For Canada, the Democratic Party’s sweep in the U.S. midterm elections Tuesday is a key battle, waged and won.
asserted
sweep → wag → elections
Don’t call it a successful case of election interference, as the U.S. has alleged.
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U.S. → call → interference
Think of it as an information campaign from north of the border whose message clearly resonated.
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message → think → border
The Republican Party’s loss of control over the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will see the arrival of Democratic lawmakers who won their seats by railing against President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade policies, among a host of other issues.
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who → see → issues
Ottawa will be celebrating their resounding election victory, even if it does not end the trade war — at least not yet.
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it → celebrate → war
When the newly elected members of Congress are sworn in and seated in January, Trump will be outnumbered and surrounded by Democrats who are opposed to almost everything on his political agenda.
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who → elect → agenda
Canada makes the perfect suspect.
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perfect → make → ?
For two years, Americans have heard that Canada is “ripping us
But an animal backed into a corner can lash out in directions that are tough to predict.
If Trump were to reflect honestly on the message expressed with the political choice of American voters, he would change course.
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he → hear → course
One of the clearest rebukes on Tuesday came in South Carolina, a seat the Republicans have held since 1964.
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Republicans → come → 1964
When Trump was sworn in for his second term, now-deceased South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham declared that the tariffs were a warning to the world.
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tariffs → swear → world
“I’m glad we are putting everybody on notice that the old way of doing business is over,” he said in February 2025.
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he → ’m → February
After Graham’s sudden death this summer, his sister, Darline, was picked by Trump to carry the Republican flag through Tuesday’s midterm election.
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sister → pick → election
On the campaign trail, she proclaimed: “I will have President Trump’s back 100 per cent.”
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I → proclaim → back
They will go down as among the infamous last words of the stand-in U.S. senator.
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They → go → senator
Early tallies suggest significant wins for a Democratic Party that, for more than a decade, has
She was defeated by Annie Andrews, a Democrat who has said that Trump’s tariffs “devastated” South Carolina and blamed Lindsey Graham for enabling them.
The Republicans also lost Kansas, a Senate seat the party has held since the dying days of the First World War.
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party → suggest → War
The state’s new Democratic senator is Adam Hamilton, a Christian megachurch pastor and author who made an issue of Trump’s threats to ban jets from Montreal-based Bombardier, which has its U.S. headquarters and 1,500 employees in Wichita.
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which → make → Wichita
“You insult your No. 2 trading partner …
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You → insult → partner
You slap a tariff on them.
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You → slap → them
They slap a reciprocal tariff, and then they start (thinking) maybe we need to do business with other people instead of America,” Hamilton said in the final days of his campaign.
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Hamilton → slap → campaign
The Republicans also lost the Senate race in Maine, rejecting Susan Collins after three decades in office in favour of Democrat Troy Jackson.
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Republicans → lose → Jackson
This despite Collins, who has been a rare Republican critic of the tariff policies, recently claiming she compelled the Trump administration to exempt some Canadian goods from the duties for the good of the state’s economy.
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she → claim → economy
“I’m not going to give Sen. Collins credit for getting some things off the (tariff) list when we never should have had a list,” said Jackson.
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Jackson → go → list
“We shouldn’t have a trade war with Canada.”
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We → have → Canada
In North Carolina, Democrat Roy Cooper, who won a Republican Senate seat, campaigned on a modified version of Trump’s MAGA slogan: Make Stuff Cost Less.
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Stuff → win → Less
He has called for a “roll back” of Trump’s tariffs and said it is the responsibility of the U.S. Congress to “take back its constitutional authority on (tariffs).”
That is an echo of the urgent priorities spelled out by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who is poised to become the Speaker of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives when newly elected lawmakers are sworn in to office in January.
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lawmakers → call → January
The Democrats could take back their constitutional authority to raise taxes and regulate trade by passing laws that repeal the powers delegated to Trump by the current Congress to apply tariffs; by denying funding to the administration; or by launching court challenges.
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that → take → challenges
Several pieces of legislation have already been introduced, including bills that would repeal the retaliatory 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian dairy, alcohol and automobiles as well as the 10 per cent forced labour tariffs.
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that → introduce → dairy
These initiatives haven’t gotten any traction in the current Republican-majority Congress, but they have been applauded by groups like the libertarian-minded Cato Institute.
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they → get → Institute
“That Democrats are behind these bills indicates that tariffs are a political liability … and that the party might even be reconsidering some of its decades-long skepticism toward trade liberalization,” the group said in a September blog post.
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group → indicate → post
Trump has already signalled, however, that he is not reflecting on the policies that may be at the heart of his party’s defeat.
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that → signal → defeat
“I wasn’t on the ballot,” he wrote on social media late Tuesday night.
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he → write → media
“If I was, we would have won in a landslide!”
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we → win → landslide
About an hour later, he indicated that he intends to spend the next two years of his presidency fighting.
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he → indicate → presidency
That message came in the form of a photo of what may be his only remaining Trump card: his signature red baseball cap with the embroidered white words stitched on the front: VETO.
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what → come → front
It is a reminder that while the two Democrat-controlled chambers of Congress now have the power to pass any piece of legislation they desire, Trump still has the final presidential say on whether those bills are adopted into law with the famous scrawl of his black-marker signature.
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bills → control → signature
The Aporia
