People living in Western New York have a very unique opportunity. Some of us can, from our offices, actually see a foreign country – like Sarah Palin, only for real. We can drive in to work in the morning, take a quick glance to our right, and see another nation.

Some of us live in that foreign country for the summer. Many more of us drive over for lunch or dinner. Trips to see the Blue Jays play in Toronto or a theatre production are just a couple hours’ drive away. Or maybe it’s a trip to see a play or to have dinner in a picturesque little town a short distance across a river from a fort that that once defended America.

It is kind of neat to have this sort of situation with a foreign country, although I’ve never thought of Canada as a “foreign” country, just a neighboring area to visit, some place that we can get to in 20 or 30 minutes from home, even closer than Letchworth State Park or the Chautauqua Institute. There is more involved in getting across the border than there used to be, but it is still manageable.

But our country’s fearless leader now tells us that Canada is a “national security threat” to the United States. So what in the world does that mean? Will the border be closed? Can I still go to Niagara-on-the-Lake?

This, unfortunately, is just the latest example of life imitating art, which seems so appropriate since the president is a former made-for-TV-reality star. I’m thinking here about the 1990’s movie, Canadian Bacon. Timely and funny if you can track down a copy to watch.

The movie was not a box office hit but it had a passing interest for locals since the movie was set in Western New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario. The plot line was simple: an American president, whose popularity was waning, needed something to detract attention from his problems. Russia wasn’t interested in starting a war, so the president’s team suggested that a war with Canada would work.

As part of the agitation to drum up support for the war with Canada, the story line goes, anti-Canadian feelings are drummed up – think Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim agitation. A network newscaster, in the movie, reports “the Canadians. They walk among us. William Shatner. Michael J. Fox. Monty Hall. Mike Meyers. Alex Trebek. All of them Canadians. All of them here.”

Like in the movie, Trumpkins like Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, contribute to the hysteria by denouncing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who dared to challenge Trump. “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad-faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door.”

Trump’s TV economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, joined in. “POTUS is not going to let a Canadian prime minister push him around. He is not going to permit any show of weakness on the trip to negotiate with North Korea. … He really kind of stabbed us in the back … It’s a betrayal. It’s essentially double-crossing.”

President Snowflake must be served.

The movie ends with nuclear war being narrowly avoided and the American protagonists returning home victorious. Who knows how Trump’s war with Canada will end?

Facts, of course, never get in Trump’s way, so he lied about the United States’ balance of trade with Canada. We actually have a positive balance of trade with them.

Trump, of course, is the master of deception. Anything that distracts attention from the corruption of the administration is worth it to him, no matter how much damage his actions produce.

Through it all the Republican faithful, elected officials and party leaders have been looking the other way, so much that their necks must be permanently twisted. Where is the criticism, where is the outrage about a president and his appointees operating as if they are above the law? Why are people standing by and enabling this morally and ethically challenged president when he attacks our friends while cozying up to communist thugs?

While the attacks on American allies go on unabated by Trump and his minions, we this week have a new episode in the Trump Show starring Trump as president and North Korean murderer Kim Jong Un as the ring master. Kim has already won the meeting by bringing an American president to him. Tweedledum and Twiddledee are not going to bring peace to the world, however, no matter how much they spin their conversation.

All the while, with the war on Canada and Europe and the fraternization with North Korea, Vladimir Putin is undoubtedly sitting back and enjoying the show. He must be so proud of Donald.

Actually, rather than watching that comedy, Canadian Bacon, you might want to find a copy of a different and perhaps more appropriate movie to watch, The Manchurian Candidate. It’s aboot political intrigue, eh?