In American politics, trolling is one of the most common forms of psychological warfare against opponents. Politicians call it ‘strategic distraction’: provoke outrage, create confusion, and hijack an opponent’s focus.
Back in 1828, Andrew Jackson’s operatives agitated John Quincy Adams over White House billiard tables, baiting Adams’ camp into high-minded, moralising defences that made them appear elitist. Decades later, Lyndon Johnson systematically baited Barry Goldwater into impulsive soundbites that portrayed him as an unhinged extremist.
Strategic distraction is central to Donald Trump’s strategy. Hurl an absurd insult or a ridiculous demand, force the target into frantic self-defence, and watch them burn political capital, believing they’re defending their honour. Call it distraction, trolling, baiting, or theatre; the goal isn’t to win an argument but to make your opponent lose their mind. Nobody plays that mind game better than the 47th President of the United States.
Anyone following America’s rapidly shifting cultural landscape since 2012 knows Trump’s victories didn’t happen in a vacuum. Setting parties aside, by 2016 millions of Americans felt their way of life was being undermined and were furious. They saw Trump as the guy who’d swing an axe at the establishment.
That anger persists to this day; it wasn’t a temporary phase. It’s the political engine that requires Trump to keep country-first, anti-woke Americans constantly angry at those evangelising identity politics. He needs to keep stoking the fire. He plays into that primal ‘us versus them’ tribal instinct, constantly painting foreign countries as opportunists taking advantage of America. Trump’s trolling of Canada isn’t asinine rhetoric; it’s an effective way, as proven, to keep his base engaged and angry.
This is where Trump’s genius for media manipulation kicks in. He understands the modern media apparatus far better than it understands itself. He set the first Canadian bait-and-react trap by floating the idea of making Canada the 51st state and demoting Justin Trudeau to governor. It was obvious, low-level bait that any seasoned leader should have shrugged off. Instead, Canadian politicians and media commentators lost their collective minds, shrieking on TV, radio and podcasts as if an invasion force had crossed the 49th parallel.
Fast-forward to Trump’s recent executive order renaming Lake Ontario ‘Lake America’. Right on cue, Canadian leaders took the bait. Ontario Premier Doug Ford made a derogatory remark on Toronto’s morning radio. He then rushed to Grimsby, a town on Lake Ontario in the Niagara Region, to unveil a 24-foot billboard reading ‘Lake Ontario: Now and Always’. Meanwhile, federal politicians delivered solemn addresses defending sovereignty. Really? A sign? A guy in Washington signs a piece of paper, and Canadian politicians declare a national emergency.
During Trump’s 2016 campaign, Ottawa was asleep at the wheel. He openly said he’d use tariffs to repatriate manufacturing to America. Competent leadership would have diversifying Canada’s economy years earlier. Instead, Canadian leaders sat on their hands, dismissed it as mere rhetoric, and left the country’s prosperity entirely dependent on a guy who treats international trade as a combat sport.
When panic over Trump’s re-election set in, Trudeau realised he was out of his league and skedaddled. Canadians then fell into the delusion that a smooth-talking saviour could tame Trump. Enter Mark Carney, armed with gold-plated technocratic credentials. In Washington, credentials don’t impress; they make you a target. When JD Vance mocked Carney for trying to ‘puff his chest out and out-tough Donald Trump’, he exposed Ottawa’s flaw. Canadian leadership thinks trade negotiations are a high-minded debate scored on protocol. The Trump administration views it as a bare-knuckle shakedown.
The solution isn’t complicated. As Fen Osler Hampson, Professor of International Affairs at Carleton University, bluntly put it when describing how to handle Trump’s schoolyard tactics, the rule is simple: “Lay out your position, then shut up.”
The problem is that Canadians refuse to shut up. They treat every Trump provocation as a constitutional emergency rather than political heckling. In politics, if you yell back at your opponent, you lose the room; you’re essentially handing them the microphone. Abraham Lincoln knew this trap: you don’t wrestle with a mudslinger, because all you do is get filthy while the guy throwing dirt gets a free show. By obsessively deconstructing every post from Mar-a-Lago, Canadians are letting Trump live rent-free in their heads.
Canadians need to confront an uncomfortable truth: Most Americans spend zero energy thinking about how they’re different from Canada. They don’t care. Canadians need to stop being concerned about people who aren’t concerned about them.
Since Kamala Harris’s defeat, Democrats have been leaderless, paving the way for a JD Vance presidency in 2028. Canadians shouldn’t expect relief from Washington, nor salvation from Mark Carney. With US tariffs locked in for at least the next decade, throwing a national tantrum at Trump isn’t a trade strategy. The smartest path forward isn’t posturing on talk shows; it’s making practical peace with the superpower next door.
Trump isn’t stupid. He knows exactly what he’s doing when he taunts Canadians, or posts a ridiculous cartoon at three in the morning. He understands that a nation hyper-focused on defending its ‘honour’ over trivialities is laughably vulnerable at the negotiating table. While Doug Ford poses beside a giant sign like a triumphant toddler and Canadian cable news panels have collective panic attacks, Trump sits back, laughing at the commotion.
Canadians need to face the fact that they’ve been dumped by the US. Rather than obsessing over an ex who doesn’t think of them, they should wipe away their tears, put the tub of cookie dough ice cream back in the freezer, and start planning a future independent of the US.
Nick Kossovan
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