On the morning of May 11, the talking heads of the electronic media were agog. Donald Trump, presumptive heir to a Republican White House, had conversed with Paul Ryan, speaker of the house and generalissimo of the Republican Party as it used to be. It brings to mind a vision of a misty morning in which a foundling is deposited on the genteel doorstep of a gilded mansion. Genteel is a word that brings with it immaculate clothing, immaculate language and the moldy smell of hoarded greenbacks. It is a word that creates an image, a perception. It does not necessarily bring with it wisdom or a spotless honesty.
When Donald Trump threw his hat in the ring, the Republican establishment dismissed him as a sideshow barker suffering from an incurable case of megalomania. They were wrong to underestimate him. Although he may be described in other ways, he is, in the oldest sense of the word, a demagogue, a rabble-rouser.
The people who support him and want him to become president do not think of themselves as rabble, but they are angry and disunited in their political objectives. Some cling to the traditional Republican view that the best government is the smallest one. Others would see government enlarged to whatever extent necessary to provide for their own individual needs, such as better incomes and affordable housing. Others object to the Democratic credos that make it unnecessary for transgender persons to carry a birth certificate before selecting a bathroom or for a woman requiring an abortion to visit a doctor rather than a lawyer.
Whatever the differences in the Tribe of Trump, his supporters know their votes will be crucial in bringing about a Republican victory at the polls next November, if a victory there is to be. Traditional Republicans, leaders past and present, are also well aware of this. They will have to tame a tiger. Whether or not the splinters in the Republic camp can be glued into an effective Democrat-bashing cudgel remains to be seen.
On both sides of the great political divide south of the border we hear the boastful claim that the United States of America is the greatest nation in the world and the land and all of its blessings were “God- given.” Pardon me, but all of North America, with or without God’s approval, was stolen from its aboriginal inhabitants by well-armed Europeans. The victims are yet to be fully indemnified for their loss.
A pillar of Republican belief is that the land called Israel is also “God-given.” Pardon me again. Maybe the biblical Holy Land was, but modern Israel was given to surviving European Jews by the United Nations. The millions of descendants of displaced Palestinians have never been fully indemnified for the loss of their land.
The United States of America is, except in manpower, foremost among the military forces of the world. It has both the best weaponry and the best weapons development programs. It also has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. It appears that Republicans would spend whatever is necessary to maintain this. Many Republican loyalists, however, claim that replacing decaying infrastructure and underwriting the costs of higher education is unaffordable. This is monumental foolishness. The greatest nation on Earth cannot afford to let infrastructure decay and young minds atrophy for the lack of higher learning.
I am a puzzled Canadian. What I see as conservative values in the United States are frightening. A misreading of history produced the Second Constitutional Amendment that establishes the right to bear arms and created a gun-toting society unlike any nation in the civilized world. An ingrained distaste for anything that seems communistic or socialistic prevents the adoption of a single pay health insurance and gives massive profits to insurance companies, drug companies and pay-for-service medical facilities.
A Donald Trump presidency is not a danger because he calls people names. Perhaps some of them deserve a verbal trouncing. The danger is in the policies he espouses in international affairs, trade and immigration. The danger is in the certainty of a massive, incoherent change that would harm all of the world – and Canada most of all.
