KPU instructors weigh in on the U.S. presidential election

After a highly publicized U.S. presidential campaign, Donald Trump has been named president-elect after winning 312 electoral votes and the popular vote against Vice-President Kamala Harris. 

Trump will become the country’s 47th president, with his inauguration scheduled for Jan. 20, 2025.

The Runner asked three Kwantlen Polytechnic University instructors from different disciplines to weigh in on the election results and how it may affect the U.S., Canada, and the rest of the world.

KPU economics instructor Mohammad Akbar says Trump’s election win was not historic but a drastic change. 

The results of this election can be attributed to U.S. President Joe Biden, he adds, for messing up the economy and refusing to step down, which, in turn, gave Harris very little time to campaign.

“She had only 100 days [to campaign], and she had the baggage of what Biden has done, because Biden is from her own party,” he says. “She could not comment on the poor performance of the economy and the country.” 

Akbar says Harris put up a good fight and hopes Trump has learned some lessons. 

“He can behave normally or he can be even more dangerous because … he can do whatever. He is not going to run again.” 

One of the biggest changes to the U.S. economy will have to do with immigration as Trump plans to implement a mass deportation plan, Akbar adds.  

Since immigrants often work in laborious positions in the U.S., he says, Trump’s deportation plan might lead to labour shortages in the country.  

Trump may also have an influence on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Akbar says. 

“[In my view], he’s going to get rid of the Gaza issue by asking Israel to take over and just … kill everyone. That’s what he means by ending the war,” Akbar says. “And for the Ukraine war, I will sympathize with Ukrainians because he’s going to twist their arm to do a peace deal with Russia. So it’s not good news for all around the world.” 

In Canada specifically, Akbar can see an escalating trade war between the two countries, which was last ignited when Trump was in office. He also says the millions of Americans who chose not to vote will pay for Trump’s actions down the road. 

“I think he’s going to be more crazy because he’s older now and he has nothing to lose,” he says. “It’s going to be a very interesting four years. Only a very small section of the society will benefit from these four years, but the large section of the society is going to suffer.” 

Jeffrey Meyers, a criminology instructor at KPU, says while the outcome of the election was disappointing, he wasn’t surprised by Trump’s victory, which highlights the president-elect’s ability to get a motivated base out to vote.  

Meyers says watching his kids has shaped his own perception of the 2016 and 2024 elections. 

“​​I would really have liked it for my daughter to have grown up with the idea that a person of low moral character, with a track record of incompetence and clear ill intent — which he himself has articulated — could be beaten by a competent woman.” 

A lot of people were “badly hurt” during Trump’s last time in office, Meyers says, but there are a few lessons from 2016 like his “isolationist foreign policy,” which made the president-elect hesitant of participating in wars and avoiding conflicts. 

“But I’m not totally confident that he has the temperament to avoid conflicts or devastating uses of American military power, so one never knows in that regard,” he says.

Meyers adds the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an intergovernmental military alliance of 32 member states, could bring into question the American security guarantee. 

“The comments that Trump has made about viewing foreign relations and even treaty relationships between NATO partners as transactional [can upset] the world security architecture potentially.”

He also finds that Trump’s presidency could undermine the rule of law, which is the idea that everyone is bound to the same rules.

Trump has a Republican House of Representatives and senate, as well as a conservative-leaning supreme court, which ruled during the summer that a president has immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts.” This could make him immune from any criminal liability while in office. Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records in May and has several pending criminal cases against him. 

“Now that we have such an extremist court, which has been appointed by Trump himself, he’s unleashed to do virtually whatever he wants,” Meyers says.

While Trump said he doesn’t favour a federal abortion ban, Meyers says the situation could get worse since the individual states, many of which have already outlawed abortion, are free to do whatever they want. 

He says “Trumpian politics” have leaked over the border and can be seen in the politics played out by the B.C. and federal Canadian Conservative parties. 

“I think many of the voters who are attracted to these far-right groups are actually voting against their own economic interests because these guys are giving tax cuts to the rich,” Meyers says. “They’re not doing anything to bring back manufacturing jobs.”

For history instructor Bob Fuhr, this U.S. election result mirrors a presidential race from more than a century ago. 

Reeling from the influenza epidemic of 1918 to 1920, as well as high inflation following the First World War and concerns over immigration, the Republican Party, running under Warren G. Harding, campaigned on reducing taxes, lowering immigration, and a return to normalcy, namely by bringing back late-19th century values.

“In many ways, I see a repetition of that 104 years later — Americans unhappy with the economy, people also yearning to ‘Make America Great Again,’” Fuhr says. “That’s really what normalcy meant in 1920 — getting back to good values of the past and immigration restriction.”

Fuhr says after Trump’s chaotic handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden offered a calming message. But four years later under Biden, many Americans haven’t been finding that the economy is doing well. Although inflation has cooled down in the U.S. this year, prices remain high for lots of people.

“Often, it’s economic issues that Americans pay attention to,” Fuhr says. “So they’re punishing the parties in power.”

A past example of U.S. citizens voting based on their pocketbooks is Republican Ronald Reagan defeating incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter amid an economy suffering from rapid inflation in 1980, Fuhr says. 

Another instance is in the months after incumbent Republican president George H.W. Bush’s war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq ended, the economy went downhill, leading to Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidential victory in 1992.

Despite losing one of his three presidential elections, Trump has consistently held a solid base of supporters, Fuhr says. 

“In the age of social media, it’s cemented a stronger culture among Trump’s base,” he says. “It’s linked people up in ways that were never possible before social media, especially.”

Although Fuhr says Americans don’t pay much attention to foreign affairs, an area that could have contributed to Harris’s defeat is the fact that both the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war broke out under Biden — two conflicts the U.S. is funding but not directly fighting in.

“There’s a sense among Americans that Joe Biden is responsible [for the wars], or this wouldn’t have happened if Trump had been president,” he says.

“I think there’s a sense, too, among his base — and maybe some others — that these events didn’t happen when he was president, so therefore he’s the one who can handle it.”

Trump is also unpredictable when it comes to his policies, Fuhr says, with the U.S. staying on Canadians’ minds since the superpower is Canada’s top customer.

“If they put tariffs on, it can hurt a lot of industries,” he says. “But he doesn’t take much interest in Canada. When he talks about trade deals, he’s more focused on China and Mexico.”