So Donald Trump is now the President of the United States of America with close to 60 million votes and where the Republicans now control of all three levels of government. Then there was Remembrance Day. So how do these relate? First off, it was easy to get tunnel vision in this election with a seemingly never ending barrage of insults and misinformation in a campaign that seemed to be a new low for US politics; and that’s hard to top in US politics where insults/attack adds/misinformation were already the norm. But blame the electoral system, not the result! There is a saying, it reads, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Lord Acton).” To me, the real danger of the election of President Trump was not the man himself but the Republican’s total control of all three levels of government. It is likely that President Trump can now truly advance his agenda at will. The Republicans control all levels of government and soon the Supreme Court. All the Republicans that had tried to distance themselves from Trump during the election are now likely finding a way back onto the team and he won by, in part, tapping into a seemingly inexhaustible pool of political unrest. This means that even the most draconian of measures can be passed with impunity with the full weight of the US military, the country’s highest courts, an unquestioning loyal base of supporters that has already shown a violent intolerance to differing opinions and a party that is being led by a man who has shown he is willing to do and/or say anything to advance his own goals.
There’s a saying by George Santayana (The life of Reason, 1905), “those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In the 1930s a series of dictators led the world into unimaginable destruction and carnage. Whether it was Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini; all of these dictators at one time were beloved by their supporters to the point that many were willing to kill for them or turn a blind eye to what they knew was wrong. At the start of their rule, it was not fear that drove these people to love these dictators, it was because all these dictators gave their people jobs, a sense of national pride, gave millions of people a sense of purpose and threw aside the political elite that they claimed had fallen out of touch with their needs (sound familiar). But how then did these dictators convince a nation to follow them into barbarity? These dictators did this by using an absurdly simple formula; find a group or groups of people to blame for their countries’ problems, take credit for the work of other political parties when good things happen, find a reason that people will gladly give away their civil liberties, produce an atmosphere of “if you’re not with us you’re against us” that instils a mentality of fear/insecurity/mistrust/hate and finally, silence all opposition. Again, sounding familiar! Here’s a sobering thought, Hitler followed this exact formula and if he had stopped at simple annexing parts of Poland, he would have likely been considered one of the world’s greatest statesman even today! And that was at a time without nuclear weapons! So, with Remembrance Day just over, and “the war on terror” already replenishing the ranks of the wars of old with new veterans, I only pray that any similarities in the past will not repeat themselves in the future. But here’s some words that I hope can have us all think twice if we start to falter in our belief in our children’s future and/or allow the rights that our forefathers gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect be wasted; “…love is better than anger, Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair … (Jack Layton). Love to all Dan Cunin
