Comment by graeme

This is correct, at present about 2% of people support taking over Canada by military force.

But the thing is there's a playbook. Even in Russia they didn't start by saying "We are going to start a formal war against international law, who is with me?"

1. They called Ukraine not a country.

2. They said Ukranians in certain regions wanted to be Russian, or should be Russian.

3. They cultivated politicians and figures of influence in Ukraine to join them.

4. They sent unmarked troops into limited regions and started a purported separatist movement. These were the little green men, actually Russian soldiers in generic fatigues.

5. They formally joined the fight once the separatists were losing.

6. They agreed to a ceasefire and kept violating it.

7. In 2022 they started a "special military operation" (still not a war!) on a pretext.

8. Now it's a war

The process took a decade. Currently the US has done steps 1 through 3. On a nearly daily basis the president and multiple admin officials call the border artificial, say Canada isn't a country, say we must be annexed (the word means taken against our will).

The US admin has cultivated the separatist leader of Alberta, who has made multiple visits to Washington and who has admitted to asking Trump to pause tariffs in order to help a pro US far right politician win the upcoming elections.

A journalist who is a fellow traveller of the movement has asked Trump about the practicality of starting by taking Alberta and Saskatechewan and then the rest of the country and Trump said taking Canada had to happen.

We also saw that after the Zelensky oval office visit US public opinion shifted about 20-30% against Zelensky in lockstep with the president making clear his opinion.

So I agree, right now the idea seems ludicrous. But the US admin is at the beginning phases of preparing the info environment to accept escalations. And any discussion of this online now has bot accounts parroting the same lines.

Frankly in Canada we're very glad at the domestic resistance to war. I'm not sure they can actually pull off getting support for invasion. They might think they need not go that far. But what's clear is that for whatever reason they do seem serious about taking us over; Canadian official have expressed as much.

Prewar, polls showed about 18% of the Donbas were interested in joining Russia. About the same percent of Alberta is interested in joining the US. It's enough to work with, if their narrative isn't actively resisted every step of the way.