{"id":32227,"date":"2024-07-27T13:06:04","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T17:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=32227"},"modified":"2024-11-02T08:59:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-02T12:59:58","slug":"no-dog-in-that-fight-but-i-still-care-about-the-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/no-dog-in-that-fight-but-i-still-care-about-the-results\/","title":{"rendered":"No Dog in That Fight, But I Still Care About the Results"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The<\/a>A<\/span>s a Canadian, I can only watch US politics from afar, albeit with unease<\/strong>. My comments on events and issues there are those from an armchair observer who has no dog in the ongoing, and increasingly bitter partisan fights. Like a lot of voices on social media, mine is that of an outsider. But… like any citizen of this planet who is concerned about our collective future, I have an interest in the outcome of the upcoming US election, just as I have one in our own, next federal election. What happens to politics in other nations \u2014 particularly in our biggest trading partner, our closest neighbour, ally, and biggest cultural influencer \u2014 also affects Canada. Hyperbolic as it may sound, the future of democracy is at stake.<\/p>\n

Seeing the rise of fascism among billionaire-funded American Repugnicans (MAGA cultists who transformed the GOP into the Stalinist PoT: Party of Trump; and yes, it is very much<\/em> a cult<\/a>) and Canadian CONservatives (aka the Maple MAGA), and billionaire-backed libertarianism lurking behind them both \u2014 an ideology of self-interest for the rich elites at the expense of the working and middle classes \u2014\u00a0 I am deeply<\/em> concerned about the future of democracy everywhere. As should be every one of us, even those who live in other nations.<\/p>\n

Democracy, we see now, is far too easily overcome by populists and opportunists preaching their gospel of anger, pseudoscience, fake Christianity, nationalism, racism, and misogyny to the gullibles and the disenchanted afflicted with alluenza. As both the convicted felon Donald Trump and our own skinny Trump, Pierre PoiLIEvre, have been doing, and gaining support through their firehoses of lies, insults, gaslighting, and disinformation. Cui bono?<\/strong> Cui prodest?<\/strong> Well, Putin and his cabal of far-right dictator allies for one. And the leaders of these domestic rightwing movements know that, all too well. Trump, for example, is well known for publicly praising dictators. On July 26, he did it again<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This chilling statement comes after Trump praised autocratic Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n in his speech at the Republican National Convention last week and then publicly praised China\u2019s president Xi Jinping for being \u201cbrilliant\u201d because he \u201ccontrols 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.\u201d It should also be read against the backdrop of the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0Donald J. Trump v. United States\u00a0that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his \u201cofficial duties.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Canada, CONservative MPs have openly met with avowed neo-Nazis, wining and dining with them,<\/a> yet the CPC leader, Pierre PoiLIEvre \u2014 who mimics Trump’s every tactic, gesture, ideology, and lies \u2014rather than distance himself and the party from them, said nothing. Instead, he has photo ops of himself with known far-right extremists like Diagolon leaders<\/a>, He pandered to the convoy insurrectionists who occupied Ottawa in an attempt to overthrow the government, and has met with and been photographed with other far-right leaders since:<\/p>\n

If you aren\u2019t already familiar with something called the \u201cDiagolon\u201d movement, well, you will be. That\u2019s because Pierre Poilievre, the prohibitive favourite in the Conservative Party of Canada\u2019s leadership race, was photographed at a recent event with its founder, Jeremy MacKenzie. A far-right activist and former member of the Canadian military who was arrested earlier this year on numerous weapons charges, MacKenzie is at the forefront of an increasingly dangerous community of anti-government agitators. And for some reason, he wanted to have his picture taken with Poilievre. (from 2022)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is ongoing with him, and he does it often enough to make sure everyone is aware of his allegiance to their cause and to extremism. You cannot mistake his overt Trumpism for anything else. Even recently, this spring PoiLIEvre again met with Diagolon members<\/a> in Nova Scotia for photo ops:<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s leader of the official opposition pulled over on the side of a highway Tuesday evening and paid a surprise visit to a group of far-right extremists who have staged protests at the Nova Scotia\u2013New Brunswick border for the last three years. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was seen posing for selfies and giving pep talks to members of the group, which subscribes to a range of fringe conspiracies and extreme views, in livestream videos posted on social media.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

PoiLIEvre has further mimicked Trump this year by attending churches to speak<\/a> \u2014 this month making political speeches during services at evangelical churches<\/a>, pandering to the Talibangelists and Christofascists among them \u2014 making himself seen even more of an American-style pseudo-Christian extremist ideologue. Typically, spineless Canadian media failed to call him out on his blatantly hypocritical, pseudo-Christian self-promotion, just like American media fails to call out Trump for his fake Christianity.<\/p>\n

So, yes, Canadians should<\/em> be concerned about what happens in the USA because our own CONservatives are doing their best to make sure the rightwing dismantling of democracy happens here, too. In his book Our Own Worst Enemy<\/em> (p. xiii, Oxford University Press, 2021). author Tom Nichols wrote in 2022:<\/p>\n

The citizens of the world’s democracies now must live with the undeniable knowledge that they are capable of embracing illiberal movements and attacking their own liberties as a matter of their own free will rather than as the result of a disaster or foreign conquest. Worse, the budding authoritarians who live among us now know it too. They have a demonstrated market for what they are selling. They will be back, and the next time they will bring glossier and better-packaged versions of dictatorship than the ragged prototypes this first wave of loud and pushy salesmen offered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Kamala<\/a>However, I think recent events south of the border show we have reason for optimism: the substitution of the accomplished, witty, intelligent, and feisty Kamala Harris<\/a> for Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee has created a wave of support for democracy against the MAGA plans for authoritarian, pseudo-Christian theocracy. And if you have not yet read or heard about Trump’s Project 2025<\/a>, you really need to do so RIGHT NOW because it is the blueprint for the implementation of that.*<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I personally liked and respected Biden. He has an excellent record, one of the best records of accomplishment and economic growth \u2014 and arguably the<\/em> best \u2014 in American presidential history. But in a culture that does not respect its elders, and has a long history of ageism<\/a>, Trump was easily able to portray Biden as old and weak. And the mainstream media \u2014 predominantly conservative if not outright pro-fascist (Fox Newz, NewsMax, Breitbart) in the USA and even Canada (Rebel Media, National Post) \u2014 enabled him to do so because it was both easier for reporters than fact-checking or contracting Trump’s lies, and it pandered to their advertisers.\u00a0As Becca Levy wrote<\/a> in Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long & Well You Live<\/em>:<\/p>\n

In the US, it was a different cultural picture… it was everywhere: the billboards for \u201cage-defying\u201d skin treatments, late-night ads for local plastic surgeons going on about wrinkles as if they were generals describing hostile enemy forces, the infantilizing greetings older people endured in restaurants and movie theaters. Everywhere I looked, in TV shows, in fairy tales, and online, old age was treated as though it meant forgetfulness, weakness, and decline.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ageism \u2014 stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against individuals or groups based on their age \u2014 is an equal or perhaps even larger problem in Canada<\/a> according to a recent study. that also found the media guilty os perpetuating the same stereotypes Trump was using against Biden: “The media, including television, movies, and advertising, often perpetuates ageist stereotypes and reinforces negative attitudes towards aging. Older adults are often portrayed as frail, forgetful, or unable to keep up with modern technology. This can lead to ageist attitudes that view older adults as less valuable or less capable than younger adults.”)<\/p>\n

Trump spent the previous year selling his “Biden is too old” and in cognitive decline song and dance, only to find himself the oldest candidate (older, in fact by five months, than Biden when he won the election in 2020…). Trump’s speeches continue to indicate a severe mental decline, with forgotten names, slurred words, rambling, often incoherent stories, obsession with the fictional Hannibal Lector (who he appears to believe was a real person), and repetition of debunked conspiracies about wind turbines and whales. He was mentally unfit and unequipped for the job in 2016; eight years later he is much worse. On Xitter, Ron Filipkowski<\/a> (@RonFilipkowski, Editor-in Chief\u00a0 of MeidasTouch.com, Attorney, Marine, Former Federal and State Prosecutor) wrote of Trump’s latest speech:<\/p>\n

His brain is fried. He\u2019s like a Vegas lounge act from 1965 who is still up on stage 40 years later at a dive off the strip trying to come up with new material while his fans humor him… He\u2019s so old, decrepit, and washed up that \u201cshe\u2019s a bum\u201d is all he can come up with after a week. Great line, Donnie. You really got her. Devastating. She\u2019s a bum. That really hurts. He is one tough guy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And he is now a convicted felon (with more court cases pending) facing an experienced prosecutor. As Harris said in a recent speech<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI took on perpetrators of all kinds \u2014 predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,\u201d she said. \u201cSo hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Little wonder he was so afraid of her that he almost immediately backed out of the scheduled debate in September, despite his boast to debate “anywhere, anytime, any place.” She knows his type of criminal all to well and has bested them in the past.<\/p>\n

The delicious irony is that now Trump is visibly the candidate who is everything he claimed Biden was. So he has had to change the tone of his insults to racism and misogyny instead of ageism. He now sounds just like he really is: a lying, aging, racist and sexist in severe cognitive decline. A Klansman without the hood. It’s often said that Trump’s accusations against others are mere projection: he is everything he insults them with.<\/p>\n

And the second piece of good news was Trump’s choice of his running mate for vice president: J.D. Vance,<\/a> a man remarkably lacking in charisma, experience, credibility, and talent; a choice allegedly foisted on him by his two low-IQ sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. With such a lame candidate, Harris has the opportunity to select as her own running mate someone smart like she is, someone progressive, who can help unify the party. And come without any of the baggage Vance carries<\/a>. In fact, it seems the choice has seriously angered some of Trump’s big-ticket donors<\/a>.**<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In a piece titled, The Moral Collapse of J. D. Vance<\/em> in The Atlantic<\/a>, author Tom Nicols wrote, “Instead of a truth-teller in his own community, Vance as a candidate has become a contemptible and cringe-inducing clown….”<\/p>\n

What do we call a man who turns on everything he once claimed to believe? For a practitioner of petty and self-serving duplicity, we use \u201csellout\u201d or \u201cbackstabber.\u201d (Sometimes we impugn the animal kingdom and call him a rat, a skunk, or a weasel.) For grand betrayals of weightier loyalties\u2014country and faith\u2014we invoke the more solemn terms of \u201ctraitor\u201d or \u201capostate.\u201d
\nBut what should we call J. D. Vance, the self-described hillbilly turned Marine turned Ivy League law-school graduate turned venture capitalist turned Senate candidate? Words fail. His perfidy to his own people in Ohio is too big to allow him to escape with the label of \u201copportunist,\u201d and yet the shabbiness and absurdity of his Senate campaign is too small to brand him a defector or a heretic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No doubt Vance will take the blame when Trump loses. And while Vance’s public appearances have in short time become a meme about dullness and failure, Trump has amplified his totalitarian platform, not even pretending any more to care about democracy. This past weekend, Trump himself said aloud what\u00a0 he plans if re-elected<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Tonight, speaking to [pseudo-]Christians at the Turning Point Action Believers\u2019 Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump made his plans to become a strongman clear: \u201cGet out and vote. Just this time. You won\u2019t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it\u2019ll be fixed, it\u2019ll be fine. You won\u2019t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians\u2026. Get out, you\u2019ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don\u2019t have to vote again, we\u2019ll have it fixed so good you\u2019re not going to have to vote.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Got that? Trump has openly<\/strong> stated that, within the next four years, there will be no more open federal elections in the USA. And, likely, at other levels of government, because he will “fix” things to get rid of democracy. This is what Project 2025 says<\/a>, and what other MAGA extremists have already said openly<\/a> during the campaign:<\/p>\n

Far-right speaker tells CPAC attendees that his goal is to ‘overthrow’ democracy. CNN’s SE Cupp reacts to far-right conspiracy theorist, Jack Posobiec, speaking at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, to “replace” democracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Against the MAGA tide of anger, hate, rage-farming, authoritarianism, misogyny, racism, lies, insults, accusations, and pseudo-Christian theocracy Harris has positioned herself as moving forward; restoring women’s freedoms and rights, curtailling the rogue, partisan, and corrupt Supreme Court, embracing all Americans, not just the elites, offering clear policies and platforms (instead of Trump’s windy, substanceless bloviations). She has made her slogan \u201cWe are not going back,\u201d to which the crowds she addresses always break into applause. Harris is the best hope for democracy’s future in the USA. And it might cause Canadian CONservatives in PoiLIEvre’s far-right house of hate to collapse. So yes, I believe she will be good for democracy everywhere.<\/p>\n

I don’t get to vote there, but if I could, it would be for Harris.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a><\/p>\n

Notes:<\/h5>\n

*<\/strong><\/span>Among other despicable, authoritarian plans and policies it lists, Project 2025<\/a> lays out plans to completely overhaul the American government and its institutions within the first 180 days, fire all non-partisan government employees and replace them with loyalists who swear allegiance to Trump, “ending law enforcement activities of independent agencies or ending their independent status” and operate them as enforcement and retribution arms of Trump’s White House,” resurrect the Comstock Act from the 1800s to ban abortion nationwide (that includes all abortions, not just medication abortions; incest and rape would not have exceptions), jail health care providers\u00a0 ban chemical abortion drugs, force states to report miscarriages, allow employers to deny workers access to birth control coverage, rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics, cut taxes for Trump and his rich friends: “The corporate income tax should be reduced to 18 percent,” and “erstructure the tax code to benefit wealthy families” and make lower-wage families pay more (a middle-class family with two children and an annual income of $100,000 would pay $2,600 in additional federal income tax, and when the Child Tax Credit is also eliminated, they would pay an additional $6,600; by comparison, a married couple with two children and earnings of $5 million a year would enjoy a $325,000 tax cut), end prescription drug price caps for seniors and ban Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices, cut entitlements like Medicare and Social Security, drastically cut overtime pay or eliminate it outright, reinstate crippling student debt payments, mass deportations of millions of immigrants, make pseudo- Christianity central to a theocratic government’s policies, roll back environmental regulations, lift the ban on arctic drilling, remove energy efficiency standards for household appliances, remove pollution limits on industries, and more.<\/p>\n