TORONTO – Now that the number crunching has ended, the significance of Trump’s victory is beginning to take hold. Even CNN Newsnetwork and its on-air reporters and phalanx of “experts” seem to be resigned to the new realities, and these resemble the “self-fulfilling prophesies” spread by the fear-mongering cadre of CNN’s vast reservoir of self-defined progressive advocates for ‘anyone but Trump’ movement, prior to the election.
Not to be trite, but it seems that the public (a) either had grown tired of the progressive messaging, (b) preferred the more traditional values of American society or (c) thought that the alternative to the status quo might be worth the risks. Trumpism made electoral gains, or won outright, [in] all demographic segments of the electorate, save one – college educated white women (in some socio-political circles) unfairly defined as ‘feminazis’ for their intolerance directed to divergent views from their own. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
The early reactions have focused on the human pretentiousness that, in fact, God may have declined to affirm HIs/Her infallibility – godliness and error being mutually exclusive concepts. Some, if not all, of Trump’s early selections for Cabinet would appear to have suffered from the shortcomings that “mortality” inflicts on most of us. The odd one may be a downright reprobate.
“Things will get sorted out”, as they say – and we in Canada, as elsewhere, will not be consulted. We did not and do not have a vote. Nonetheless, we would be unwise not to prepare for changes that will be imposed on us, if we fail to anticipate the change in disposition that will surely emerge under Trump.
We operate in a Continental economy, the flow of our commerce in material goods and products is North-South. According to Statistics Canada, the value of trade as a percentage of our GDP hovers in the 67% range (about $1.85 Trillion CDN in exports and imports combined); traditionally, circa 80% of it with the USA. Exponents of our manufacturing sector and primary resources sector should sharpen their pencils and shore up marketing goals and defences.
Ditto for those who, by our Federal Government’s own admission, have ‘mucked-up’ our immigration and refugee system. Worse, if they are associated with the Financial sector (Banking, Insurance, Pension Funds and the Legal and Accounting firms that deal with them) Trump has already signalled concerning dispositions regarding “bad actors”, a’ la recent fine imposed on Toronto Dominion Bank.
Our vulnerabilities to the vagaries of the USA – under Trump or anyone else – are part of the realities of a “new approach to Law and the rule of law” already there for anyone to see. The Courts will do Trump’s bidding and, in an Anglo-Saxon world, their decisions will also serve as precedents for local cases. The first part is guaranteed: for the next four years federal courts will have his imprimatur or the system will ground to a halt.
It remains to be seen but we can forget about any meaningful autonomy of positions in foreign Affairs, unless we meet his diktat that every member of NATO meet its 2% of GDP in annual military spending as a condition of membership.
Well have our own election campaign to prepare a “platform in response”. Good or bad, it will be workable only at the pleasure of Donald Trump. It’s only a guess, but…