The Paikin Podcast - World on Edge: America’s Doomsday Clock, Canadian Optimism, and the Imperial Presidency

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Stephen Marche, host of the Gloves Off podcast, joins Steve to discuss Canada-U.S. relations, how Canada is making its way through the “mess” south of the border, the weakening of American power worldwide, and his optimism for Canada’s ability to navigate the Trump era. They also discuss America’s “Doomsday Clock,” authoritarianism on the right and left, whether the Supreme Court is creating an “imperial presidency,” whether America can go back to normal, the divide between “Old Canada” and “New Canada,” and the decline of authoritarianism worldwide.  Season two of the Gloves Off podcast.     Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] 

Hi, everybody. Steve Paken here. No Janice Stein this week. We are giving the Monk School's founding director the week off, and she's got a pretty good excuse for not being available. She is in Turkey, attending the annual NATO Leaders Summit in Ankara. In her place, we've invited one of her favorite sparring partners, who's just released season two of his popular podcast series on Canada's sovereignty and the rise of middle powers. That's next. Coming up on the Paken podcast. We are happy to welcome back to the Paken podcast, Stephen Marsh, the author and journalist who really burst onto the North American political scene, oh, I guess about four years ago with his book, The Next Civil War, about America's deteriorating predicament. But he's just dropped the first couple of episodes of Season 2 of Gloves Off, his much-praised series on how middle powers are supposed to make their way in this world of Trump. And Stephen, I'm sorry we haven't got Janice here, but am I enough for this time? Well, are you going to fight with me? Because, I mean, that's what I, that's what I come on here for. Like, I need a little, I need my cortisol bath in the morning to wake me up, you know, that's I'm probably not going to fight with you. But I might put you through your paces a little bit,

but I'm probably not going to fight with you if that's okay. I'll live. Okay. Thank you. Stephen, start by telling us this. Was it always the plan to do a second season of gloves off? No, not really. I mean, I think we, when the first one hit, it was such a crisis moment in the country, you know, it was like early 20, 25 and we were, we were all freaking out and we were trying to figure out, um, what, you know, are we going to survive this? Like, what the hell is happening? But, you know, and, and sort of basic questions about the country, like, what is our security apparatus if we're divided from the United States? Like,

what is, what is the actual nature of our trade relationship? Um, but you know, one thing we started noticing, I mean, we did get incredible feedback on that show, but one thing that started happening is we started just feeling a lot more hopeful and optimistic about Canada. And that was really, that seemed odd, right? I mean, what I feel optimistic, it's, I assume I'm right, because it's so rare that it happens to me. And so we started to figure, we wanted to figure out, you know, what are the opportunities? What is it? What, maybe Canada will emerge from the stronger and thriving. And I think we have actually seen that it is coming up. It is starting to thrive. It is figuring its way out of this incredible mess of the second Trump administration.

Well, what exactly is going on south of the border that would give you reason to be optimistic? Because, you know, for many observers, they don't see it. Oh, I'm not optimistic about the United States. I'm optimistic about Canada. I mean, one of the things that I think is very clearly happening in the United States is, I mean, along with the liberal democratic slide, which we're seeing, I think, very evidently. And I think that's no longer really debatable. we're also seeing the diminishment of their actual power, right?

Like they're not just their soft power, although that's, that was a huge amount of their power, this aspirational element of them. And I think, you know, we understand that culturally and we understand that as some vague sense, but like there really was a way in which like the Canadian, the American legal system was an ideal. I mean, and an American political system was an ideal. An American economic system was an ideal. And that had a huge, a huge amount of, power. So that's in decline, but also in terms of hard power, you know, they have started and

lost a series of military adventures that have made them look weaker. And they're, and they are getting weaker by, by the week. So like the, the, the, the, um, the optimism for Canada is definitely, uh, the involved in the decline of America as a, as a, as a force that's capable of projecting power. Let me follow up on that if I can for a sec, just because, you know, if we know anything about Donald Trump, it's that he can't stand to be seen as anything less than all-powerful. And yet after this war with Iran, it has completely unmasked him as a guy who, you know, I think even fair-minded observers, I think even some people in the Republican Party are saying

it's made him look bad, it's made him look weak. How has he allowed that to happen? buddy he can't fix algae in a pool like he can't like he like he's not like he's not like if you're looking for like competent leadership and like the capacity to make things happen Donald Trump is not who you go for he's a lord of misrule I mean that's why he was elected that's what that's that's that's that's the that's the appeal is that you know he he is the ultimate embodiment of government as buffoonery right and so yeah it's it should come as no surprise that he well I mean the Iranian situation is really one of the most

extraordinary defeats in American history because the enemy in this case, the Iranian regime, has now was on its last legs and is now virtually fully recovered, both its legitimacy and its base of power. And it's been given an international power base that it literally never had before at any point. So true, true catastrophes. But, you know, I think one of the things that's happening in America is they're getting a taste of what authoritarianism, what authoritarianism is like, right? Which is elite theft. It is your son's going to wars for the amusement of an elite and to no purpose. Ad hoc tax structures that change and the courts change them and then the powers that be changed them. So you can't really predict your your tax structure. And guess what?

It's it's not a good way to live. Like it's it's not a sensible way to live. It's not a way to build a life in a system like that. So this is another aspect. of America that is, you know, has to be clear in our minds as Canadians. This is, it is becoming very unattractive to its own people. And that, that I think is truly unique in American history, really. I want to bring you back to your podcast series for a second

because I noted the list of people that you interviewed for your, what have you got, six or eight episodes, something like that? Eight episodes, yeah. Eight episodes, yeah. I noticed you got Jean-Cretchenz, former deputy prime minister, John Manley in your series. series. And I wanted to raise him because I talked to him last week as well for a column I wrote for the Toronto Star, which actually ran on the 4th of July and we're not that far away from America at 250. And he's got a very interesting kind of, I won't say love, hate, because that's putting it too strongly, but like, dislike relationship with the U.S. in as much as he really can't stand Trump.

But he's got a daughter who lives in Seattle and he's got American-born grandchildren. And therefore, very complicated feelings about the U.S. the U.S. What stays with you from your chat with Mr. Manley? Well, I think we all have this complicated relationship with the United States. I mean, you know, like I have, I have colleagues and family there, too. We all do, right? I mean, that's why this is so heartbreaking. It's because they, like, we are connected with them. I think they are our cousins in some sense. And it is like your cousin going off the deep end, right? You know, I interviewed Manley, and he, he had this torn feature, but I also interviewed Peter McKay. So Harper's, basically Harper's John Manley in a sense, in that he was Minister of Defense, and he was very involved in the integration with the United States. And

what really struck me, I wonder if you feel this, too, as someone who interviews a lot of people along this political spectrum, is that they had the same kind of reaction, right? Like, they had the same, like McKay said to me that it was not a rupture. He would define it as a fracture, because fractures heal, right? And I think that's, you know, I disagree with that position. But on the other hand, I think this is a reasonable position to take. It is a, and I think it, it, it, it has a sort of sensibility that I think we all can understand where we're hoping against hope that America goes back to some version of normal, right? And I think Manley and McKay really share that. And when we're doing this show, that division was everywhere. It's in the, it's in the military, it's in the tech

sector, it's in business generally, it's in, it's in every aspect of this country. And I'd sort of thought of it as old Canada, new Canada. The old Canada is like we have to go back to the way, we're going to eventually go back to some kind of relationship with the United States. And the new Canada is more, the rupture has happened. We have to build our own stuff. You did a piece in the Globe and Mail that was really good about that and I'm going to come back to that a little bit later. But let me just, let me continue along this way with Peter McCain, John Manley. Can I ask you, though, if you've noticed the same thing? Because I really, like, and it wasn't, it was not liberal and conservative, right? Like, it was like, it was very much like I saw liberals and

conservatives who were on either side of this question. And I found that somewhat striking that it was like probably the most important political question of our country right now. And yet this division was not really reflected in the in the political choices available. I wonder if you saw the same thing. For sure, but let's also remember that that Peter McKay is a red Tory and John Manley is a blue grit. Right. In their Venn diagrams, there's a heck of a lot of overlap. John Manley was always far more sort of militarily adventurous and bellicose as a member of the Liberal Party of Canada. And Peter McKay was a let's say, well, anyway, I've made the point. So there's a lot of overlap. in their political philosophies.

But I don't know, my sense of it right now is, and I think John Manley in his interview with me put it this way, which was to say, we don't know if America is a pendulum or a continuum right now. You know, those who think it's a pendulum and it's going to swing back and get back to normal, okay, we hope they're right. But there's a lot of people who think we're on a continuum right now,

and that continuum is just sort of inexorably going in one direction, which I think most Canadians would consider to be, not good for the world and not good for our relations. And, you know, when I asked him, which do you think it is? He said, I don't know. I know what I hope for, but I just don't know. What do you think? I mean, I think that was sort of McKay's point too, right? Which is very, when you have consensus, I think that it's worth thinking about. I mean, to me, like, when I wrote the next Civil War, like, they spoke, the experts I spoke to called it an inverse pendulum. So what it actually happens is it gets more, you get a left-wing extremism 20-20 and all that went with it.

then you get a right wing extremism where we are right now. And then what comes next, according to this model. And I mean, this model has been pretty accurate, right? Like, it's one of those things that because whenever, whatever moment you're in, like, when you're in 2020 and you're in the height of wokeness and all of that fury, you just think the right's dead. But it's like, no, the right comes back, but in this unbelievably toxic way. So, I mean, another thing we could see is an unbelievably toxic left return, right? Because the norm. We already are. aren't we, Stephen, with some of the recent nomination fights in the Democratic Party, there are a lot of people with some pretty extreme views that are winning nomination battles right now.

Well, I think they're, I mean, because I don't really see them as inherently anti-democratic yet. But, you know, we're living in a world where it's become perfectly normal in the United States to, you know, deny entry to travelers on the basis of their social media posts or to arrest and deport people for signing op-eds and student newspapers. So if the left starts operating on those norms, if that's the norm and the practice of the United States, then if that happens, then it could be just unbelievably toxic. But the point is, really, that whether it's a, the pendulum just keeps getting wilder and wilder and it keeps getting more and more separated from reality. And it keeps and it keeps getting farther and farther from anything you could actually call policy. right and and and that is when you have a government without policy that that creates despair that creates a sense of powerlessness in the in this place and i don't see that going away i don't know to to escape that

they need true institutional revitalization from the ground up and i i just don't see the will to do that right now in the united states i don't you don't see the will in the democratic party to do it either not really i mean take even something as basic as open primary It happened in a few states. Like that is a way to take your foot off the gas of American hyper-partisanship immediately. Once it's happened, everywhere that it's happened, things get much more normal almost immediately. Meaning letting Republicans vote in Democratic primaries and vice versa. And vice versa.

And independence, of course, in both. But what they're doing instead is gerrymandering. I mean, in this hyper-partisan scenario that we're in right now, only 18. seats in Congress in the midterms are true toss-ups. I want you to think about that. That means fundamentally Congress is basically non-competitive at this point. And that serves Democrats and Republicans. They don't have a fight.

It's very easy for them, right? And so it's a, when you have those entrenched interests, you know, when you have those outcomes that are, what you put into it kind of doesn't matter because you're just going to get more entrenched outcomes, which are. leading to more despair? Well, it encourages extremism because, of course, the race is not against your opponent in the other party. The race is against the people within your own party, and the people who are the most energetic

tend to be the most extreme, and therefore they show up, they vote, and rather than meeting somewhere in the middle, everybody's at the margins now. It's really, it's not good. Let me ask you about, you know, when I was a kid, we used to have this, well, there were frequent references to this doomsday clock, and it had to do with nuclear weapons. and every now and then some international organization would move the hands on the clock a little closer to midnight when it looked like we were getting closer to nuclear war. We have the same kind of doomsday clock today, except it doesn't measure how close we are to nuclear war. It's how close America is to authoritarianism.

So over the last 20 months, in your judgment, since Trump came back to the Oval Office, how much either closer to midnight or further away from midnight is the American authoritarian doomsday clock in your view? Well, I mean, there are different ways of measuring that. They're different metrics for measuring that. I would say the ones that I trust, which are, oh, I forget what it's called right now. But they have a monitoring way of free press, you know, a bunch of factors, control over appointments, right? The Supreme Court is essentially creating an imperial presidency very, very quickly. the changes have been much faster than anyone could have predicted. I mean, like, these things tend to go very slowly.

Even with Putin, it was really a slow boil. Like, it took almost a decade for Putin to get to where Trump has gotten so far. Errian in Turkey is exactly the same way. Much more continuous slow drift. He's just doing it very, very rapidly. I think America is literally unrecognito. recognizable from what it was 24 months ago. I mean, every now and then you get a surprise, though, right?

Every now and then the Supreme Court comes out against Trump. The lower courts still seem to be quite independent from whatever influence he tries to put on them. That's encouraging. Well, I would just say that having, saying things like the courts are sometimes independent from the president is like, that's a standard of decline. It's already toxic as hell, right? Like, imagine if we were saying, well, the super.

Supreme Court is only obeys Mark Carney half the time. We're free. Like we like that, that would, we would not consider ourselves living in a free country. Very fair point. They could consider living in an imperial, in an imperial country. Right. So I, I think, um, you know, this is how this works. Your standards get lowered, right? Like bit by bit, you what you consider free gets lowered. And, and, and I mean, what's happened with the agencies recently? I mean, you know, you're not going to have any independent agencies from the president. You're essentially not going to have a depoliticized civil service in America. And the consequences of that are just fast. Yeah, we understand what Trump has done with those independent agencies of government, particularly the Justice Department,

maybe the IRS as well. But I guess to me the big question is, is this going to be the new normal going forward? Or if the Democrats win, do the Democrats try to put things back into a fashion that perhaps you and I would recognize, meaning a certain amount of independence in these agencies. Have you got a thought on that? Well, the problem is that to, like, let's start with the Supreme Court, right? The obvious one. Like, if they stack the court, which, you know, they will have a political, their own voters will want them to do, half of the country will then regard every decision of that Supreme

Court as illegitimate. The crisis is not on the actions of any one person or any. anyone administration. The crisis is the institutional rot of legitimacy, right? And that's where, that's why when, you know, the term that's used is like the slide between democracy and autocracy is called an anocracy. And it is the most dangerous time for political violence traditionally, which there still is a lot of in the United States, right? People don't really talk about it because the news is so consumed with Trump and National Mall. But there's still quite a bit of political violence in the United States.

America's entering a position where it only has bad choices, right? And that's really the essence of the problem. And we'll be back right after this. Welcome back to Gloves Off Season 2, eight brand new episodes about the threat to Canada's sovereignty and how middle powers can thrive in the New World Disorder. I'm Stephen Marsh. Last season, the show was about surviving.

Since then, Canada has emerged as a prominent global force. And that's why the question this season is what cards do we hold and how do we win? The gloves come off on Canada Day, July 1st. Get it wherever you get your podcasts and watch on YouTube. All right, let's go back to your Globe and Mail piece now in which you talked about old Canada and new Canada. And again, for those who didn't see it, just lay out the thesis, if you would, about which is which and why. Well, it was something I noticed when I was doing the whole podcast. it just kept coming up.

It was just like we would see it whenever we were talking about anything, is that you have people who are connected to the United States hoping against hope that America will come back to some kind of new normal and will basically resume the position of Robin to damaged Batman, shall we say. And that this is not necessarily they love America. They just, or they don't see what's happening in America. They just believe that. but that's kind of our destiny.

And then I think on the other side, you have people who believe in that the rupture has happened, that essentially the post-war international liberal order is over, and that we are going to have to reconstitute not just our very fundamental aspects of our country, our trade relationships, our governmental systems, our economic order, really. And also our defense are, you know, probably our, and especially our tech, right? Like, I mean, we are a digital colony and we need, and recovering from that is actually going to be the work of a generation. So this division, you know, obviously I think I'm on one side of this. But I also think we kind of all have both of it inside us, right?

Like I think, I think what you see is like a country where a country that's torn between these two visions like Manley and McKay. But also I think like even me who as, as you know, I've been talking about this stuff with you since when, man, since like. 2018, really? Many years. Yep. Many years. And even I, there's some part of me that's like hoping against hope in some part of me that they'll come to their senses and we can get back to being sensible brothers about all of this.

But then, and then I also think like people on the old Canada side, like Manley and McKay, in some part of them, they also know that it's truly broken and that they just can't quite bear to deal with it because they have kids in America, they have grandkids in America, et cetera, And it's not a political division. You know, I mean, Harper and Carney are on the same page. McKay and Manley are on the same page. But it rides through all our institutions. I mean, and in some of them, it's going to be really serious.

Like in the military, for example, I think the old Canada is going to have to go, right? And I think in the tech world, the old Canada is going to have to go. We're going to have to build things here that are just for us. Let me follow up on that political overlap because you do make the point that, okay, Mark Carney is the current prime minister. He's had his sand kicked in his face by the American president, his counterpart. He made this fantastic speech by all accounts at Davos in which he essentially laid the gauntlet for a new way of doing business with the world's indispensable nation, as Madeline Albright once called it. But even Stephen Harper agrees with him, right? Even Stephen Harper is a guy who basically said, I'm not sure he knew he was.

being recorded at this conference when he said it, but he did say it that there's almost no price that we should not be prepared to pay and no amount of suffering we should not be prepared to undergo in order to maintain whatever it is about Canada that makes us unique on this half of the continent. So he's a pretty conservative conservative. There we go.

I mean, he could not have been clear. He could not have been clear. I mean, Harper's always had a distinct hatred of authoritarian, I think. He has that Canadian hatred of like big shot nonsense. He said it to Putin, remember at that conference? He said it to Putin. I mean, I think he got to get out of Ukraine. He's got an ingrained sense of anti-authoritarianism that, you know, I think is,

that's a major strand of conservative thought. Like the fact that we find it weird that a conservative would have an anti-authoritarian point of view is itself a demonstration of what a toxic period that we're in, right? where that's even how unusual, right? Like, he actually stood for that pretty definitively and clearly in his tenure as prime minister. Well, I think that's because a lot of liberals, I think a lot of liberals never really believe that Stephen Harper in his heart loved Canada.

They thought he, he, there was too much about the United States that, that some liberals thought Mr. Harper wanted to import into Canada. And when he says something like, what we've got going here is so distinct from the U.S. and so special that there's almost no amount of money we shouldn't spend to defend what we've got here. That kind of puts a lie to what they've been thinking about him for the last, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I would say that the liberal hatred of Harper was that he was too Canadian, right? I mean, we've come through, like, I think we've kind of forget, like, the period we were in 2015 to 2024, where you have this, you know, critique of Canada as a nation, where you have people

like Harper standing up for it and fighting for it. Like, the the the the internationalism one of the things about the liberals before carney is that they were the absolute embodiment of the liberal international ideal right like that's that's that's that's all they that's all they really cared about right like and and nationalism Canadian nationalism was some kind of like embarrassing atavistic uh like you know um weirdness as for the integration with the United States. Not anymore. And as for integration with the United States, like Harper and Kretchen and 90% of the political space in Canada before Trump, too, believed in it. Right. Like it was, it was absolutely non-controversial. Right. Like it was, it was, you know, we had,

because of that, we had 70% growth of GDP over from, from NAFTA on, right? So like, that creates consensus. So the, I don't know, it, you know, he said himself that he was the most integrationist prime minister with the United States. But you know, like we we asked a bunch of people about that. They were like, well, Mulroney probably more, but also so was Kretchen in the aftermath of September 11th. Of course he was, right? So because it made sense. Like I mean, I was, you probably were too, right? Like I think we have to remember that so, and this is what John Manley told me again for this interview I did for the star, which is that so much of international today is personal relationships. And I think the fact that Brian Mulrooney and Ronald Reagan got on so well

and Brian Mulroney and George Bush, the father got on so well, and Justin Trudeau and Barack Obama and Joe Biden got on so well. Yeah. And, you know, you have to put all of that into the mix as well, I think. But also, we got along as countries, right? I mean, like, like, it wasn't, like, it was not to, like, I, like, I think there was, you know, there was anti-Americanism, but it was pretty slapdash. Like, I mean, it was like, you know, we all were traveling and we were all, you know, and I think connecting with the power that we saw as both sharing our values, the closest country in the world to sharing our values, and also the most powerful country in the world. It just made perfect, it just made perfect sense from a Canadian point of view to integrate. Well, Kretchen, Clinton used to say it too, right? Kretchen felt close enough to Bill Clinton that he kind of, I don't know if he fixed it, but he somehow used his influence to get Bill Clinton to make a comment about.

about the Quebec referendum in 1995, saying how much President Clinton would appreciate a no vote from Canadians, from Quebecers, rather. So there was that. And those two got along famously as well. In fact, Crutchy and I remember got caught on a hot mic saying, you know, Bill, every now and then I've got to say something negative about the U.S.

Because it's such great politics up here. But you and I get on so well, right? And they did. And they did. And that was, what's happened here is America's changed. Right? Like it's not like, it's not like we've really changed. It's like they no longer share our values.

They are directly threatening us. They are, they have entered some weird neo-imperialist nonsense that not only doesn't fly, but is evil. And so, like, we are, we are reacting. I mean, that much, I think, is very clear. And we'll be back right after this. Let me ask you about Goldie Hider, the head of the Business Council of Canada. Sure. Oh, I'm guessing your office Christmas card list now, given what you do.

just said about him in your column? Well, listen, it isn't actually personal because I just want to be clear, like this new Canada, old Canada division, that's not a question of political stripe. And it's not a, it's certainly not a question of patriotism, right? Like, like it's not like what I'm saying about Peter McKay and John Manley is that they don't love Canada or Goldie. I mean, they love Canada and they're trying, they're fighting for what they believe is best for Canada. they just can't deal with. I just think his comments were such that you're not dealing with reality. Like you've you've missed out what's actually happened.

He would say, he would say your side of the argument isn't dealing with reality because the reality is we're so integrated in the American relationship and we need them so much for our business that we've got to do whatever it takes in order to snuggle back up to them. Yeah, and I think that's a really insane position. And I think it really is one that is,

like when you look around the world and you look at like you know one of the most interesting things that i found was comparing us to australia right i talked to malcolm turnbull the ex-prime minister of australia and i talked to one of the leading economists of the iron or mining companies because they're you know they're they're pretty tight comparison with us they're sort of like the rude or better looking version of us like warmer version of us in some ways and you know their number one trading partner is china that doesn't mean they share the values with or that they have to cozy up to China or that they have to, you know, or that they have to bend the knee to China. Like, we have a very luxurious position out there that you should trade with people who share your values.

And it's when you go and explain this to other people in the world, they find it bizarre, right? Like, China and Japan are each other's leading trading partners. I mean, think of their history. Like, it isn't what, it isn't like the one president makes one nasty comment. It's like a thousand years of violence, right? And they're each other's, they're each other's trading partner, number one trading partners.

So like I think this idea that, that particularly when you look at the numbers of like what Kuzma is, like, you know, we've been wringing our hands over Kuzma for two years now. July 1st has come and gone. It's very unclear what, what has changed,

right? So there is a, there is a real danger here. in exaggerating our vulnerabilities. I mean, huge danger in it, especially since I think we are so naturally anxious. Like, I think that can easily be exaggerated. Well, can I, hmm, okay, can I tell a little tale out of school here?

Because this is what I'm going to do. Well, I'm going to get your permission on this because you and I had a really nice conversation at this year's, I guess it was a couple of weeks ago, the Canadian Journalism Foundation Annual Get Together at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. Sure. And at one point when we were having a chat, you said, I think you said something to me like, you know, I did write that book the next Civil War, but what if this actually may all work out? What if I might not have been right about all that? Can you share some of your thoughts on that? It's not a question of it all working out. I really meant that actually for the world. Right. Like I think America, like the structural problems in America, which we've talked about a million times, you know, nothing. has really convinced me that they are going away and that they are. But, you know, we are entering a really interesting period geopolitically where you see authoritarianism. It's failing. Like,

these are not society, like Russia in its war against Ukraine is failing. This is like what happened in Hungary was that it just failed. It just was, you know, they're left. Erdogan lost and left. Yeah, or not Erdogan. Why can't I remember his name? But like, no, he did. Erdogan lost an election too and left. And left. And they then restore, they're now in the business of restoring their institutions, right? Like they are now in the business of doing that very, very aggressively, which is actually the key. Like I think one possibility that could happen in America is they get to the end of this and there's no consequences for anybody for all. And that would, that would be an absolute disaster.

But regardless of America, we're entering a period where the basic level of education in the populations of the world is such that the Empires are not, we're, empires are over. Like, we're, we're in a post-imperialist phase. And then also, I think when you look at sort of the general trade networks of the world, they are widening and opening. And we have entered this period of loathing for the other that is extraordinary, and which I find truly mystifying. But that's got, to me, it seems like that's got to come to an end.

So let me put it to you this way. When I know what I'm talking about, I'm pessimistic. When I have vague feelings that there's no evidence for, I'm vaguely optimistic at parties when I've had a few drinks before we go and celebrate a bunch of famous journalists. Is that accurate enough for you? That is absolutely accurate. And I'm just wondering what's it like to be in your head most days of the week. That's got to be troubling sometimes.

well i mean i'm doing what i can man meditation yoga runs you know trying to eat right you know good for you good for you let me ask you this about uh old canada versus new canada where would you put the current leader of the conservative party of canada i don't actually know i i find him quite mysterious i find getting a political read on on what he actually thinks to be quite hard um Like, he seems to be navigating so many interest groups within his own movement that it's hard for me to sort of triangulate what he actually believes politically and what he would stand for. I think he is obviously a patriot. And I think that he believes in Canada. And he has, he has been more than clear enough to me and his resistance to Trump and what it means.

Like, I don't have any doubt for that. But I think he, I think he probably. is as torn as all of us, right? And I think he's got so many forces pulling him at this moment. It must be torment to be him. Because it's very hard. Where is he, where is the ground for him even to make a stand? Like I, so I, you know, I don't, I don't necessarily judge him in his position because I

think it's, it's, whereas, you know, Goldie Haider has clarified to me that he represents old Canada. I don't, I would never feel confident saying that about Pierre Pollyette. I wouldn't. Okay. You know, it's just occurred to me that no wonder we had this moment of confusion a moment ago because I said Erdogan and I meant Orban. Of course, I'm hungry.

Yeah, that's what, I was trying to correct it. But then I thought, you're the host. I'll let it go. You know what? No, you should never let that go. When the host screws, look at everybody on X does not let the host get away with mistakes. Yeah, but they don't matter. So, you know.

No, they do. They do. They do. Okay, Stephen, we're going to get a last word for you in just a moment, but I've got to do some housekeeping first. And first of all, I want to start with the fact that this conversation that you and I are having. In fact, all the conversations that I've had over the past year on the Paken podcast and going forward into the future are going to remain free. That's very important for us to make sure that people don't have to pay to receive these conversations. We hope we're contributing a little something to the conversation out there. And so we want there to be no barrier to entry on that. Having said that, some people have been very kind and decided to throw a few bucks our way on our Patreon page. That's patreon.com forward slash the pagan podcast in order to help us with expenses. And let me just name a couple of people. A lot of people don't want to be named. They're happy to give the money and they say, I'd rather stay anonymous.

But a couple of people gave me permission recently to mention them. And that is Utah Wark. Some of you may know her husband, Wesley Wark, who's a well-known foreign affairs observer in this country and security issues. I've been around for quite a while. So you to thank you very much for your contribution. And Stephen, there's another guy here named. Let me see if I got this name right. Larry Paken. Oh, yes, I do remember him. Any relation? That's my, that's my dad. Right. So my dad is now a member of our country on community. Well, you have him on the show. So he's got to put some money in, right. He was on the old show. He was on the last interview. That's right.

He was the last interview on the agenda after 19 years. And I guess I honestly did not guilt him into contributing anything to this. He just, he watches every episode. And I guess he figured after a year of watching, you know, okay, I'll throw the kid a bone. Let's also mention that if you go to the Patreon page, there is some web exclusive stuff there. For example, that interview that I did with John Manley for the Star, we recorded. So you can watch that interview there. And, of course, listen to Stevens interview on his Gloves Off podcast with John.

Manly as well, who I think had some really interesting things to say about this topic. All of our shows are archived at the website, stevepeakin.com. Stephen Marsh, any last words for us today? No, I mean, we have eight episodes of Gloves Off. They're available on YouTube. They're available wherever you get your podcast. We're also doing this after show where we like do in-depth dives with Baz Bedner. You've probably had her on your show.

Oh, I had her on many times. She's terrific. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's terrific. and John Shell of social capital partners. And we sort of do a deep dive into the policy questions of each show. And they're on YouTube. And they're pretty fun.

Like we get back and forth with them. So there's lots of material to check out there. And I think, you know, these questions are so, like, we do live in fascinating times. You know what I mean? Like you never wake up in the morning and say, what am I going to talk about today? You know what I mean? Like there's just, there's so much depth to go into in these questions. So please listen, join us.

Yeah, I'm happy to recommend people do that as well for Gloves Off. I listen to every episode in your first season. It was great stuff. And look forward to all eight episodes of season two. So Stephen Marsh, congratulations with that. And thanks for joining us today on the Paken podcast. Thanks for having me, Steve. Until next time, peace and love, everybody.