Trump taps anti-immigrant malaise afflicting even Canada

Canadians seem astonished by the rise of Donald Trump, the frontrunning contender for America’s Republican presidential nomination. They shouldn’t be.

Trump is not just a self-aggrandizing buffoon. He is also a shrewd operator who has tapped into a dark malaise that afflicts much of the western world — including Canada.

That malaise expresses itself through fear and insecurity. When Trump calls for a ban on Muslim immigration and a wall along the Mexican border, he is playing to the same fears that France’s National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, exploits overseas.

When Trump urges his supporters to physically eject hecklers from his rally, he is echoing the tactics of Greece’s Golden Dawn, an openly racist party that uses Nazi-like symbols.

All of that might be of limited interest except for this: The antiimmigrant right is doing unusually well in the West.

Le Pen’s National Front used to be dismissed as a party of the lunatic fringe. This week, it scored first in the preliminary round of French regional elections. Analysts say Le Pen could win France’s 2017 presidential election.

Greece’s Golden Dawn may appeal to only a minority now. But it is still the third-largest party in that country’s parliament.

In Hungary, the success of the anti-immigrant far right has pushed the country’s mainstream conservative government to build a razorwire fence along the border. In Denmark, the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party is part of the governing coalition. In Sweden, the far-right Sweden Democrats, now the country’s third-ranking party, are forging ahead in the polls.

The roots of this xenophobia are deep and may lie in the pathological side of human nature. The proxi- mate causes, however, are easier to see.

Both Europe and North America are in economic crisis. Unemployment is up. In many countries, wages are stagnant.

The resulting unease has been amplified exponentially by the decision of Muslim factions fighting in the Middle East and South Asia to export their terror tactics to the developed world.

But the economic crisis remains at the core. European countries dealt with it by slashing public spending — which made matters only worse.

Canadian and U.S. governments did more to shelter displaced workers from the ravages of recession and stagnation. But not enough.

For a while, Canada was protected by its high-flying oil industry. The U.S. was not. In that country, the new populism spawned by crisis initially found expression through the resolutely anti-government Tea Party.

Former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges blames what he calls the liberal class for this. His 2010 book, Death of the Liberal Class, is a gloomy indictment of the centreleft’s failure to mitigate the worst excesses of capitalism.

The result, he says, is that the field has been surrendered to right-wing demagogues who focus on easier targets — like immigrants.

As many have pointed out, Trumpism is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, Trump is the logical successor to the American Party, sometimes called the Know-Nothings, whose anti-immigrant ideology thrived during the tumultuous period of the 1850s and who persuaded former president Millard Fillmore to be their standard-bearer in the 1856 election (he lost).

In Justin Trudeau’s “sunny ways” Canada, all of this may seem far-removed. It is not.

Canada has had its own rich history of ethnic intolerance, ranging from the pitched battles between Irish Catholics and Protestants in 19th-century Toronto to the internment of native-born Japanese- Canadians during the Second World War.

Nor have Canadian politicians been averse to playing the race card when it suited them. The Conservatives’ barbaric cultural practices hotline, announced during the last federal election campaign, was one of several desperate attempts by Stephen Harper’s government to hold onto power by pandering to anti-Muslim sentiment.

Like Millard Fillmore, Harper failed. But it is worth noting that his very unsunny Conservatives still picked up 32 per cent of the popular vote. It’s also worth noting that, according to an Angus Reid poll, roughly 30 per cent of Canadians think this country should accept no refugees from Syria.

Right now, Canada is basking in Trudeauphilia. Right now, the smart money says Trump can never become U.S. president.

Still, there’s something going on here. Don’t discount it. Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.