Sask. election may mark a turn toward the nasty

Politics has become less civil. Will there be a local spillover?

It’s still unlikely to come anything close to the nastiness we will see south of the border this fall, or even the unpleasantry we saw last fall in our nation.

The 2020 U.S. presidential election will be something to behold, given the nasty political times and given that America is experiencing one of the most outwardly nasty presidents the country has ever seen — one who might be fighting for his political life because of impeachment proceedings and a changing (political and otherwise) climate.

Of course, whether Donald Trump is truly the nastiest president Americans have ever seen remains subjective. He may just be the nastiest we’ve seen, given past U.S. presidents were apt to confine their thoughts to either themselves or a close circle, simply for fear of public reaction. Trump has Twitter in a land and time when demonstrable malevolence actually seems to be a desired characteristic in a leader for many in today’s American electorate.

This is the social media age, a not-so-brave new world. And while Canadians love to look down their noses at the goings-on in the U.S., last fall’s federal campaign proved we are not all that far behind them.

One can make his or her own assessments on how much Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives had to do with the release of the Justin Trudeau blackface/brownface photos and other stories that circulated on social media, in the same way one can make his or her own assessments on how much Liberals had to with the stories of Scheer’s views on gay pride, his dual citizenship or his inflated resume as an insurance broker.

But one thing is certain: For supposedly nice Canadians, we haven’t been very nice in our own politics of late.

Of course, here in Saskatchewan we especially like to view ourselves as different — even different from other Canadians. There are factors that have tempered us.

One is that we are a small jurisdiction where you know your neighbour and, traditionally, have had to get along with him or her as part of a community made up of a lot of small communities. Political success here required bringing these communities together. As a result, views get tempered and Saskatchewan has produced leaders seen as good people because they had to be more unifying than divisive.

But one wonders if that’s changing here, as well.

For starters, change is all around us and we are affected by it. It probably isn’t just Trump’s Twitter feed that’s changed the game, but fewer distinguish between the tone of social media political commentary coming out of the U.S. and how local issues are now discussed.

Moreover, our very definition of “community” is changing in that many are becoming increasingly distanced from the collective views of their hometown or neighbourhood and more influenced by whatever ceaseless propaganda they choose to listen to in their silos on Facebook or Twitter. (It would be interesting to see a comparative study on the historic cults or societal political brainwashing and today’s social media, where you become less worried about your neighbour and more consumed by ideology.)

Add into this witches’ brew what is perhaps the most divisive issue of our time: the carbon tax versus the broader world need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As we move away from the Saskatchewan where everyone still had one foot on the farm, we are already seeing a province increasingly divided between urban/rural and blue collar/ white collar. Throw into this mix an issue where both sides can legitimately argue their very futures are at stake.

Yet we are now choosing to communicate our differences through channels in which we mostly speak to like-minded people and seldom have productive face-to-face exchanges with people who have opposing views. One casualty of this is empathy.

It’s bound to affect things like the upcoming provincial election that just show how much more divided we are. Things could get nasty.