Buoyant blog of septuagenarian (78) Kanadian poet and haikuist Chris Faiers/cricket. People's Poetry in the tradition of Milton Acorn, haiku/haibun, progressive politikal rants, engaged Buddhism and meditation, revitalizing of Callaghan's Rapids Conservation Area, memories of ZenRiver Gardens and Purdy Country LitFests (PurdyFests), events literary and politikal, and pics, amid swirling currents of earth magick and shamanism. Read in 119 countries last week - 75,777 readers in September.
When is the right time to compare US politics to the Nazi era? This expert on Christian nationalism says: now
Robert P Jones argues that declining white Christian influence has fuelled an alliance with Trump, and warns it is reshaping US democracy
Robert P Jones thought long and hard about whether to go there in his latest book. But the more he studied US demographic numbers, considered the rise of Christian nationalism and heard Donald Trump use the language of racial purity, he found the conclusion inescapable. “This is our 1933,” he writes.
Jones cites Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor imprisoned for opposing Hitler, remembered for the poem First They Came. But for the first four years of Hitler’s reign, he notes, Niemöller did not fully oppose the Nazis. He later regretted that he and the Protestant German church did not speak out sooner.
Backslide returns to the analogy in its epilogue. He writes: “Just as God asked Niemoller where he was between 1933 and 1937, God will ask us where we were between 2025 and 2028. Just as Germans who backed Hitler and the Nazi Party after 1933 were fully aware of what they were joining, so Christians who have backed Trump and the MAGA movement a second time know and bear responsibility for what they are now endorsing.”
Sitting in his downtown Washington office, the president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) contends that US democracy is experiencing a severe “backslide” that is directly aided and abetted by an “apostate” white Christianity, including Trump’s language on the campaign trail.
“This dehumanising language, talking about immigrants as vermin, and this racial purity language, like they’re ‘poisoning the blood of our country’. What does that mean? If they’re poisoning the blood, what’s the pure blood? We know where that story goes,” he said.
Trump has repeatedly used the concept of genetic inheritance. In 2020, addressing a mostly white crowd in Minnesota, he declared: “You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory, you think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”
Normalisation is a perennial danger.
“If don’t want to live in a place where we have a thuggish police force that’s kidnapping people off the street in masks and killing US citizens in the streets, now’s the time to speak up,” Jones said.
Backslide cites historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt’s 1950 The Aftermath of Nazi Rule report for Commentary magazine based on interviews with postwar Berliners: “A great number of Germans, especially among the more educated, apparently are no longer capable of telling the truth even if they want to.”
In international political science, “democratic backsliding” has become the established academic term for the systematic erosion of democratic norms, judicial independence and voting rights. Yet Jones recognises that the term carries an even older resonance.
“In the evangelical world I grew up in, backslide was a word we heard all the time – a theological word about the fear of falling away from the faith,” he says, tracing the word’s history back through the Oxford English Dictionary to the 16th-century Protestant reformer John Knox.
In Jones’s diagnosis, white American Christianity has committed a profound act of apostasy by trading its spiritual core for political dominance. By endorsing anti-democratic tactics, white Christian institutions have become the primary engine behind the country’s autocratic slide.
Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy by Robert P Jones. Photograph: Macmillan Publishers
To understand how a major religious tradition arrived at this moral impasse, Jones turns to the arithmetic of demographics. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, white Christian Americans still constituted 54% of the US population. By 2014, that figure had dropped to 47%. Today, white Christians account for 41% of the country.
The decline among white evangelicals, long considered a bedrock of conservative politics, is even steeper. At the turn of the 21st century, white evangelicals represented a quarter of all Americans; today, they make up barely 13%. The Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s biggest evangelical denomination, has lost more than 3 million members since its 2006 peak.
Faced with shrinking numbers and cultural marginalisation, white evangelicalism embraced not spiritual renewal, but existential panic – creating fertile ground for Trump’s demagoguery.
“Trump loves to talk about the art of the deal and, in many ways, there’s been a massive quid pro quo deal struck between a declining white evangelical population and Trump,” Jones observes. “His big appeal to them was less about policy and more anti-immigrant: I’m going to restore an America that looks like you, and I’m going to restore power to the Christian churches.
“He was literally saying on the campaign trail: this is a quid pro quo deal. Give me your votes and you won’t even have to vote again. I’ll fix it so you don’t have to vote again.’”
This transactional alliance marks a complete departure from the religious right of the late 20th century, which wrapped its political ambitions in the language of morality.
“You don’t hear those words any more,” says Jones, contrasting today’s movement with Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority or the “Values Voters” summits of the George W Bush era. “What we have now is an overtly anti-democratic Christian nationalism flying under the banner of: ‘We believe this country belongs to us, and we’re going to use the power we can to claim it.’”
This Faustian bargain relies purely on power rather than shared theology – a dynamic starkly highlighted by the contrast between Trump and his running mate, JD Vance. While Vance recently discussed the End Times with 22-year-old evangelical podcaster Bryce Crawford, awkwardly reflecting on his evangelical upbringing and subsequent conversion to Catholicism, Trump operates largely without theological pretence.
Jones continues: “He makes straight appeals to self-interest: if you’re for me, I’ll be for you. Evangelicals are willing to forgive a whole host of sins for the idea that he is going to bring them back into power as their numbers are dwindling.”
The real world manifestation of this transaction plays out every Sunday across thousands of congregations. While high-profile megachurches such as First Baptist church in Dallas make their political allegiance explicit, Jones contends that overt political sermonising is rarely needed.
“Once you have churches that are largely segregated by race and increasingly segregated by partisanship, all you really have to do is keep out any critique. It’s reinforced by Fox News, Christian radio and going home to people of like mind. You don’t have to overtly teach Christian nationalism; you just keep it from being critiqued.”
PRRI’s extensive empirical data undermines the widespread belief that religious attendance automatically fosters civic tolerance or democratic values.
Jones says: “Particularly among white evangelicals, on several measures around Christian nationalism, anti-immigrant views, anti-Black views, and anti-Muslim views, going to church actually makes your views more extreme. It’s not the case that more church is the answer to democracy.”
The dangerous potential of this theological radicalisation materialised dramatically during the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Christian symbols were displayed prominently throughout the insurrection, including wooden crosses set up on Capitol grounds and rioters holding “Jesus Saves” banners alongside Confederate flags.
Yet official investigations largely overlooked this central element, influenced in part by political figures like Congresswoman Liz Cheney on the House select committee. “I was stunned to see very little of it in the House select committee report,” Jones recalls. “It was a huge loss and a huge skewing of public perception that we didn’t take those Christian symbols at the riot seriously.”
Today, this blend of Christian nationalism and military authority reaches into the upper echelons of the national security apparatus. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, sports tattoos featuring Crusader iconography – including the medieval battle cry Deus Vult (“God wills it”) next to a Jerusalem cross – while renaming the Department of Defense as the “Department of War”. Hegseth has welcomed vocal Christian nationalists such as Pastor Doug Wilson to lead a worship service at the Pentagon.
Jones comments: “I can’t imagine much more dangerous than somebody who thinks, ‘I am the instrument of God, I alone understand how the forces of good and evil are aligned,’ while holding the power to deploy the most powerful military force the world has ever seen. While George W Bush took care after 9/11 to explicitly state that the US was not at war with Islam, today we are making radicalisation propaganda films for extremists by presenting ourselves as a Christian nation at war with Islam.”
Behind the public spectacle of rallies and political theatre, ideologues such as Russell Vought, a key architect of Project 2025 and advocate of the “unitary executive” theory, are laying the groundwork for a government rooted in Christian nationalist principles. “They are building an apparatus designed to institutionalise this worldview across the federal government,” Jones warns. “It is an intentional, long-term project to reshape American democracy in their own image.”
Despite the alarming trajectory detailed in Backslide, Jones resists total pessimism. The central message of his book is that “backsliding is not irreversible” and that national recovery remains possible through honest confrontation with history and sincere repentance.
Across the country, alternative Christian voices are beginning to organise against Christian nationalism. Figures such as James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian running for the US Senate in Texas, and Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton in Kansas are offering a pro-democracy theological vision.
“For a long time, mainline Protestants were taught propriety and politeness, leading to a reticence to speak out,” Jones notes. “If we don’t want the public and future face of Christianity to be only Christian nationalism, we have to present a public version of Christianity that is compatible with democracy – one that leans into care for the orphan, the widow and the immigrant.”
Ultimately, Jones argues, neither sacred texts nor historical precedents will dictate the future of US democracy. He hopes his book will make white Christians realise they face a decision similar to the one that confronted the establishment Christian church in Nazi Germany in 1933.
“It’s a wake-up call to see the bright lines that are being crossed, to be clear-eyed about how dangerous that is, and for those readers who are Christian – particularly white and Christian – to realise we have a particular responsibility to offer a different version of faith. Because it is our faith that’s been hijacked and used to legitimise this illiberal, anti-democratic, authoritarian movement that’s running rampant and taking over in the US.”
High-pitched calls...swans hurrying back from tundra --Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture)
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car license plates from north and south-- convenience store parking --Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)
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rest-stop coffee it may be lukewarm but it’s got caffeine --Barrie Levine (Wenham, Massachusetts)
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a burger stop sparrows sing hoping for fries --Sherri J. Moye-Dombrosky (Liberty, South Carolina)
* * *
empty parking lot the lingering warmth where his car once stood --Fatma Zohra Habis (Algiers, Algeria)
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the birds flew away from the bottom of the drawer McDonald’s figurines --Mariola Grabowska (Warsaw, Poland)
* * *
the black raven takes off her wings again a good little girl --Barbara Rybak (Zawiercie, Poland)
* * *
sudden overcast a blackbird pecking a shadow --Tim Dwyer (Bangor, Northern Ireland)
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shared garden-- in the service charge overgrown weeds --Lori Kiefer (London, England)
* * *
the door latch shut holding on to the keys one last time --Shalini Gupta (Delhi, India)
------------------------------ FROM THE NOTEBOOK ------------------------------
bolt of fall lightning--geese pause their conversation --Laurinda Lind (Sackets Harbor, New York)
The haikuist listened to what Canadian geese had to say about newly named Lake America. David Watts sorted out international relations in San Francisco, California, not far from Google Maps headquarters. Jerome Berglund put things on hold, realizing that changing names and shapes on a map influences how the world is understood.
diplomacy separate countries in the map box
* * *
gulf of america the garage sale indefinite it appears
Having settled in Toronto, Ontario, Chris Faiers feels an uneasy distance from where he was raised in America. Shannon Wallace’s haiku tactfully describes the vibe of a mother-daughter relationship in Ontario, Canada. Honey Novick loves to be caressed on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario.
across this ocean of Lake Ontario-- a now foreign land
* * *
somber mom dropped peaches cut off the bruises
* * *
greet me at the shore to be comforted by your power rocking waves massage
Mona Bedi dreamily imagined a life with no countries, nothing to kill or die for. Marshall Hryciuk daydreamed of checkered purple bells and orange butterflies in Toronto, Ontario.
old battlefield-- a butterfly flit across the border fence
* * *
eyes closed vines hang in patterns of fritillaries
Sagano marveled at the massive migration of Australian blue tigers that swarmed southbound this month. Helga Stania froze at the sight of a breathtakingly beautiful scarlet tiger moth. Mauro Battini made the sign of the cross at Santa Croce, in Pisa, Italy. A rustling sound made Christina Chin stop in her tracks in tropical Sarawak, Borneo.
blue wings of butterflies animated world
* * *
freezing--a butterfly flashes its red hindwings
* * *
insects everywhere… on the soldier’s body a red butterfly
* * *
jungle terrain no one in sight could it be a tiger
Like clockwork each autumn, Chen-ou Liu watched as trees full of butterflies lifted off from Ajax on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario.
a child’s stare behind barbed wire-- golden arches
When millions of monarch butterflies take off at once, they produce a rustling sound as loud as Niagara Falls. Cornelia Rossberg headed home. The migrants are currently navigating from Canada, across Lake America into the United States and onwards to western Mexico. Carl Brennan admonished himself when they passed by North Syracuse, New York. Giuliana Ravaglia’s haiku compared unstoppable forces.
rumbling thunder astonished looks up to the sky sound of taiko drums
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Butterfly wings I dismembered as a boy the lawn’s healthy glow
* * *
ideas are butterflies you can’t take their wings away-- they are mothers’ voices
Searching the skies overhead Lapeer, Michigan, Dorna Hainds asked where all the butterflies had gone.
day moon the butterfly far from clouds
Milkweed plants are a good spot to look for butterfly eggs, caterpillars and chrysalises. John Richard Stephens followed their flight path through Maui, Hawaii.
garden afternoon-- butterflies flutter by an empty bench
As soon as the distinctively patterned orange and black migrants arrive in Mexico, they alight on a high-altitude Oyamel fir forest patch. Anne Marie McHarg gave the spectacular sight all As.
A thousand shades A host of butterflies scatter A whirlwind of thoughts
Covering entire trees, they settle down to hibernate until spring. Feeling sleepy on a spring afternoon in Osaka, Teiichi Suzuki craved a sugar boost. Gordana Vlasic gripped a railing in Oroslavje, Croatia.
an afternoon slump... a first butterfly frolics canola flower
* * *
Tomorrow is a new day the butterfly from my balcony isn’t coming back
Masumi Orihara listened to an ornithologist who interpreted a songbird’s chirps as meaning “come, let’s fly together.” Erin Castaldi traveled a little farther at midday in Mays Landing, New Jersey. Humans migrate, too, and go walkabout, noted Martina Matijevic in Vidovci, Croatia. Rather than drinking one for the road, Biswajit Mishra prudently waited until he got home to Calgary, Alberta.
bird linguist shares in their truths titmouse family
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somewhere new for lunch migrating grosbeak
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migrating bird-- grandad’s slippers on the front steps
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nightcap-- the migrating geese make a pitstop
Alexander Groth empathized with war migrants in Berlin, Germany. Patrick Sweeney’s two lines described the feeling of never having lived in peacetime.
bird migration from war back into war
* * *
yearling crows are glad to be in this war-torn world
Haiku has migrated far from its Japanese niche to become a global literary phenomenon practiced by haikuists everywhere. Robert Hirschfield is a journalist in New York. Mel Goldberg watched lines form in Ajijic, Mexico. Symbolizing protection in English folklore, Robin Rich handwove a circular wreath in Brighton, England.
Indian family on train to Chile silence salts an egg
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refugees looking for a place to rest raindrops
* * *
hazel branch shaped like a crown illegal alien
Perhaps irked by residents who snitch on employers hiring undocumented foreign nationals getting cash rewards from the Ibaraki Prefectural government, Soumya Mukherjee suggested that “the concepts of nations and foreignness have always seemed to be an illusion.”
gaijin one to the other
A wandering tomcat made himself at home on Ivan Georgiev’s porch in Gottingen, Germany. Jeremy Haworth spent countless sunny days on the garden patio in Dublin, Ireland.
a chilly morning on my mother’s garden chair-- unacquainted cat
* * *
a fresh hole in the striped deckchair first autumn rain
Antonio Mangiameli raised his head in Lentini, Italy. Stoianka Boianova heard rustling on a leaf-strewn path in Sofia, Bulgaria. In Accra, Ghana, Justice Joseph Prah watched the city roll up the sidewalks.
wheat field the scarecrow watches the sky
* * *
toads jump in the autumn evening-- dry leaves
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beetles... resting their dung for a night streeters
James Penha in Bali, Indonesia, and Tracy Davidson in Warwickshire, England, respectively, got through rainy days.
I am the pilgrim finding sanctuary in a raincoat
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forever hopeful a floppy sunhat squashed under my rain hood
Hifsa Ashraf held on tight in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
last boarding call the silence we share in one hug
* * *
autumn drizzle the lingering warmth of his hugs
Slavica Mileva wrote goodbye in Skopje, North Macedonia. After the farewell, Sagano looked down forlornly onto an interior central courtyard in Toledo, Spain.
one tear spells out your name farewell
* * *
swallows leave for the south El Greco’s balcony
C.X. Turner left something behind.
homeward bound one tent peg still in the sand
Maxianne Berger wrote a raincheck in Outremont, Quebec.
added cost of travel insurance purse umbrella
Julie Ann Lebitania packed up in Sorsogon, Philippines.
ceramics wrapped in bubbles move-out day
Writing from Lafayette, Louisiana, Al W. Gallia recalled when horse-pulled wagons headed West.
rainswept prairie... by the old wagon trace an unmarked grave
John Hamley reminisced about a road trip from Canada to the United States, where he careened his Morris Garage roadster into a motel parking lot. The engine sputtered and hissed a cloud of steam into the twilight air, leaving him sitting in the light of a neon sign buzzing overhead. Sandip Chauhan didn’t stay for long in Great Falls, Virginia.
Six bucks a night at Motel Six-- MGA
* * *
mini-mart that box of brightness we circle and leave
During the inhospitable summer months, the town of Quartzsite, Arizona, appeared to be little more than a gas station and fast-food stopover halfway between Los Angeles and Phoenix. Tired from driving, Pitt Buerken’s better half began “sharing burgers with a dog.” Caleb Epps parked. Shalini Gupta wrote a haiku to say goodbye in Delhi, India. Turner knew the moment the “holiday truly came to an end.”
truck stop fast food with TV and country music
* * *
truck stop midnight the shower key warm from his hand
* * *
the door latch shut holding on to the keys one last time
* * *
cottage key the warmth leaves my hand
Sagano never got it back.
spare room key asked him to return summer’s end
Q-town, as it is called by the tens of thousands of retirees, nomads and seasonal workers who winter there, is located near a stretch of interstate highway that passes through the northern reaches of the Sonoran Desert. When his water ran out on a hike, John Daleiden “began to see things that were not real.”
desert shrubs march toward my destruction windmills of the mind
Mariola Grabowska marveled how teenagers enjoyed carefree nomadic lifestyles in Warsaw, Poland. Dejan Pavlinovic boarded a car ferry on his way to Cres Island, Croatia. Mircea Moldovan recited a line from an incantation in Letca, Romania.
mom’s youth her hitchhiking trips for a single smile
* * *
hitchhiker-- a spider on the side mirror
* * *
hitchhiker’s chant--splashes on the hot asphalt
Jennifer Gurney penciled this haiku on the back of a pay envelope at a red light in Broomfield, Colorado.
riding in the space behind the backseat of Uncle Alan’s black bug my cousin, my brother and I
At this autumnal time of year, cyclists, bikers, recreational vehicle drivers and truckers head for Q-town intending to camp there as a community. Leon Tefft hiked alone through a South Carolina State Park. Mike Fainzilber kept up the chase. Boryana Boteva pointed toward a southerly compass direction. Rich zipped up his windbreaker. Mark Meyer boarded a bus on Mercer Island, Washington.
lonesome trail… perhaps if I answer the wind
* * *
the wind still chasing your footsteps
* * *
her smile... as if I’m a stranger asking for the route
* * *
wave goodbye the summer turns to a cooler tide
* * *
parts unknown-- America departs on a Greyhound bus
The smell of rain-soaked apples can still lead Marion Clarke home to Warrenpoint, North Ireland. Sweeney was welcomed back.
orchard mist tasting my way back
* * *
long journey home, offered a beer and my father’s chair
~. ~. ~. ~
Thanks David,
Always a treat to get a new Asahi Network! Both Honey Novick and and John Hamley were regulars at the annual Purdy Country Litfests I organized for eight years at my
Zenriver Gardens retreat. I didn't know John was also an MGA fan in his youth. I had a 1960 MGA I painted powder blue and rolled and pleated the interior in black leather. Reversed the rims and put about 10 layers of chrome paint on them. It was a showstopper car and I used to dream I still owned it until maybe a decade ago.
It is skive Friday at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network will appear Oct. 16 and 30. Readers are invited to send haiku about the fear of being watched or surveillance cameras, on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or e-mail (mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp).
* * *
David McMurray
David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.
McMurray judges haiku contests organized by The International University of Kagoshima, Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, Polish Haiku Association, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin University, and Only One Tree.
McMurray’s award-winning books include: “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” (2022); “Only One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor” (2015); “Canada Project Collected Essays & Poems” Vols. 1-8 (2013); and “Haiku in English as a Japanese Language” (2003).
TORONTO — Mark Carney built a global profile in 2026 by standing up to U.S. President Donald Trump. If some prediction-market traders and prominent admirers are right, the Canadian prime minister could end the year with the Nobel Peace Prize and Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
Carney briefly became the favourite Monday for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Kalshi, a U.S.-based prediction market, when traders on the exchange put his chances at 14 per cent. His odds later fell, illustrating the highly speculative nature of the wagering.
There is no public evidence Carney is on the Nobel Committee’s secret shortlist for the prize that will be announced Oct. 9 in Oslo, Norway.
But the buzz about the Canadian leader possibly winning the esteemed peace prize reflects the message that has raised his profile: Middle powers should band together to defend sovereignty as great powers increasingly use economic and military leverage.
Whether that position resonates with the Nobel Committee is impossible to know. One thing is certain, though: the Nobel and Time’s annual award happen to be two honours Trump covets.
Trump believes he deserves Nobel honour
Carney and Trump are locked in an escalating trade war, with 50 per cent U.S. tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian goods and Canadian retaliation. Trump also has told Canadian leaders to “fall in line” or face consequences “far WORSE” than existing tariffs.
Trump, who has twice been Time’s Person of the Year, has repeatedly complained about not receiving the Nobel, saying in July that he “should have won that award more than anybody.”
Trump already possesses a Nobel medal, just not one awarded to him.
Venezuelan opposition leader MarÃa Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel laureate, presented Trump with her medal at the White House in January. Trump accepted it, while the Nobel Committee stressed the prize itself remains hers.
“Trump will be unhappy whoever gets the Nobel,” said Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. “If Carney got it, it would make relations with Canada rockier than they are.”
Carney has strong case for Time award
Time already named Carney one of its 100 most influential people of 2026 and specifically noted his popularity increased as he stood up to Trump.
On Tuesday, Carney was the second choice on major prediction markets for Time’s Person of the Year, behind New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The winner will be announced Dec. 10.
Time has described Trump’s cumulative impact as helping create a “new global order” increasingly shaped “not by systems or institutions, but by the will of a single man.” Carney’s answer has been to urge middle powers to band together rather than bend one by one.
New York University professor Scott Galloway said Carney has it in the bag and called him “the leader that Europe’s been looking for for the last 20 years.”
“I believe, hands down, Time’s Person of the Year has already been decided and it’s going to be Mark Carney,” Galloway said.
On Galloway’s podcast, journalist Fareed Zakaria said Carney is winning admiration abroad and has given countries facing a less predictable United States “a kind of language and a path” to build new alliances rather than simply bend to Washington.
Carney moving to front of a new global order
Carney’s standing abroad took off in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he declared the old international order was not coming back and urged middle powers to work together rather than wait for its restoration. His speech came as European leaders were confronting Trump’s push to acquire Greenland and tariff threats.
“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney said in his speech, which received a standing ovation.
Carney has since tried to put the argument for a new global order into practice, pushing Canada closer to Europe and seeking new partners in Asia as Trump’s tariffs fractured the old Canada-U.S. relationship.
European lawmakers gave Carney another standing ovation this month as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed opening the door for Canada to become the European Union’s first associate member.
“Carney’s international profile has been driven by his standing up to Trump, unlike the Europeans and Asians who rushed to make deals with him,” Wiseman said. “Trump’s pressure on Canada has helped elevate Carney in the eyes of the world.”
At this week’s session of the United Nations, world leaders were given two very divergent views on the future of the international order. Donald Trump dived straight into the darkness. He made an unhinged speech bragging about his ability to destroy the Iranian civilization and denouncing action on killer AI as a “hoax.” The speech was frightening because it showed just how unmoored the United States has become.
Donald Trump threatens to annihilate all of Iran during his speech at the UN on September 22nd, 2026 (AFP)
As I said in a previous Substack, we are living in weeks where decades of changes are happening. And the rapid speed of change being led by Canada continues.
It has only been a week since Carney’s groundbreaking speech at the United Nations. Since then, he has met with President Emmanuel Macron on the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. The location, just 13 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, is symbolic.
And defiant.
Prime Minister Mark Carney addresses the UN on Sept 22nd, 2026 (AFP)
The Donroe Doctrine of Project 2025 insists that everything in the American hemisphere will be under US control. Maybe Trump didn’t know that France is right on our border. He knows now.
France will defend their interests in the hemisphere. And they will do this with their ally Canada.
Then the PM met with Norwegian President Jonas Gahr Støre to talk Arctic sovereignty, a joint critical minerals strategy and the development of an “enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement” within the next year.
This meeting happened as Trump was posting memes of Greenland covered in the American flag and boasting of a massive military expansion on Greenland soil. The fact is, the United States has been a weak player in asserting control in the far north. They don’t have the icebreakers or the training.
They have always relied on help from Canada and Norway. Now these two countries are working together to ensure our sovereignty in the north.
But the most significant move this past week was the joint letter with Kenya, Brazil and the European Security Council. It shows that Canada understands the need to include the Global South in any restructuring of the global order.
The letter has pledged the establishment of the ‘Partners for Multilateralism’ (P4M).
The focus of P4M will be to support reform at the UN and other multilateral institutions, to make them more representative, legitimate, effective and trusted. But it is really a call to arms to resist the increasingly autocratic rule coming from Washington and the Kremlin.
The letter states:
“The language of spheres of influence and power politics is back. Economic ties are increasingly used as instruments of pressure and coercion while inequality is on the rise, both within and among countries.”
“Cooperation is therefore not an act of idealism, it is a practical necessity. The question is not whether multilateralism can survive, but how it must evolve to meet the realities of our time.”
The signatories list the existential threats posed by AI, climate catastrophe and the disastrous handling of the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz as reasons for middle powers to assert their power and sovereignty.
“[These] principles are not negotiable - sovereign equality, territorial integrity, the peaceful settlement of disputes, the prohibition of the threat or use of force, international humanitarian law, sustainable development, human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
In a bold rebuke to Putin and Trump, they quote UN Secretary-General António Guterres:
“the superpowers are discovering their limits”.
To respond to the failure of the big powers approach, it is necessary to reassert the power of collective action by the international community.
“We believe that the international community must rediscover the extraordinary potential of collective action.
“Competition does not have to become confrontation, if we create channels of dialogue and co-operation. Sovereignty is strengthened, not diminished, when countries work together to address shared challenges. National interests are often best advanced through collective action on such challenges.
“As we contend with a world order that is transforming fast, we call on other international leaders to join us in choosing co-operation over fragmentation, law over power and shared responsibility over division.”
This is an extraordinary statement written with the idealism and determination not seen since the late 1940s, when the world came together to ensure the international rule of law would be strengthened to ensure that the mass crimes of the Holocaust would never be repeated.
Will the rest of the world rally to the Canadian banner?
It remains to be seen.
Will Trump take our efforts to rally the international community as a threat?
Count on it.
Make no mistake, this is a line-in-the-sand moment. Canada is standing for a better vision of the future.
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(Illustration by Mitsuaki Kojima)
