The children’s television star Fred Rogers once told his audience that when they saw frightening events in the news, they should look for the helpers: you will always, Mr. Rogers said, find people who are helping. I am past middle age, and it’s still good advice, but if I’m being honest, my heuristic now in the same situation is to look for the libertarians.

The emerging on-off-on-off trade war between Canada and the United States has everyone asking “How should we fight?” — understandably enough — but we should not move too quickly beyond the question “How is this literal nonsense at all possible?” How did the U.S. Congress’s clearly specified constitutional power to regulate the country’s commerce with foreign nations fall into naked and unapologetic decrepitude? Why is every new American president now a Napoleon, and why isn’t this at all a political issue in the U.S.?