To the Editor:
We Canadians may suffer from your president’s economic bullying, name-calling and insults. But we will survive, and we will resist. I will stand with our leaders as they respond with respect and an understanding of democracy.
But if I were American, I would worry a lot about whether American democracy can survive a president with increasingly authoritarian instincts and those willing to enable him.
Democracy depends on an educated population. America has some of the world’s finest universities, yet decades of economic inequality and inadequate investment in public education have helped create the anger and resentment that fuel the MAGA movement. If I were American, I would fight like hell for education and democracy.
As a Canadian, I fear America’s slide toward authoritarianism far more than the economic harm its president can inflict on us.
Denise Savoie Comox, British Columbia The writer was a member of the Canadian House of Commons from 2006 to 2012.
To the Editor:
What a contrast in the sparring between Canadian and American leaders. The Canadians speak with dignity, purpose and principle. The Americans seem addled and devoid of integrity.
The Canadians are defending their country with honor. We Americans, by contrast, appear as bullies, embracing a might-makes-right mentality, behaving boorishly, trying to explain away an emperor who has no clothes. President Ronald Reagan often described America as a “shining city upon a hill.” Today, America increasingly looks like a humiliated thug lying in a ditch.
President Trump has conclusively demonstrated how easy it is to destroy respect that took generations to build. Hopefully, time does heal; rebuilding will take far longer than destroying it did.
We face two more years of this petulant presidency. America desperately needs a Congress with the courage to govern. Congress’s unwillingness to even consider impeachment proceedings illustrates how political loyalty has replaced constitutional responsibility — reason enough to remove every MAGA enabler in Congress at the ballot box.
The picture painted by Canada could hardly be clearer: one nation defending its sovereignty with dignity and principle, and another allowing its power, reputation and integrity to be diminished by the conduct of its own leadership.
Robert Detor Port Washington, N.Y.
To the Editor:
Re “Google Maps Changes Lake Ontario to Lake America” (news article, nytimes.com, Aug. 30):
How craven of Google to change the name of Lake Ontario on its maps to Lake America for users in the United States. It had similarly changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America after an executive order issued by President Trump.
It is bad enough when the president’s base takes whatever he says or does as gospel and acts accordingly. When companies show similar subservience, they reveal a complete disregard for ethical standards to which they should be committed and a desire to protect themselves and their profits by ingratiating themselves with President Trump and avoiding his wrath.
That the president has amassed his power primarily through fear says everything about him and those with the potential power to oppose him, whether they be Republican politicians or powerful corporations. It is the sign of a dictator.
Ronald L. Hirsch Washington, Maine
To the Editor:
The name Lake Ontario wasn’t coined by British imperialists or frothing-at-the-mouth Canadian nationalists. It came from Wendat, an Indigenous language, centuries ago. It means “big lake.”
Indigenous history is an essential part of our shared national histories. Lose it to the whims of the moment, and you lose part of your national identity.
Klaus Kuch Oro-Medonte, Ontario
The Conquest of ‘Digital Territory’
To the Editor:
Re “The British Empire Has a Lesson for Curbing Big Tech,” by William Dalrymple (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 30):
In drawing comparisons between the East India Company and contemporary companies, Mr. Dalrymple states that modern companies “don’t have standing armies, nor have they conquered territory.” While that is technically true, it overlooks a unique feature of tech companies. They do control territory, just not in the traditional sense.
Today, Amazon, Microsoft and Google account for roughly two-thirds of the global cloud market. While the East India Company may have controlled physical land, modern corporations (or these three) are dominating “digital territory.”
In a world dominated by A.I. and debates over technological competition, what could be more important than the digital space that companies rent for computing and data storage?
These companies don’t physically occupy land and extract value, but they monopolize the territory that other companies and countries need to compete in the 21st century. I would argue that it gives companies a broader and more global reach than the East India Company ever had.
Amaan Charaniya Atlanta
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