Mario's ONANtiad: the proto-protectorate cabinet and NATO's dissolution
the honorary inclusion, in that cabinet’s second year, of the Presidente of Mexico and the P.M. of Canada is both factual and of course seminal
Context
The continental power structure founded in one cabinet gag: the Presidente of Mexico and P.M. of Canada seated as honorary "Secretaries" of their own countries, "as if the neighbors had already become sort of post-millennial American protectorates." The dissolution of NATO (the Manitoban ICBMs withdrawn by "long shiny trailer-rigs full of large men with very short haircuts") clears the old mutual-defense order so O.N.A.N. can replace alliance-among-equals with protectorate-under-Gentle. "Interdependent" is the euphemism; the puppet-cabinet shows the reality — two neighbors administered as U.S. departments.