Lament for a nation: a Canadian looks at the U.S.
Keeping up on news there is like watching a giant snake devour its own tail
The news from the United States is not good. The tribal brawl over the very soul of a nation is like watching a giant snake devour its own tail.
I’ve been to probably 30 of the 50 states in the U.S. For the most part, I have found Americans to be friendly people and marvellous hosts. And I believe the U.S. is indeed a very entrepreneurial, innovative nation.
But today, it is a nation boiling with conflicting beliefs and conflicting ideological silos.
A huge cultural border wall exists between red and blue worlds. The crises of Civil War redux and Black Lives Matter rage.
Even as the U.S. battles a killer super-virus that has claimed more than 135,000 lives, Americans are fighting over the historic symbols of statues, flags, even sports-team names.
Canadians cannot ignore the national trauma south of the 49th Parallel. It affects our very economy. America is Canada’s largest trading partner. Last year, crossborder trade amounted to more than $600 billion (U.S.). Last year, Canadians made about 38 million trips to the U.S.
But in this upper half of North America, we Canadians like to think we are different. We are moderate in our actions and our thinking.
Canada, said the late comic Robin Williams, was “a really nice apartment over a meth lab.” Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said in 1969 that living with the U.S. is “like sleeping with an elephant.”
The America-first club does not include Canadians. President Donald Trump brought in protective tariff walls that included Canadian steel and aluminum early in his administration. That threat was again on the table even last month.
Wars and personal freedom have shaped America’s self-image and national mythology over the centuries. Born in revolution, the country lost more than 600,000 lives in a bloody Civil War.
Americans revel in their rights to personal liberty, to individual responsibility, to bear arms.
But the freedoms are not universal: America is riven with classbased and race-based differences. The richest one per cent of Americans now account for more than half the value of equities owned by U.S. households, according to global investment banker Goldman Sachs. About half the respondents to a 2015 federal survey on homewealth said they could not cover an emergency expense of $400 without selling something or borrowing money. The American health-care system does not offer quality care to all.
And the U.S. “melting pot” is changing. It is becoming far more multiracial and less white-dominated. That challenges the present, will redefine the future.
Of course, angry protests predate Mr. Trump. He just mobilized them.
It’s true that his camp has included some strange bedfellows. Evangelical Christians come to mind. And, despite Mr. Trump junking the Republican darling of laissezfaire global trade, the financial community has largely hopped on his bandwagon. They like lower personal and corporate taxes, chopped regulations, even new trade tariffs.
Despite multicultural successes on this side of the border, Canadians cannot point an accusatory finger at the U.S. for its long history of racism. We have our own racism stories, whether they relate to discrimination of any Canadian whose skin is not white or to Canada’s first citizens, those of Indigenous descent.
And we too have a “right” and a “left” in Canada. There are hate groups here. There are white supremacists and so-called anti-fascists here. There is hate speech on social media platforms.
Which brings us to the rabbit holes of deep conspiracy theories.
Some Canadians believe that COVID-19 is being spread to cover up harmful health effects associated with exposure to 5G wireless technology.
But the mad conspiracies in the U.S. far outstrip those in the “nice apartment” of Canada.
One long-standing tale relates to government concentration camps being set up in the U.S. In 2009, television commentator Glenn Beck pondered aloud whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be setting up such camps. He said he didn’t believe such camps existed. But he warned on the show, “Fox and Friends,” that the U.S. “is headed toward socialism, totalitarianism, beyond your wildest imagination.”
The Pizzagate theory — big on Gen Z hangout TikTok — holds that Hillary Clinton is supposedly among the Democrats involved in a child sex dungeon in a Washington pizzeria.
And, then of course, there’s the “fake news” mainstream media, as opposed to the Fox propaganda network.
For Mr. Trump, the viral killer is really a Democrat hoax. And on July 4 — America’s Independence Day — he said that 99 per cent of tested coronavirus cases are “totally harmless.”
Perhaps America’s national trauma after the November election will lead ultimately to the Rebirth of a Nation. That seems unlikely, however, with all the home fires of hate burning and millions of Americans jobless.
And, oh yes. In this month when we celebrate our own national birthday, I’m glad I am Canadian.