism.

But that’s the premise I keep asking you to establish. I haven’t analysed anything as though it exists outside the system. You’re defining any analysis of form as necessarily doing that, then using that definition to prove that it does. That’s circular.

The fact you cant explain this must be telling you something about your premise?

That explains why context matters, but it still doesn’t explain why analysing or comparing a part necessarily divorces it from that context. I can consider both the form of a policy and how it functions within the wider system. Where’s the contradiction?

Why do you believe that?

Dont give another example with the premise baked in, put it into words.

But nobody is divorcing it from the system. Analysing a characteristic within its context and identifying its political orientation is entirely possible. You’re repeatedly equating distinguishing something analytically with pretending it’s independent, and those aren’t the same thing.

As I said at the time, those examples demonstrate that context matters, which I’ve never disputed. They don’t demonstrate that characteristics can’t also be described independently. Saying a kibbutz has a communalist economic structure doesn’t erase its settler-colonial context. Both facts can be true and analytically useful simultaneously.

You’re treating acknowledging one as necessarily obscuring the other, and that’s the part you haven’t established.

Ultimately, you could have saved us both a lot of time by acknowledging that what you really mean is: “I don’t think Europe should be described in terms of leftism because its underlying capitalist and imperialist structure disqualifies it.” That’s an opinion, and a reasonable one, but not an objectively correct conception of left and right.

But “it obfuscates reality” is the conclusion you keep asserting, not something you’ve demonstrated. Identifying one dimension of a system doesn’t prevent analysis of the others. Calling stronger organised labour relatively left-wing tells us something specific; we can then separately analyse how that labour movement relates to capitalism and imperialism.

At this point, calling my framework “weaker” because it doesn’t adopt yours is just circular.