Trumpism may survive so Canada needs a new dance partner
HALIFAX—When it comes to the calamitous tenure of the worst president in United States history, all the world is facing the same question: is Donald Trump an aberration or the new reality? Will Trumpism end when he leaves the presidency, or will it survive his much anticipated departure?
Sadly, the answer is not encouraging. Who would have thought that American voters would twice return this iconoclastic bully to the White House? Who would have thought that Trump’s values, greed, intimidation, corruption, and industrial-strength mendacity could be endorsed as American values?
There was a time, not long ago, when things that have become normal in Trump’s America would have been unthinkable.
Take, for example, Trump’s monstrous behaviour toward Venezuela. He ordered the kidnapping of that country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, and is now helping himself to 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s oil through a deal with interim President Delcy Rodríguez. Why pay when you can simply plunder?
The list of countries where Trump has stuck his big and unwanted nose continues to grow. It includes Argentina, Hungary, Honduras, Colombia, and Brazil. It also includes Canada in a way that should alarm and unify Canadians.
Consider his shameful list of insults that runs the gambit from slurs on our sovereignty to slanders against our political leaders, including prime ministers.
Trump has repeatedly declared that he would like Canada to become America's 51st state. That is not neighbourly. That is predatory. And so is MAGA’s meddling in the separatist surge in two Canadian provinces.
The president referred to Ontario Premier Doug Ford as a “slob,” and criticized the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement that he himself negotiated, signed, and once praised.
Out of the blue, Trump imposed punishing tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian exports. It was a move that puts thousands of Canadian jobs at risk.
In a potentially brutal blow to Ontario’s economy, Trump declared that he doesn’t want any cars made in Canada. So much for the trade deal that made that possible stretching all the way back to the mid-1960s.
In the death march of pomposity, Trump unilaterally renamed Lake Ontario, calling it Lake America in an executive order. Canadians cringed—and they weren't the only ones. Just 14 per cent of Americans supported this dictatorial dictate.
And what’s in a name? For this president, everything. Trump has also said that he wants to rechristen the Strait of Hormuz as Trump Strait though he tried to walk that back. This branding bandit knows no bounds.
And perhaps most distressing of all, Trump is spending what remains of his presidency walking away from the very commitments that brought him back to the White House.
Affordability under Trump has become worse, not better.
Despite his promises not to lead the U.S. to war, he has plunged the country into a full-scale conflict with Iran. Thousands of people have already died there.
All of Trump’s promises appear to be written in pencil.
This president’s vision is all television. Consider his myopic stand on a planet that is running a dangerously high temperature.
While the rest of the world is trying desperately to reign in carbon emissions, Trump has his finger stuck where the sun doesn’t shine.
Trump has been a do-nothing leader on climate change, which the United Nations has just reported has reached the point of no return.
There is no shortage of reasons to worry that Trumpism may survive his time in office. That is particularly true if his sycophantic alter ego, Vice-President JD Vance, decides to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028.
But there is also reason to hope that the Good America will make a comeback. History offers a myriad of examples.
Despite raging discrimination and violence against minorities and people of colour, the civil rights movement of the 1960s ultimately triumphed. Bigoted state governors proved no match against activist Martin Luther King Jr. and human rights.
In the darkest days of McCarthyism, it didn’t look like America would ever recover from the fevers of paranoid discrimination. It did.
And in the depths of the Vietnam War, it seemed as though the U.S. was committed to conflict without end. But the American people changed all that with their gradual rejection of serving in that soul-killing conflict or of supporting it.
The Good America usually wins out in the end. But in the meantime, there is an obligation on all countries, including Canada, to do more than just wait out the tyrant-in-chief. So, what needs to be done?
For starters, every country in the world that does business with America should register their unhappiness with Trumpian ego-politics. What does that mean? As long as Trump is around, the U.S. should no longer be seen as the leader of the Western world. That’s because Trump speaks for 30 per cent of MAGA die-hards, and no one else.
In a more practical sense, there is another course Canada should consider following. It comes down to this: don’t enable Trump. One way of doing that is economic. Though trade with the U.S. is overwhelmingly important, it is also important not to be slavish about it.
An example? Canada has a big decision to make on replacing its aging fleet of fighter jets. Under normal circumstances, we would likely look down south for that purchase. But these are not normal times, and the fighter jet issue presents an opportunity to make a statement about our sovereignty.
Ottawa would do well to pay very close attention to offers made by Saab to replace our fighter jets with European-made Gripen-E planes rather than American F-35s. For one thing, the attractive Swedish offer includes an assortment of benefits beyond the aircraft itself, like building them in Canada.
But even more important, by taking this multi-billion dollar contract to Europe rather than the U.S., Canada would reinforce the very sovereignty Trump has tried to undermine.
Canada also announced on Sept. 3 a $4.7-billion plan to build more than 300 Via Rail cars in Canada, to shift production away from south of the border.
Dancing is the way of the world. It’s time we served notice there is more than one partner.
Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist.
The Hill Times