RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 (LABOUR DAY) 2025. Canadian pundit Andrew Coyne’s recent column in the Toronto Globe and Mail — “Donald Trump is on the brink of becoming a dictator. Can he be stopped?” — has its alarming moments.

The “defenders” of “democracy in America,” it urges, “are running out of options, and out of time.”

Inside the USA some of the defenders themselves have lately been sounding at least somewhat more optimistic.

In the midst of the often bizarre instincts of Trumpian health policy czar RFK Jr (strange son of the original “right-wing-new-left liberal” RFK), health officials from the eight Northeastern states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont recently “met … to consider coordinating their own vaccine recommendations, separate from the federal government.”

[UPDATE: On Sep 3 it was further reported that on the Pacific coast “California, Oregon, and Washington just announced they are forming an alliance to coordinate vaccine recommendations in direct defiance of RFK Jr.”

Or as officially reported by the Golden State: “As Trump & RFK Jr. destroy the CDC’s credibility,@CAGovernor Gavin Newsom just announced California is teaming up with Oregon & Washington to launch a new ‘West Coast Health Alliance’ to uphold scientific integrity in public health” …

And on Sep 4 Bob Ferguson, Governor of Washington, announced : “Welcome, Hawaii, to the West Coast Health Alliance.”]

Meanwhile, just yesterday Robert Reich, former Clinton labor secretary and current retired (but still hard-working) public policy professor at UC Berkeley, offered a “Sunday thought: Why Trump is doomed”

(Though : “None of this argues for complacency. We must continue to fight — demonstrate, phone your representatives and senators, boycott corporations and organizations that are caving in to tyranny, protect the vulnerable, make good trouble.”)

And then there is the regular and increasingly aggressive (and mocking) anti-Trump social media campaign led by California Governor Gavin Newsom : “The world will soon understand … Nothing can stop what is coming.”

(As a new American progressive era becomes the ultimate ironic legacy of President Trump and the extreme right-wing MAGA Republicans??)

Meanwhile again, up here north of the lakes (and beyond, past the 49th Parallel etc) I have personally been (largely) persuaded by a tweet/Xpost from the excellent Clay Thompson @harryt59_harry : “Since April 28th I have been going to sleep feeling comfortable that no matter what’s going on in this crazy world Canada got it right & we are in good hands … Sleep tight Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney got this. Keep Calm and Carney on.”

This has reminded me of an uncle from a family of Bell Telephone employees, with a cottage in the near northern woods, who used to talk about “carrying on as if we know what we’re doing.” It is an old strategy in these parts. And I think Carney is as popular as he is right now (68% approval across Canada) partly because he plays this particular old Canadian game so well.

Finally, to conclude these hasty Labour Day 2025 meditations, I end with a recent broader tweet/post from senior Canadian pollster Frank Graves@VoiceOfFranky :

“Despite all the chaos and torment I see evidence that the forces of progress and compassion will win . Someone once said not that long ago. I have a dream. This is an interruption. The arc of the moral universe is long. But it bends to goodness.”

I can’t think of a better note on which to start the Fall Season 2025.

Unless it is the still somewhat too forward-looking old great verse by Ezra Pound, that wild and (especially politically) crazy but talented guy from Idaho who grew up in Pennsylvania, became an unusual American in London and Paris, and finally died in Venice, Italy :

“Winter is icummen in,/Lhude sing Goddamm …”