It’s a lesson learned from childhood:  in friends you’ll find support, empathy, loyalty, and mutual trust.  Sometimes you’re more on the giving side, sometimes more on the receiving end.  It usually balances out.  Good friends are worth keeping.

Donald Trump has perverse ideas about America’s friendships and alliances.  He’s ignited a trade war with Canada, arguably one of America’s closest allies, because it wouldn’t accept the terms of his proposed agreement.  Does anyone doubt who was the bully in these negotiations?  The Trump administration espouses a Darwinian view of governance based on the power of the strongest, with the weak inevitably subservient. 

With borders shared between our state and Canadian provinces, many New Yorkers have had the experience of traveling there and encountering Canadian tourists here.  Have we found anything less than friendliness, commonalities in culture, and shared democratic values?  Canadians now feel abandoned by their southern neighbor and sense a threatening hostility from Trump.

South Korea, another longtime ally, similarly got a jolt this week from Trump when he announced reduced support for our annual joint military exercises, purportedly because the country didn’t support his actions in Iran to the degree he expected.  At the same time, he proposed rekindling his bromance with dictator Kim Jong Un of North Korea (the guy with the nukes). 

It’s not surprising to feel unsettled in this new world where our president, in our name, attacks our friends and cozies up to our adversaries.  Most of us would never organize our relationships  that way.  71 days before election day, November 3rd,  is too long to wait to deliver the message to the Trump administration and Congress:  it’s long past your expiration date.  Stop the insane train now! 

Mail in ballots in Ulster County will be sent September 18 to those who requested one.  Vote the bums out.