One of the big issues is that tariffs are protectionist in the same way as a space suit. Yeah, if the outside is hostile, it can protect you, but you better have things inside the suit already working to provide you with everything you need or you’ll end up far, far worse off.
Well…
First off, why do you want to stick of to Canada. They, by and large, have been good neighbors to the US. The only people who get angry at Canada are usually Canadians.
That aside, limiting imports limits supply, likely increasing prices for whatever product has been limited. It’s not that different from the tariffs, as far as the consumer is concerned. The big difference is that it sets up a first mover benefit for the exporters/importers (if you get your whole supply across before the cutoff, you get to sell all of it, whereas later sellers might only be able to get part of their supply across. Faster companies benefit from this, to unknown effect.) as opposed to a capital/demand limit from the tariffs. (higher tariffs require higher prices, which often prices out some amount of people who would buy the item. Importers can try to narrow their unit margin or spend capital to sell more slowly. Companies with more capital can find it easier to afford either/both.)
I don’t think modern American political discourse is capable of the old style of revolt on a large scale. Old political movements were based on policy and rhetoric. Media has taken the place of rhetoric, and the majority of media serves to push toward one party or another rather than a real position on anything. Much of that media is based around the idea of negative partisanship (Vote for us because we aren’t Them.) rather than policy because there is so little policy space to play in when the choice is Right vs More Right. That is enough to get people to pick up a ballot, but generally not a weapon, when all of the institutional power has been focused on convincing people to do anything but. Team Red is (slightly ironically) anti-communist when it bothers to pretend to have an ideology. Team Blue is usually just anti-Team Red, which is why they can barely manage to get some semblance of support. And there is essentially no other option because of the voting system and the memories of the Cold War keep anything collectivist at bay for the time being. When you combine ‘Vote for change, don’t fight for it,’ and ‘Your options are An Unpolished Turd Promising You A Better Tomorrow (falsely) or A Polished Turd Promising You More of What You Got Yesterday (Truthfully),’ you get what you see now.
I mean, the ‘software’ of government is open source. You can look up all the founding documents, all the laws, etc. It’s the ‘hardware’ that seems to have become proprietary. Even if you can see the laws, who knows what kind of sketchy bullshit is going on in the development of those senators, MPs, and other officials on their way into office?