The U.S. has been veering toward fascism for some time. That is why my family and I decided to leave for Canada last March: Canada is a diverse and healthy democracy. Yet in my short time here, I have observed an alarming level of naïveté about what is happening south of the border.
It seems many Canadians have simply not adjusted to the fact that they live next to a fascist state whose president has imperial designs on Canada.
This is not alarmist or hyperbolic. Evaluate the facts:
ICE is now an internal security force, seemingly beholden to Trump alone. The agency, which received a colossal $75 billion in new funding last year, continues to terrorize U.S. civilians: on Wednesday in Minneapolis, for example, an ICE agent shot and killed a 37-year-old mother. And America is now sealing off its borders to refugees and asylum-seekers (with the exception of white South Africans, supposedly the victims of “white genocide”).
The Justice Department has been weaponized against Trump’s political opponents, and so has the media: the president is using the U.S. government’s merger-approval power to drive news organizations into the arms of the oligarchs who surround him. CBS is already gone. CNN is likely next.
Non-citizens in America now have few rights, and certainly no right to free speech. To enter the country, they must submit to an “online presence review,” presumably to ensure they have not criticized the U.S. or its ally Israel on social media. Work visas and student visas can be revoked at any time.
And just this week, Trump’s most powerful adviser, Stephen Miller, stated that the “real world” should be ruled by force. All this marks a clear escalation of fascist rule in America, and it should serve as a warning to countries throughout the Western Hemisphere. After all, Trump has expressed his desire to annex Canada many times.
All Canadians must now recognize that their once-reliable ally poses a genuine existential threat to the free world. So far, America has waged only economic warfare against Canada, but the threat of annexation is also still clearly on the table. It is not difficult to imagine Trump or some future U.S. autocrat transforming this trade war into a military one.
Source:
Jason Stanley, Toronto Star, January 9, 2026: I left Trump’s America to teach in Canada last year. I didn’t expect this from Canadians https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/i-left-trumps-america-to-teach-in-canada-last-year-i-didnt-expect-this-from/article_5ffdcabb-099a-41b2-a34a-e151a773667f.html
Toronto Star Opinion by Jason Stanley, author of “Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future” (2024) and a professor of American studies at the University of Toronto.