Superpower Nightmare: The United States is in danger
What is happening in the USA ripples everywhere else, Canada is far from the exception
Art by @RESLUS
The United States is currently in the throes of a great convulsion. The last few decades of political culture are forming a synthesis that was ultimately inevitable, given the lack of will to change course before beelining straight into a storm.
There’s yet another economic crisis following the 2007 to 2009 great recession and COVID-19 recession, all of which are within the formative lifetimes of Millennials and Gen Zs, a continuously rising far-right tide that’s threatening to politically consume the country through legislation activism, and over 260 mass shootings this year so far.
All these factors create a volatile mix that can, and will, cause further harm in the near future. But some questions linger over these proceedings like what was it that brought the U.S. to where it currently is, where will it take the country, and how does this affect Canada?
Donald Trump is not the sole cause of what we see today. He was actually an effect that went on to be the cause of many more effects. One has to look further back to the Ronald Reagan government and that era of free market capitalism, known as “Reaganomics”. The policies of deregulation, de-unionization, intensifying the War on Drugs, and tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy are not ghosts but living beasts.
“Reaganist” conservatism, or international neoliberalism, widened the wealth gap, broke the back of labour unions, pushed social and economic rugged individualism, and created an overall ideology that carried on for decades before naturally evolving into Trumpism.
Trumpism is Reaganism with more apparent social and neoconservative influences. As a result of this social, political, and economic alienation, Americans are in a position where they cannot get the fulfillment they need from gutted government services, underpaying hierarchical workplaces, and a society that glorifies the individual at the explicit expense of the collective. This isolates people and leads them to seek alternative forms of socialization with other people who have been left behind. The results are often ugly, especially if blame is assigned to the wrong targets.
From the past to the future things look bleak. A radical course correction is needed to prevent further damage to democracy and society. Conspiracies are adjacent to the mainstream. Ignorance and denialism are celebrated as transgressive and telling truth to power, while actual examples of such are decried as being the machinations of a deep state cabal of woke personalities wanting to do unspeakable evil to children, families, God, and the country. Lies are truth, and truth is a lie.
Where does Canada fit into all of this? Love him or hate him, Pierre Trudeau was not wrong when he said living next to the U.S. is like “sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”
U.S. politics, economics, and culture is inescapable in Canada. Pierre Poliviere and the Conservative Party have embraced a U.S. style of politics and buzzwords, as have many right-wingers across the globe in some form or fashion.
Brian Mulroney of the past Progressive Conservative Party certainly embraced the neoliberal spirit of the 1980s in step with Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Having one’s only land border with the world’s largest economy means being forced to go along with what the neighbour likes.
This is not an easy time to live in. Hope and systemic, material changes are key to not just restoring sanity, but discarding the status quo that brought us all here.
