I was in Washington, DC on “Liberation Day” last week where the mood was distinctly different from that in New York City, where the derogatory talk about President Trump has predictably been on steroids: He’s a moron. A dictator. He’s destroying America and the World etcetera….

The summit of derogatory expression was possibly reached for me at least, on Tuesday night, even before the tariff mayhem was upon us. I sat in the audience at the New York Public Library listening to Timothy L. Snyder – the historian and author of On Tyranny – deliver the annual Bob Silvers lecture, after which he gravely answered questions about the possibility that the US would invade Canada.

“There are people not very far from here geographically who are making very practical preparations for that eventuality… There are conversations to be had now about the kind of rhetoric we’re using towards Canada, which is shockingly, shockingly similar to the rhetoric that Putin used before the invasion of Crimea in 2013, 2014,” Snyder said.

(Snyder and two other Yale professors have left the US for Canada, citing Trump fears – that’s a whole rabbit hole I won’t go down here.)

The crowd, which was noticeably absent of the billionaire capitalists who comprise the board of the New York Public Library, roared its applause.

And then the next morning, I headed to Washington, D.C.

Even the Acela train ride wasn’t without excitement.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates