The Buffalo Bills’ front office says that the decision to play the Canadian national anthem as well as the “Star Spangled Banner” at their game against the Detroit Lions was “all about the business,” saying that about 12 percent of the owners of the new stadium’s personal seat licenses are Canadians, and the PSL waiting list is closer to 20 percent. Buffalo is, indeed, a kind of bizarro El Paso — a surprisingly international small city with deep connections to Ontario.
But I still found it interesting that the crowd reacted with such obvious respect and enthusiasm. It got me wondering whether the White House’s stupid and pointless economic and cultural war with our neighbors to the north could be a legitimate problem for the GOP, at least in border-state races.
Only 20 percent of Americans nationally support the tariffs on Canada (and just 14 percent support the even more stupid and pointless renaming of Lake Ontario). In Michigan, 68 percent of independents oppose the tariffs, and just 56 percent of Republicans support them. In Maine, 7o percent of likely voters said the tariffs would be bad for the state.
In a world where Susan Collins’s fate is probably the fate of the Senate, is that a rake you really needed to step on?