Can the US and Canada Still be Bros?

Day 1,707, 06:15 • Published in Canada Canada • by Jacobi

It takes years of trust and friendship to build up an alliance as strong as the one that Canada and the United States formerly had. Linguistic synergies aside, there must be a continuity of purpose after Presidents and administrations from both sides change month after month. There must be an inviolable sense of respect and goodwill, and a willingness to prove the sincerity of talk at a moment's notice.

And it must be worked on. Errors and aberrations forgiven. If not it will fall sick on the compounding nature of time, wither, and die.

I have spent time on both sides of the relationship, having worked in the US State Department and, of course, being the Canadian President. I've worked with great Americans and the depth of that history is so much that on my page I've listed my founding of the Brolliance as being one of my proudest accomplishments.

Recently, this relationship was allowed to wither with mistakes from both sides piling on top of one another slowly and surely building up a wall of mistrust on both sides of the 49th. I'm not here to rehash something of which I have no personal recollection -- I wasn't here or privy to anything beyond the occasional bulletin of news -- but I am curious about exploring the nature of the relationship now.

Canada's foreign policy has always been strongly tied to the United States. Happiness in EDEN notwithstanding, we joined Terra in order to make sure that our strategic goals wouldn't conflict with the US. We supported American initiatives, we fought side by side to repel several invasions of North America, we sacrificed our short term interests to help our allies against the Spolish. We did it cheerfully too, because we knew they'd have our backs.

I doubt very much now, that many Canadians would cheerfully defend the United States. We all have friends across the border, most of us have no problems with individual Americans and instead direct our vitriol to a decadent American administration. I'd hazard to say the same of Americans, who probably look at the Canadian government with distaste even as they continue to work with Canadian friends. But when America is attacked its the government that's attacked even if its the people who are affected, and the administrations past and present have built up too much negative will here that a simple peace won't erase it. If America finds itself attacked in August or September, I would be amazed to see an MPP with Canada gleefully signed.

The Bromance is over. Unless there was some sort of fundamental realignment of thought in the US government I wouldn't trust America. Not when I'm fighting them in Quebec, not when they've taken Manitoba. They have so thoroughly betrayed our trust and our friendship that whatever paltry high level immature disagreements between the self important twits in government pale in comparison. No one cares about how slighted the self proclaimed American elite feel about scheming being leaked when they're fighting to keep their home region bonuses. It is still fundamentally a disproportionate response which scuttles something once considered sacrosanct.

So I hope the American government is happy. Erepublik is a game of entropy, a game where the high minded ideal of the past firmly stay in the past, where things and relationships and countries very rarely get a second chance to make good. Its a game where building something of substance takes months of hard work and patience. And its a game where immature brats can throw that hard work away in a moment.

Good job.