There’s only one way to stop Donald Trump and it doesn’t need a silver
bullet
Perceptions by Gerry Warner
So now it’s war!
What else can you say after listening to a former Republican
presidential candidate call Republican front-runner Donald Trump “a phony and a
fraud” and a primary election debate degenerate into a smut contest with
candidates uttering slurs about the size of each other’s penis?
Of course that occurred on Fox News Thursday night and
that may explain it.
But in all seriousness, the electoral anarchy south of
the border isn’t funny and as we in the Great White North watch with fascinated
eyes this political gong show unravelling next door it does give pause to think
what could possibly happen next?
Oddly enough, the political theatrics in the Excited
States of America do bear at least some semblance to the last federal election
on this side of the border because both contests centered around one very
polarizing candidate.
Up here, that candidate, of course, was former Conservative
Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Why do these battles always seem to involve
conservatives?) whose authoritarian ways antagonized Canadians so much they
united across party lines and threw Harper out while leaving the Conservative
party strong enough to fight another election. And we, being Canadians after
all, revolted against Harper politely. No references to penis size here. We
just threw the bum out and left his party to pick up the pieces.
And that’s where all semblance to the antics south of
the line ends because the
Republican party is not just fighting Democrats. The
party of Lincoln is fighting for its very life and before this ugly election is
over it may be nothing but a corpse.
How did things come to this sad end? Well, I’m only a
Canadian and I can’t pretend to fathom the American political psyche but I can
offer some observations that may help to explain from an outsiders’ point of
view.
Several years ago while driving at night in Montana I
flipped on the radio to find some music to keep me awake and started switching
stations. To my chagrin, the only thing on the airwaves was Bible-belting
fundamentalist preachers or open-line-radio hosts, which sounded eerily similar.
Both were pedalling angry, fearful, apocalyptic views in hate-filled screeds directed
against Muslims, Mexicans and immigrants in general as well as “liberal elites”
that they were convinced were “destroying America” or something like that.
The radio was almost smoking.
To me, it sounded like hate speech and I finally shut
the radio off and started to think about what I’d heard. It certainly didn’t
sound like the CBC or open line shows up here which can themselves get pretty
salty at times. I finally dubbed it “American fascist talk radio” and
studiously avoided it in future trips across the line the same way I avoid Fox
News despite its cynical claim to be “fair and balanced.”
And now it’s “The Donald,” a “phony and a fraud” as
Mitt Romney put it, but poised to be the Republican candidate for president in
the November election race unless a desperate internal revolt within the party
can stop him and the odds don’t look good on that.
People, not just in the US, keep asking how can this
be and I can’t help but think of that dark night in Montana when I heard that
rancid stream of hate and fear spilling out of the radio. Ever since 911,
Americans have been running scared. The enemy is at the gates of the American
Empire. And no matter how many missiles,
drones and bombs they drop on Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, the enemy is never
vanquished. Of course, it never occurs to them, and many on this side of the border
as well, that wars of this kind are endless and the only to stop them is to
bring the troops home and seriously pursue peace.
If this happened, there would be no need for a wall
around the US and no need for Donald Trump either. It’s my earnest hope that
Americans come to their senses before November.
Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and a great, but worried, admirer
of the US.
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