The United States is a world leader Canada shouldn’t follow – at least in regard to the current campaign for the White House.
That seemed to be the consensus at Capilano University where dozens of students hunkered into the school’s performing arts centre to watch performances from U.S. presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
The debate – like much of the campaign – was heavy on attacks and light on issues, noted the school’s political studies instructor Tim Schouls, who blasted the affair as a largely unprecedented impoverishment of politics.
“The language of the public good seems to be missing,” he noted.
The debate was illustrative of the tactics needed to win the highest office in the land, Schouls explained.
“All you need to do … is appeal to the middle majority,” he said. “That means they can get away with ignoring the interests of those who are most acutely in need of support from the political system, and that’s exactly what I see happening.”
Both Schouls and Deborah Littman, lead organizer with the Metro Vancouver Alliance, saw Trump as representative of a burgeoning movement.
“He’s symptomatic of a malaise that runs deep within the American political psyche,” Schouls said.
Trump’s ascendancy and the recent Brexit vote display the “anger and frustration” of a widespread inability to influence decisions, according to
Littman, who suggested Trump was emblematic of an “anti-authority” faction.
That anti-authoritarian bent could have real consequences on election day, according to Bev Logan, the leader of the Metropolitan Alliance for the Common Good in Portland, Ore.
“The faction that is most enchanted with Donald Trump is not going to go away,” she said, speaking via Skype from a laptop perched on a music stand.
When pressed by the debate’s moderator about accepting election results, Trump said he would keep people “in suspense.”
It’s “no stretch” to imagine that sort of rhetoric could spark violence, said Logan.
Trump’s concerns about a rigged system have some parallels with Canadian politics, according to Schouls, who recalled Quebec’s 1995 provincial referendum, which could have led to secession.
“(Premier Jacques Parizeau) blamed it on money and the ethnic vote,” Schouls said. “But … he submitted to the will of the people.”
Despite a gulf of 2,000 kilometres, the audiences in CapU and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas – which hosted the debate – seemed to have identical outraged reactions to Trump’s comment that: “nobody has more respect for women than I do.”
For Littman, one of the campaign’s fortunate byproducts is an emphasis on women’s rights. “It has forced a lot of people to confront their own sexism,” she said. “Maybe it takes this extreme and absolutely blatant sexism to uncover … and call out the sexism (under the surface).”
West Vancouver Coun. Mary-Ann Booth agreed, noting the largely toxic campaign has served as a catalyst for discussions about “gender equality and the treatment of women.”
The debate was also illustrative of the importance of critical thinking skills, Booth said.
“I think you know what I’m getting at,” she added, addressing the students in attendance.
Approximately 23 per cent of millennials would rather see the Earth obliterated by a giant meteor than for Clinton or Trump to serve as a president, according to a somewhat tongue-in-cheek poll conducted by University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion.
While there were a few snickers and rolled eyes during the debate, most notably when Clinton sidestepped a Clinton Foundation question and when Trump warned that the right to bear arms “is under such trauma,” the audience largely seemed engaged.
The debate and campaign require serious consideration, noted provincial Green Party leader Andrew Weaver.
“I think we should all look inwards, because this isn’t funny,” he said. “I am really, really sad that the greatest nation in the world – other than Canada, of course – has an inarticulate narcissist as one of the potential presidents.”
No matter who wins, the U.S. and Canada will remain “stalwart allies,” said United States Consul General to Vancouver Lynne Platt.
“The United States and Canada are going to continue to remain wonderful neighbours (and) prosperous partners.”
