Brown-John: Mercifully, America’s ‘Wild West’ election has ended

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A bizarre Wild West characteristic lies at the core of some undemocratic elements within America’s flirtation with its version of democracy.

You see, they have but two entrenched and excessively well-funded political parties. This leads to an absurdity of “swing states” and an obsessive focus upon “undecided” voters.

Moreover, there is no limit to the money that can be spent buying electoral support. And mud-slinging and derisive advertising leads an observer to suggest that the Wild West of guns and unabashed violence is still very much alive and thriving in America’s political culture.

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And to make America’s version of democracy even more culturally frontier’ish, electoral systems in states can vary widely, and that has led to unsubstantiated if not ludicrous allegations of electoral fraud.

An electoral system where foreign dictators become cheerleaders for a U.S. presidential candidate suggests that America needs a serious return to some form of electoral sanity.

In an election where one presidential candidate seems to have achieved an absurd cult status one must wonder why Americans seem to have failed themselves so abysmally.

Mercifully, this phase of the almost never-ending story of class conflict and unrestrained election rhetoric, and endless streams of money, has ended, at least for this year. An absence of limits on election spending has made American elections a banquet feast for the very wealthy and a bag of cheap chips for many other Americans.

American anxieties about illegal immigrants and cost of living have spurred the newly elected president’s often inflammatory rhetoric about deporting millions of irregular immigrants and imposing massive tariffs on imported goods.

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What it appears is that the president-elect lacks understanding that tariffs ultimately force prices up for domestic consumers. The story of Canada’s battle with America over tariffs on softwood lumber offers insights into domestic consequences of tariff protection of American lumber producers and increased building costs.

America’s newly re-elected president is glib. He’s slippery and contrives solutions such as his promise to bring peace to Ukraine in a day largely because he seems oblivious to the prospective consequences of his verbal ramblings — or even reality.

Donald Trump’s open contempt for alliances suggests a prospective fatal misunderstanding that America’s first line of defence is not a wall built around America but those distant NATO and other alliances that provide America with a bit of a shield.

Surrounded as he will be with fawning lackeys and craven bootlickers reminds one of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale about the emperor’s new clothes — because the emperor could not be told his new suit of clothes was imaginary, he paraded naked through town until a child blurted that the emperor was wearing nothing.

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A man who numbers among his friends a ruthless Russian dictator and who is willing to sacrifice Taiwan or lob missiles at Mexican drug labs or employ troops to quash dissent in America now has his hands again on the levers of power of the world’s strongest nation.

And what of Canada in this probably more vicious second Trump presidency?

Should we assume that Michiganders who voted for Trump and the UAW will willingly allow jobs to slide across the border just because an auto manufacturer wishes to refocus its productivity stream?

Can we glibly assume that supply-management so critical for milk, eggs and poultry to Canada’s farm producers can withstand a president that during his first term forced renegotiation of the North American free trade agreement?

America now has a very flawed person occupying the office of president. He is contemptuous of the U.S. Constitution. He has little understanding of fiscal policy and a massive inability to understand that his verbal ramblings may have serious consequences for America’s economy, the global economy and global conflict.

The old adage that “you get the government you deserve” comes to mind. But do Canadians really deserve the consequences of America’s presidential election outcome?

Meanwhile, I’ve decided that America is no longer my preferred vacation option.

Lloyd Brown-John is a University of Windsor professor emeritus of political science and director of Canterbury ElderCollege. He can be reached at lbj@uwindsor.ca.

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