Trying to make sense of a world without order

At my house, we often watch “Squirrel TV.” Looking out the kitchen window, there is regular drama involving a variety of red and grey squirrels, birds and predators.

Sometimes, like today, the squirrels just go nuts. Literally. Frantically bounding from one bird feeder to another, up and down oak trees, burying oilseed and acorns in bizarre places, fighting, running away, returning, in a total frenzy and for no discernible reason — demonstrating “squirrel brain.”

Somehow, it is also a metaphor for how I feel right now. Leaping from tragedy to disaster, from hockey to royal visits, to smoke and fiery evacuations, juggling work, household chores, and garden preparation. Unable to focus anywhere for long, before being pulled away by another impulse or demand. Squirrel brain.

Writing helps — the need to focus here, especially. So, looking at the last couple of weeks, a common theme has been “security” — or, more accurately, “insecurity.”

First, economic. There is total mayhem, fuelled by whimsical presidential decisions that make acorn frenzy seem logical. Economic forecasters have been stunned into just reporting the latest news, unable to predict anything. Whether it is Elon Musk (the “DOGE Father”) preening in the Oval Office, or U.S. President Donald Trump preening everywhere, chaos rules.

There is Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” intended to fund tax cuts for the rich by reducing or eliminating federal government assistance to anyone who needs it, at home or abroad. “Drill, baby, drill” policies effectively wipe out 35 years of environmental protection and conservation. Massive cuts to programs in health care, development assistance, and global relief will mean the suffering (and likely death) of millions, now and into the future. Far from making America great again, the United States is losing friends and allies around the world because of these actions.

Its academic reputation is also in tatters. Trump’s distrust of higher education is not only gutting crucial global scientific research collaboration, but making free thinking in the U.S. on any subject as dangerous as free speech. At a huge cost to American universities, visa games mean the United States will no longer be a choice destination for foreign students, who are the currency of global intercultural understanding and intellectual exchange.

This ties to the second insecurity, which is social — the fear of “the Other.” Everywhere, we are encouraged to see difference as a threat, as Trump’s actions in the United States upend decades of domestic efforts toward diversity, equity and inclusion, and echo dangerously around the world. A nation of immigrants is being conditioned to see migrants as a threat to American society, whipped up by angry rhetoric far exceeding any current reality on the ground.

To counter illegal immigration (on which the American agricultural and service sectors ironically depend), border restrictions have been yoked to revocation of residency status and the threat of massive deportations. Non-citizens, who have built lives and raised families in America, risk being deported back to countries from which they fled decades ago.

That fear of the Other also spells the end of international tourism to the U.S., at a cost in billions. Border security agents have always been able to deny entry to whoever they chose, for whatever reason, but (in the past) common sense on all sides kept things civil. When Canadian universities caution against unnecessary travel south, however, Gimli looks like a better (and cheaper) option — and you won’t need a burner phone to go there.

The third insecurity, of course, is war. Russia has converted to a wartime economy, so lasting peace on the European mainland is a dangerous fiction. With Trump’s hostility to NATO, other members have realized they can no longer trust either U.S. policies or its military hardware. And, while war rages on in Ukraine, there are other tragedies unfolding elsewhere. Whether in Gaza or Sudan, in Kashmir or Chad or the DRC, international law has gone out the window.

Here, insecurity has led to the “Golden Dome” idea for continental missile defence — Trump’s update on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or “Star Wars”) that failed so expensively under Ronald Reagan and then George Bush. Rather than object, Carney’s government has wisely chosen to let it to collapse under its own absurd weight. (Besides, Trump still needs to persuade us to protect American cities by exploding enemy missiles over Canada.) A bigger threat to American security than missiles over the North Pole, however, is the anger of betrayed Republican voters, as their economy implodes and billionaires cavort.

Yet all of these squirrel brain frenzies distract us from dealing with our biggest insecurity: the consequences of humans living against the Earth, instead of with it. Right now, you can smell and even taste what this means.

There are still reasons for hope, and actions to take, some of which I am trying to write down and share in a book, as well as here. But it is hard to focus on tomorrow, when you are busy chasing after all those nuts today.

Peter Denton writes from his home in rural Manitoba.