It's been a difficult time for me, since November the 8th. I, like so many others, had bought into the
mainstream media story that Democratic Party nominee Hilary Clinton had the
U.S. Presidential election in the bag.
Sure, I was aware of a late-election surge for Republican Party nominee
Donald Trump, thanks in part to FBI Director James Comey's leaked letter about
possibly needing to revise his statement to some Congressional Committee or
other about Clinton's emails, based on what the media was reporting to be new
information obtained from the Federal Bureau's investigation of Anthony
Weiner. I knew it was going to be close
– but my faith in Americans to do the right thing remained strong, and although
I made plans to stay up late to watch the election results roll in (and to see
whether or not Trump was going to concede in the face of those results), I
really secretly thought I'd be turning in before midnight.
At least I got that last part right. I turned the television off and shut the
cover to my laptop at a little after 11pm.
At that time, the analysts and pundits were talking about battleground
Michigan, but Flordia and Ohio had already fallen to Trump. And although Pennsylvania hadn't been called
for either candidate, Trump's lead seemed pretty strong there. In Pennsylvania. I knew it was all over, and not worrying
about whether Clinton would concede, I decided to get a good night's sleep –
knowing that I was going to need it, just thinking about the next four years.
But I didn't have a good night's sleep. I tossed and turned and dreamed in fits and
starts that Clinton had managed to pull off some sort of bottom of the ninth
rally – maybe taking New Hampshire and Nevada, and thanks to the good people of
Detroit, Flint and Philadelphia, maybe she had managed to eke out a victory in
Michigan and Pennsylvania. The American
people know best, surely. President Trump?
It can't be a reality.
Unfortunately, President Trump was the reality I woke up to. On my way to work I tweeted that I had just
seen Mr. Spock with a beard, because I was certain that I had started this day
in another dimension. The real world was
still carrying on as it should somewhere else – with President-Elect Hilary
Clinton doing media interviews on breakfast television. It was just me that somehow got stuck in
another universe.
No Skin in the Game
Let me back up a moment, because I think that those reading this
blogpost might be under the illusion that I wanted Clinton to win the
election. This is where things get
complicated for me, but luckily on the level of actually being able to affect
any outcomes, I didn't have any skin in the game. As a Canadian, I did not cast a ballot in the
election. And as a Green, I think it's
fair to say that had I been able to vote, it would not have been for Hilary
Clinton. Therefore, it's difficult for
me to even project myself into the U.S. election, beyond acknowledging that had
I been a participant, I would have been wasting my time and would have had zero
impact on its outcome anyway.
Of course, that's really no different than many of the millions
of Americans who voted for Clinton. More
Americans actually voted for Clinton than for Trump (see: "Final Vote Count 2016," Snopes.com, November 13, 2016. The Snopes article also provides insight into claims made by Trump supporters that it was Trump, not Clinton, who ended up with more votes - more on fake news in another blog!), but because of the U.S.'s
antiquated and unfair electoral system, the States gets President Trump with a
smaller number of votes. Sure, it's all
perfectly legal. Just for those voters
in states like California and Washington where they're still counting ballots –
well, I think they know clearly that their votes mattered as much as the
imaginary vote that I would have cast for U.S. Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
Climate Change on my Mind
You see, my issue is climate change. It's not the only issue that I care about,
but it's one that I care about deeply. I
think I have a pretty good grasp of the implications of climate change, and I'm
extremely concerned about the lack of action we've taken to address what we
know will be the impacts of a warming planet. With that in
mind, for me, what happens in the U.S. matters significantly. The U.S. sidelined itself by not ratifying
Kyoto. Under President Obama, who
promised that his presidency would see the rise of the oceans begin to recede,
the U.S. actually regained its status as one of the world's largest oil and gas
producers (see: "Despite Protests, Oil Industry Thrives Under Obama Agenda," Bloomberg.com, January 5, 2015).
With climate change in mind, it's clear to me that the
Democratic Party has been a disaster for the planet. Years of saying one thing and doing another
under Obama have clearly (to me) been lost years in the global fight against
climate change. Sure, there have been a
number of small victories and tentative steps forward (cancelling the Keystone
XL pipeline was mostly symbolic, but it was the right symbol; the Paris Climate
Change treaty is a little more substantive, as is the recent Canada-U.S.
Agreement to limit fugitive methane emissions). So the Democrats have been a
disaster – but perhaps not a complete disaster.
The Republicans, on the other hand, have been a complete
disaster for the planet. There are still
actually a significant number of elected Republicans who don't believe in the
reality of climate change, and instead subscribe to conspiracy theories which
they've mainstreamed for the U.S. (and partially for Canada's) right wing. If the Republicans ever seized power with a climate change denying President and both houses of Congress under their control, well, it probably would be game over for
the planet.
Uhm, ya, so about that....
Looking for Hope Amidst Planetary 'Game Over'
Anyway, all of that's to say that I'm coming at this election
from a bit of a different place than most.
I couldn't vote, and even if I had voted, I would have done so knowing
that my vote wasn't going to matter.
I've believed that both candidates would fail to take meaningful action
on an issue of importance to me.
Strangely, though, the idea of President-Elect Donald Trump
gives me hope. Don't misunderstand
me: my hope doesn't reside in the person
of Donald Trump or any of his “policies” whatever it is that they might
eventually amount to. My hope is that
the very presence of Trump at the pinnacle of world power might finally lead to
real progressive, democratic reforms. And real action on climate change.
Now, I don't expect the U.S. to march off and change its unfair
electoral system. But Trump's presence
in the White House might give Trudeau and Canada's lawmakers pause, and stiffen
the Liberal's resolve towards making 2015's federal election the last unfair
election in this nation. The prospect of
a frowning, flag-wrapped Trump wannabe in the form of Conservative Party
leadership candidate Kellie Leitch might just be enough to convince the
Liberals that it's time to try out proportional representation (because it's
become increasingly clear that actually listening to Canadians wasn't going to be enough
for Trudeau).
No Avoiding Seismic Political Shifts
I think we're going to see some pretty interesting things over
the next four years, many of which are likely to be uncompromisingly negative. Trump, who thinks climate change is a Chinese
conspiracy (see: "Yes, Donald Trump did call climate change a Chinese hoax," Politifact, June 3, 2016) isn't likely to go along with the Paris agreement. He is likely to do a great deal of damage to
the environment and the atmosphere.
That's a huge problem. Who are
Americans going to look to for leadership on climate change (and on what's
likely to be a number of other pretty big issues)? A failed and flailing Democratic Party that's
in the hands of business elites? Maybe
initially. Bernie Sanders tried it that
way.
Ultimately, I think it's going to become increasingly clear to
Americans that the Democratic Party isn't their friend, and has consistently
failed to look out for the interests of Americans. Either the Democratic Party is going to undergo
some sort of internal transformation, or the animosity is going to boil over
and we'll see something else emerge as one or two political entities.
21st Century Fascism - American-Style
Republicans might love the idea that the Democratic Party is
about to dissolve, but they shouldn't feel too comfortable. Trump is no conservative, even if there is
some overlap of his issues and what's important to conservatives. Which side of the issues will moderate and conservative Republicans find themselves on? Trump's
agenda is nationalistic in its outlook – I would call it more Mussolini-style
fascist than Ronald Reagan-conservative.
Republicans might quickly find themselves having to choose between their
values (economic and social) – and continuing to go along on the populist Nantucket slay ride that Trump took
them on. Without an election for a
couple of years, it's not clear to me that Trump is going to get the
(relatively) free ride from his own Party that he enjoyed throughout the campaign (and
no, I didn't miss the whole Republican 'Dump Trump' brouhaha – but it really
did seem to fizzle in the end, didn't it?).
Republicans are ultimately going to have to search their own
souls and decide whether they want to be conservatives or fascists. Yes, fascists (I'll be doing a follow-up
blogpost at some point in the near future about why I think it's important to
call Donald Trump and his ilk what they really are – and about why I clearly
believe they are 21st Century fascists). And I suspect the Trump bandwagon isn't
going to be as crowded with Reagan Republicans going forward.
The Failure of Liberalsim
What's happening in the U.S. is all a part of a global
realignment of political interests, due to a rising understanding that liberals
and conservatives have both been implicit in the promotion economic and
political systems that disenfranchise and impoverish the majority of
citizens. I realize this may sound unbelievable
to many, but liberals like Hilary and Bill Clinton, Justin Trudeau and - yes - Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley - have been a part of the
growing problem, rather than offering much in the way of solutions. Sure, maybe liberals haven't been as
nasty as conservatives, but in some respects, they've actually been more
successful than the right-wing at moving neoliberal economic interests forward. Don't believe me?
Back to Obama and the growth of U.S. Oil and gas. What about Prime Minister Trudeau, who seems
poised to permit massive carbon bombs in the form of B.C. Pacific North West
LNG and an anticipated Kinder Morgan Trans-Mountain approval? Or Bill Clinton's deregulation of the banking
industry. Or the growth of generational
national debts? And none of that even
touches on issues of systemic corruption which successive "liberal" governments in both nations (and let's not forget Tony Blair in the U.K. while I'm ranting) which we've come to accept as "business as usual".
No, for too long, conservatives and liberals have put their own
interests at the forefront – interests that revolve around the profitability of
multinational corporations at the expense of the rest of us. They have not been champions for the average person. Their pursuit of neoliberal economic policies has been reactionary, rather than progressive, when one considers the growing wealth gap between the rich and the rest of us. What both liberals and conservatives have chosen to champion is the opposite of
sustainability.
Renewing Progressive Political Choices
In Canada, it's my hope that the NDP finally gets its act
together and figures out that it really does, after all, want to be a champion
of the common person. And for the Green
Party, it's my hope that it comes to realize that it has a partner in an NDP
which has (ultimately and finally) rejected liberalism. Greens
and New Democrats both need to acknowledge that the only way forward is through
the rejection of our neoliberal economic system and poll-driven populism. The coming realignment may
see Greens and New Democrats working together to defeat liberals like Justin
Trudeau and Rachel Notley (yes, I said Rachel Notley again – that was not a mistake).
Our problem, going forward, is that fascists like Trump would be
even worse when it comes to sustainability – and I'm not just talking about the
environment or resource extraction or climate change here. Trump might want to tear up international
trade agreements (although I don't really think he actually will), but he's
certainly not going to do away with the the elite-enriching neoliberal economic
system and move towards co-operativist capitalism. More likely, America will end up with a true
kleptocracy, where national wealth is laid out like a buffet at a wake, with
rich industrialists helping themselves to all the goodies while the body of the
99% lies in state.
It's a brand new world now.
When the mainstream media in the States are routinely interviewing David
Duke and the leader of the U.S. Nazi Party for their reaction to Trump's
transition team appointments (see: "White nationalists see advocate in Steve Bannon who will hold Trump to his campaign promises," CNN, November 15, 2016) – there can be no doubt that we all woke up on the
morning of November 9th in an alternate universe. But perhaps it's a universe in where the
stars will realign – and maybe, just maybe, we might ultimately end up better
off for it.
Admit it: Leonard Nimoy looked alarmingly sexy with a beard.
(opinions expressed in this blogpost are my own, and should not be considered consistent with the policies and positions of the Green Parties of Ontario and Canada)
