Canadians have a disordered relationship with our American neighbours. We measure ourselves constantly against the achievements and actions of the United States.When a major American publication like the New York Times weighs in on our internal affairs, we gleefully pore over it and share it on social media like a pet too often ignored finally getting some attention.
We also have a smugness that is a sort of flip side of the same coin. We are smug about our health care, our comparatively rational approach to guns and, lately, the fact that we don’t have a political circus anything like the one in the Greatest Democracy on Earth.
Now that the race to succeed U.S. President Barack Obama – a campaign that began before he was inaugurated – has finally reached the point of actual voting in primaries, Canadians are exhibiting more smugness than usual. Perhaps not without reason.
Say what you will about Justin Trudeau. Whether one voted for him or not, whether one adores him or otherwise, it is almost a genetic Canadian trait to take some pride when the outside world takes notice of our leader. It’s an interesting phenomenon that Trudeau’s father, even when he was reviled by significant portions of the electorate at home, was admired on the global stage.
Even his domestic detractors had trouble not finding some national pride in that enigmatic situation. The current Prime Minister Trudeau may or may not be your cup of tea, but the wall-to-wall coverage of his world tour immediately after taking office was something Canadians, in our quiet way, probably revelled in.
The fact that so much attention was given to his looks was disconcerting to some. Consider if a Canadian female prime minister were treated with such swooning on the global stage. It would be perceived somewhat differently, though Canadians might well take a similar sense of pride.
Now, we get to look down on what is happening to the south. The Democrats are having a two-person showdown with Hillary Clinton almost certainly suffering from déjà vu as an upstart opponent threatens her “inevitable” candidacy. This time it is Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist. Democratic socialists are not as rare in Canada as they are down south.
The New Democratic Party has governed most of Canada’s provinces at one time or another and was once given even (or better) odds to win the last federal election. The one-on-one fight for Democratic votes is interesting enough. The Republican race is something entirely different.
While Clinton or Sanders could be plugged fairly neatly into Canada’s political system, we have nothing like most of the Republican candidates for president.
The homage the Republican candidates pay to gun activists and conservative social values, their overt religiosity and, of course, their reliance on millions and millions of dollars to continue their campaigns are all things that are largely absent from the Canadian system.
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