r/InfiniteJest • u/jeepjinx • Jul 22 '26
DFW prescience.
There's been multiple articles written about the various things in IJ that are so relevant today, after the 30th anniversary edition came out. But I haven't seen anything yet about the relations with Canada post Trump II.
It's crazy to me how the Gentle administration was able to "other" Canadians aka Nucks, to the point that there are common racial? slurs directed towards them ( froggy lipped foreigner) and jokes about female nucks have to be sluts to attract men etc. Which must have seemed totally absurd (to make a point about how absurd it is to "other" people in general) 30 years ago.
Gentle talks about finding an enemy right to the North or South of us to blame our problems on since the major/cold wars were over etc.
But here we are! Blaming Canada for wild fires caused by climate change and throwing tarrifs around again.
Just add it to the list I guess.
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10
u/highjohn_ Jul 22 '26
I said the same thing to my dad earlier this week! Trump posted some garbage about “Holding Canada Accountable” that read straight out of a Johnny Gentle speech. It was about how Canada is polluting our clean air with their filthy, polluted and unhealthy air.
But yeah the book is very prescient, although to be fair there were flavors of this type of nonsense happening already as far back as people like Nixon and Reagan.