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Reminder for Americans: Canada is a constitutional monarchy, and its head of state is King Charles III. Donald Trump invited himself to a state visit to Charlie's manor back in January: Trump has a royalty fetish.
I imagine that visit is going to become a negotiating lever in the very near future. And if it goes ahead, the dinner table conversation's going to be rather chilly …
@cstross I wonder if Air Products can supply enough liquid nitrogen to do it properly? Send the Orange Tyrant home in a big Dewar....
@cstross While I’m not a monarchist I do appreciate some of the quiet things Charles has been doing to show support for Canada. Things are getting a little dicey over here and the whole country is on edge.
@cstross I would bet this is a big deal for Charles. For decades, the monarchy has had to accept losing countries as they chose to become republics. But, the threat of losing a country where he's the head of state to "enemy action" of some kind is a completely different matter.
If he allowed that to happen, it would prove he's powerless and his title is purely ceremonial. But, if he was able to stop it, it would demonstrate he's not just a figurehead and maybe prevent a few realms from going republic.
Trump seems to be going all-in on the idea that soft power doesn't matter, dismantling USAID, etc. Maybe Chuck can use his nothing-but-soft-power constraints to show what's possible.
@merc You missed Ronald Reagan invading a British dependency in 1983? He was most taken aback to get an angry phone call from Liz—he hadn't known Grenada was hers!
@cstross@wandering.shop @merc@techhub.social Ronald Ray-Guns, who played the President of the United States on national TV from 1981 to 1988. He had pretty shit writers, but he was well past his acting prime anyway...
@cstross Grenada's interesting. It was a constitutional monarchy under Liz for 5 years post independence.
Then the Marxist-Leninist New Jewel Movement took over in a bloodless coup under Maurice Bishop. All other political parties were banned and no elections were held.
4 years later, the US invaded not knowing Liz still considered it hers. Which makes sense, I suppose. But, apparently post-coup they kept the Governor General in office. He even apparently regularly played tennis with Bishop.
After the US invasion it returned to being / continued being a constitutional monarchy under Liz.
In 2009 the government renamed the airport where the Americans focused their invasion after Maurice Bishop, the "prime minister" who had taken over in a coup.
