Expat Election Musings
When the Globe Calls…..
Four years ago, during the 2012 election, I participated in the Globe and Mail’s expat election blog project. This project involved a group of Canadian expats living across the United States sharing their perspective of election issues with Canadian readers and blogging live during debates and other televised events. While the paper did not reprise the project this go around, a few of us were asked to contribute to a special feature, which the paper printed this past week.
Since participating in this project was part of the impetus for starting this blog, and since my published comments were highly edited, I thought it made sense to share my thoughts here. The paper asked us to comment on the past year of living with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, and then to share what we thought would happen after the election.
Here are my answers.
Year of Living with Trump
When Donald Trump first emerged on the political scene people here did not take him seriously. My friends were all convinced there would be another Bush/Clinton showdown, with John Kasich as a long-shot outsider. Ironically, my first inkling that Trump was actually in it to win came from Canadian sources. My son came home from Ahmek (Taylor Statten Camps in Algonquin Park) determined to learn more about “this Trump guy” and was stunned that his Canadian friends knew more than he did about what was really going on in American politics. Fast forward a year and the same child went to camp fully school in Trumpism.
And here lies my challenge: how do you continue to encourage your children to be engaged in the political process while ensuring they understand how disrespectful and inappropriate their candidate is? Trump’s sound bites are appealing to a certain slice of the electorate: build a wall, lock her up…This rhetoric, however, is contrary to the foundations of liberal democracy and, in my opinion, is doing more to erode faith in the political process than address the very real issues facing the United States.
Hopes for After the Election
First and foremost, I hope Hillary Clinton is elected president. I shutter to think of the alternative. Ultimately, I hope that Donald Trump becoming the Republican nominee will shake up the Republican party and help “unwind” the big tent. A Republican friend of mine recently announced that she is no longer a Republican as she can’t vote for Trump. I believe she will vote for other Republicans running this cycle, putting into play what it means to be a Republican. If Donald Trump is the future of the party then where do former establishment Republicans fit? If he is not, where do his supporters fit? Pundits love to focus on how demographic trends favour Democrats. I wonder whether this election will provide an impetus for party realignment, which would challenge conventional wisdom of how certain groups vote.
Here is a link to the article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-election/canadian-expats-reflect-on-the-ugly-us-presidential-race/article32572248/