Katheryn Speck said she used to be a Canadian nationalist, travelled the world with a maple leaf on her backpack and once lived in Quebec so she could become fluently bilingual.
But on Saturday she was among hundreds of people who rallied at the Alberta Legislature to support separation from Canada, with many in the crowd waving Alberta flags and a few even displaying the U.S. Stars and Stripes.
“I thought it was a beautiful, fantastic country. But now I’m so disappointed. I’m literally crushed that we’ll never be represented in this country and there’s never a chance of changing the government,” Speck said.
Earlier this week, Premier Danielle Smith’s government proposed legislation that would lower the bar for holding a referendum.
This all has remarkable parallels from the Anschluss between Germany and Austria in the 20s and 30s. There was support for it in the 20s, but Hitler said Austria should join with Germany and how wonderful it would be. He used agents to influence pro-unification. Some Austrians agreed, and even tried an coup to overthrow the government and join with Germany.
In 1938 Austria was finally bullied into holding a referendum, but it looked like the outcome would be against unification. Hitler marched his armies in to Austria less than 24 hours before the referendum and annexed the country.
It was 5 years after he rose to power in 1933.
Trump will come for us, and it’ll be traitors like this that give him the excuse to do it.
Based on your account, annexing Austria before the referendum indicates Hitler didn’t need an excuse. Not marching would have saved resources, but clearly he was going to take it regardless. I doubt Trump will need an excuse either - if that’s what he intends to do.
If you could mobilize 1000 people to achieve your goals instead of 10000 people, why would you mobilize the 10000? And if the 1000 doesn’t work, trying only costs you 10% more than not trying and then having to go with the more expensive option. And coming in before the result that would delegitimize your claim is simply pragmatic.
The same as Hitler, Trump won’t need an excuse, but why would he choose the more expensive option? Now we’re talking about Trump, so well thought out plans aren’t the norm, but he does like to save a buck…