Even if Trump loses, political scars will remain
Win or lose next month, Donald Trump has won the day — for years to come.
With or without Trump, Trumpism is here to stay a while yet. No matter who wins the presidential election, we have already lost our way.
Not merely American democracy but Canada’s political culture and public discourse.
If that sounds alarmist, be alarmed. Don’t take my word for it, heed the warnings of two savvy political operators who have witnessed the waning days of democracy on both sides of the border.
David MacNaughton served as our ambassador to Washington for most of Trump’s presidency. A longtime political aide, campaign organizer and private consultant in Canada, MacNaughton came away appalled by America’s unravelling and apprehensive about Canada’s ability to weather the fallout.
The ambassador made it his mission to fend off Trump’s attacks and salvage NAFTA, bringing politicians of all stripes together with union and business leaders for a Team Canada coalition. But even that success story proved an ephemeral alliance, as Canadian politics becomes ever more fragmented into hyperpartisanship and “fringe groups” that threaten a tradition of compromise and compassion.
“We cannot be smug,” MacNaughton told a Ryerson Democracy Forum I moderated this month. Unless Canadians come together — not just politicians, but the voters who elect them, and the media that influence them — “this situation will get worse.”
As wary as MacNaughton was, fellow panelist Naheed Nenshi appeared even more worried. The outspoken mayor of Calgary invented his own brand of grassroots politics a decade ago, but fears Trumpism is trampling on his best laid plans for civil society.
And now he wonders if he’ll even be part of our politics as it unravels.
“I gotta tell you, I have to decide now whether I’m going to run for another term,”
Nenshi told a surprised audience of students and faculty. “What a lot of people are telling me is, ‘Why in the world do you do that to yourself in this political environment?’
“Politics right now is broken and ugly and awful, and I still don’t know what I’m going to do, but … politics is merely a reflection of who we are as a people.”
We brought these two quintessentially Canadian people together — political operative and practising politician — not just to diagnose America’s political virus, but to prescribe a remedy for Canada to inoculate and quarantine itself from the contagion.
Our expectation was that the former ambassador would offer a pessimistic account of America’s turmoil while the mayor might proffer an antidote. We were wrong.
There will be no happy endings even if Trump is vanquished and his Republican enablers lose their stranglehold on Washington. In the worst of times, the best that can be hoped for is a new beginning, a rebuilding of democracy on both sides of the border.
Tempting as it is to wag our fingers at Americans — their money politics, racist politics and wedge politics — Nenshi points an accusing finger closer to home.
“I’m not sure if I have a happier story for the future,” Nenshi mused after hearing the ambassador’s dystopian analysis of America. “There’s a lot of not fun things about public discourse.”
Right here in Canada.
“Things have completely changed over the 10 years of public life that I’ve been in. The amount of racism, the amount of anger and vitriol that I am subjected to … on a daily basis is really unbelievable, and it has gotten so much worse.”
Canada’s political culture depends on “big tent” parties that bring people together rather than push them apart, argued MacNaughton, a principal secretary to ex-premier Dalton McGuinty. “It’s very worrisome, and I think what you see in the parties is a polarization … that is a real threat to our democracy.”
The recent political recovery of Premier Doug Ford, who shed his pugnacity after faltering badly in the polls last year, shows that people are in a post-partisan mood, mid-pandemic: “Canadians don’t want their politicians to be fighting all the time.”
Both agreed that Canada is not yet America, even though our discourse has coarsened.
And the power of social media and mass media to distort our discourse — from Twitter to Facebook and Fox News — cannot be underestimated. But when the two panellists, aging political warriors, were asked by a young audience member if they had any “words of warning or support” for today’s youth amid the political tumult, they rallied to the cause:
“Get involved, because actually you can make a difference,” MacNaughton insisted.
“All this chaos, all this craziness that is going on around us is also an opportunity … to figure out something new,” added Nenshi. “What I’d say to young people who really get discouraged is: Your country is not something that happens to you, your country is something that you get to build.”