No longer my tribe

I went to the Viking Museum the other day. Danes are in love with their Viking past in a sentimental way that I find off-putting. I think it’s a little silly for a modern, urban Danish person to put so much emotional energy into “we are a sea faring people!” Please. You work in an office. Tribalism of that sort brings out the cynic in me, no matter which group is doing it.

Denmark used to be a conquering, colonialist kingdom who were slave traders and now they’re just a generous welfare state with a wonderful quality of life and half the population of Ohio so maybe they can be forgiven some nostalgia - they made this transition with a lot of grace, really. The way the sea faring tradition plays out now is Denmark doesn’t regulate pleasure boaters at all, which I think is crazy, especially because Danes drink so much. If you take the (wonderful) public water taxi to downtown Copenhagen you witness the pilot of the ferry shouting “slow down!” over a PA system repeatedly to drunken teens going too fast, well, as fast as one can in a tiny boat with a little electric motor.

We went to revel in Vikingness with a group that included a Canadian couple and while I know Danes are pissed at Americans because JD and Usha Vance threatened to invade them and seize Greenland, I may have underestimated the anger of Our Neighbors to the North. The Canadian couple recognized that my husband and I are Americans and started this weirdly passive aggressive dialogue with this poor congenial Turkish person who was acting as their sounding board/prop. The dialogue was directed AT us but not WITH us - the Canadians were telling the Turk that they wished Canada were further from the US because Americans are violent and crazy, loudly, so we could hear.

I loathe this kind of chickenshit indirect attack in any conflict situation and this was no exception, so I was annoyed although I agree with the angry Canadians 100% on the substance of their complaint. What I wasn’t though, is offended on behalf of my country. This is a change for me - I was always actually quite patriotic, or more so than many on the Left side of the Democratic Party and that of course is also a kind of tribalism although not one based on ethnicity. I was always patriotic, but never a hack. I’m no longer willing to defend the behavior of my tribe.

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Scott H1 year ago

Another way to handle that situation would have been to approach the Canadian couple and say "I hear you, not all of us voted for the bastard. In fact, 75 million of us voted for the nice lady and her great VP guy who reminded us of many Canadian's we've met over the years."

We were in Yurp when Hair Furor was elected the first time. We spent a day bar crawling in Venice apologizing in English and Italian to anybody who saw we were Americans.

mister mixAuthor1 year ago

Passive aggressive behavior is totally on brand for Canadians. No shade -- I love Canada and Canadians, but they're very much the ones who will say "sorry" (pronounced "soory") and then grumble. Almost without exception, the Canadians we've met love their country and think it's a great place, so the unexpected, unsolicited treatment they're getting from the US hurt them deeply.

C P1 year ago

Two hundred years of amity and a boundary Constable Fraser once bragged about being the world's longest undefended border is a hell of a thing to throw away.

There have been many points in our existence during which Canada could have made our existence a lot less pleasant, even if most of those times it was a part of the British Empire. Heck, if they'd chosen to involve themselves in the Civil War, we wouldn't even be a country anymore.

John S.1 year ago

I’ve traveled abroad extensively for more than 20 years. Americans have always been assholes, and seem to revel in being the stereotypes so many people believe about us.

There have been countless times in that period (from Bush to Trump) when I have passed as Canadian just to avoid the bullshit that often comes with being American.

r po1 year ago

I am not sure this is correct as a blanket statement. Yes, we have traveled for 40 years to places like the EU, and long ago enough that Czechoslovakia was a thing with Soviet tanks and troops on view. Also modern Romania. And a long tour of the length of Egypt. 50x into Mexico.

What we've learned is that if we're pleasant, engaged, polite, and patient, people everywhere love Americans. Because we are Americans. There is no hiding it, even if you adopt say the middle class norm for dress in Mexico. Or France, or Italy, ad infinitum.

"Engaged" means learning bits of the language: counting to ten, hello/please/excuse me/thank you. In France you begin every convo when you walk in with au revoir and you say merci when leaving. In Mexico, outside of gringoland, you say buenos dias/tardes/noches and gracias and no gracias and you are gracious about it. I've had abuelitas and gardeners buenos dias me.

Many Americans violate these precepts. They're assholes. Fuckem.

C P1 year ago

Dual citizen. TBH, my reaction in this day and age is to roll my eyes and think "you're not special."

The fascism tide's rising everywhere. I've been voting against the French National Front my entire life and watching it grow steadily for about as long, to the point that I'm pretty convinced that their winning the presidency is a question of when not if. Pretty much every country in the West is seeing the same thing happen in varying degrees. It's nice that Trump being so flamboyantly fascist seems to have given a bump to non-fascist parties in other countries (including Canada), but I seriously doubt if it'll turn into a long-term trend instead of kicking the can down the road.

I have no interest in defending the behavior of "my tribe," but I'm not going to pretend there's anything unique to it either. (And the kind of assholes who'll loudly talk AT you but not WITH you as you describe is exactly the kind of asshole who's going to go home and vote for their own fascists).

TBone Dinosaur1 year ago

I would have been tempted to say loudly, to no one in particular, that "I am an American, but I am not your punching bag. I am embarrassed and afraid for my nation and completely understand your ire; however, it is seriously inappropriate to stereotype me in this cowardly manner."

Sepideh M1 year ago

Canadians are very proud that they have killed Las Vegas tourism.

Kay W.1 year ago

That is ALL OVER Tik Tok - waitstaff and others posting video of empty venues. I had no idea.

mister mixAuthor1 year ago

Another place for pissed-off Canadians is the subreddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/

And man are they pissed. You'll see a pic of empty Las Vegas streets once in a while.

The latest news I saw is that CBP is having random stops on the way to the border near Vancouver, and that is further dampening Canadian interest in visiting the US.

No longer my tribe

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