American Politics – Page 33

Will Trump tramp on NAFTA if he HAS-TA?

May 7, 2016 by Peter Lowry

Coming from a large family where half the siblings are in the U.S.A. and the other half in Canada, there is no lack of discussions between us of current affairs in both countries. No subject is sacred. With lots of religions represented as well as the LGBT community, family re-unions can be lively, learning events. This is offered by way of background on a conversation recently with a Canadian niece and her family.

This particular niece is somewhat right-of-centre politically. She had recently returned from a visit in Florida with some very conservative friends who are staunch Donald Trump supporters. She was not only on board the Trump bandwagon but denied our suggestion that he is a longshot.

It is her theory that the Trump candidacy in the U.S. is so controversial that people there are claiming that they will support Hillary Clinton when they are secretly intending to vote for Trump. She believes that Trump will succeed because he appeals to Americans’ inherent bigotry.

The obvious answer to that was it was a sad opinion of America and she should realize that only about 50 per cent of Americans on average vote for the president. It is in understanding who votes and why that you can start to assess Trump’s chances. Luckily the consistent voters for president tend to be from the upper quartiles of the IQ range.

And if Canadians had a vote, he would lose by a lot more. It’s not that Canadians want their own northern wall but that Trump wants to dump the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Not only would he put the economies of Canada, Mexico and the United States into free fall but the fallout of such ignorance would reverberate around the world for the next three generations.

And yet this niece thinks he is just spouting off for effect and will become more presidential in September. He tested that turnaround recently in a speech on foreign affairs that was so out of touch with reality that he was digging holes for himself. He needs to realize that Hillary Clinton knows far more about foreign affairs than he ever will and stay away from the subject.

It was delightful when the niece’s 21-year old son got into the conversation and undercut his mother’s argument with a reasoned argument that Bernie Sanders was the only supportable candidate for the American presidency. It was good to see that the apple does not always fall close to the tree.

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Donald Trump’s bandwagon.

May 4, 2016 by Peter Lowry

In the U.S, primaries, we are watching what is known in politics as the bandwagon effect. We have been watching it build for American billionaire Donald Trump. In a lacklustre mob of Republican primary candidates, it was no surprise that Trump started with a lead of around 30 per cent of the Republican votes. Against the long line of others that could not garner 10 per cent, he was a winner. That was all he needed to become the phenomenon of the GOP campaign.

The buffoon that he is, Trump could not restrain himself from pointing out that he would not be where he is in the race were it not for the corruption of the system choosing him. The fondest hope of clear thinking Republicans who have any influence in the party is that they can reform the system so a Trump can never happen again.

But the Republicans have created this situation for themselves. The party of Abraham Lincoln needs to hang its figurative head in shame for the state of American politics that has lead to this fiasco. The frustration that the Tea Party and the other crazies in the party feel about politics in America was created by over-reaching Republican politicians trying to impress that facet in the party with their determination.

What they have now is a presumptive candidate for the presidency who is disliked and distrusted by a sizeable majority of American voters. Changing that perception of their candidate might be possible if he was one who would do as he was told. And fat chance of that.

The apparatchiks of the Republican party have been racking their brains trying to come up with a way to derail the Trump bandwagon. The problem they have is that there is no heir-apparent. Even if they could have had a contested convention, they could never put together an effective organization for either Ted Cruz or John Kasich—the last pins standing in the Trump Bowling alley.

It seems there will be much more written about Donald Trump over the months to the November election. If Hillary Clinton is smart enough to stay out of a Trump style of campaign, she should have an easy victory in November. If we had our druthers, it would be great to see a Trump-Cruz line-up for the GOP and a Clinton-Sanders line-up for the Democrats. Now that combination would give us political commentators something to get our keyboards rattling!

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Au revoir Pierre Karl.

May 3, 2016 by Peter Lowry

We finally found out the difference between millionaire Pierre Karl Pèladeau and billionaire Donald Trump. As leader of the separatist Parti Quèbècois, Pierre Karl realized he was a square peg in a round hole. There was nowhere he could take the Quebec separatist party but downhill skiing. Conversely Donald Trump still thinks he is God’s gift to America’s Republican Party, and its Tea Party crazies.

But the revelation for Pierre Karl was in his bed. It sounds like his, maybe, wife Julie Synder has finally gotten through to him. It sounds like it was a choice between her and their two kids or Quebec politics. Which did he want?

It seems he has made a wise choice.

Pèladeau had to realize after the past year at the helm of the late Renè Lèvesque’s party, he had nowhere to go and few of the separatists really wanted to follow him. He was never comfortable with the left-wing leanings of his purported followers and they were certainly never too sure about him. His reputation in business had been very right-wing and his relations with organized labour were less than friendly.

But he thought it would be easy to bring the party along and maybe change its direction more to his thinking. He had as much chance of that as of convincing Julie—his wife of less than a year—of staying at home looking after the kids while he spent days on end at the National Assembly in Quebec City and in travelling around the province trying rebuild a crumbling party.

There is also the thought that Pierre Karl wanted to return to the thrill of managing his media empire. While his Sun Media English-language chain has been sold off, he still has the largest circulation print media in the province (le Journal de Montrèal) and the French-language TVA television network. These are fascinating toys for any business person and he has probably been missing them.

Donald Trump on the other hand has no real business empire to run as the properties and hotels with his name on them are easier to understand if you think of them as franchises. In his business you build the building for the least possible and sell it for the most possible. You get your money and run. And that is not a good analogy to being President of the United States.

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Donald Trump is still a long-shot.

April 29, 2016 by Peter Lowry

When Babel-on-the-Bay put out a morning line on Donald Trump’s run for the Roses of the American Presidency, 25 to 1 odds was the best we could predict. Nothing has changed to improve his position.

Donald Trump is still an out-of-control egoist. As any farmer can tell you, you can paint a pig any color you wish but, he is still a pig.

It was like the other day when Trump introduced his foreign affairs program in a Washington hotel. It probably would have been smart not to invite the news media to what was obviously a trial run. They made every effort for him. They got him a teleprompter just like the big kids use to keep them on subject. The audience was subdued and they listened.

But what they listened to was a waste of time. You can hardly call a long series of platitudes a foreign policy. And sure, he wants to do something about the brigands from the so-called Islamic State, but so do many other countries. He just forgot to tell us how. And then he implies that he wants to surprise them. He might also surprise us.

Trump’s next problem in this presidential race is to get a speech writer that he can live with for the next six months. And, be advised, a speech writer is not just someone who can put the words together for you. The best speech writers listen very carefully to how their subject speaks, what words they use, when they take a breath and when a break for applause is natural.

And Trump has to learn that foreign policy is not a pool everyone can wade in. Foreign affairs have more depth, they deal with other cultures, different morals and unfamiliar customs. Trump’s approach throughout his speech was naïve, childish and nothing more than braggadocio. It made little sense. Most of what he said could be catastrophic in implementation and could even end in armed conflict. And that is just with the Mexicans. You can imagine how his policies would go down with countries that do not like Americans?

Take Vladimir Putin and the situation with Russia. Mr. Putin achieves his objectives by pushing the envelope. He takes neighbouring countries over one piece at a time. He sells arms to tyrants so that they can use them to kill their own people. Donald Trump says he will negotiate with Mr. Putin. What is he going to offer him, a Trump hotel in Moscow?

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Donald Trump’s evolution.

April 28, 2016 by Peter Lowry

The Donald is supposed to be evolving as he emerges from the sewers of the Republican Party primary race. He has invested some money in an old-time political spin doctor who now explains that Trump is in the process of evolving into a persona more suitable to America’s highest office. And if you buy into that, you are as gullible as the people who are already buying into the Trump fiasco.

It is easy to believe that at the beginning of the campaign Trump listened to the political two-step that Republican contestants were dancing to and knew that approach would never work for him. This guy has been selling pie in the sky for too many years to believe they were on the right track. How could he be believed if he joined that chorus line spouting that religion, the National Rifle Association, and an anti-liberal stance was all that was needed to defeat the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton?

Trump started out with a slogan. As a long-time marketer, he knew that was needed. He settled on Make America Strong Again and he just keeps saying it. It is a hell of a slogan. Nobody would dare suggest that America was already strong enough. That would be anti-American.

Trump also knew that the mob of Republicans already in the race needed to be divided. They all despised him, so he had to take out the ones smart enough to do him any damage. The strongest seems to be this guy Ted Cruz from Texas. He might seem to be a smarmy bastard but he has his weak points. Trump has kept reminding people that Cruz was born in Canada. That probably made him a closet Liberal like all those wishy-washy Canucks.

But the most fun was Trump vilifying the Mexicans. He really knew how to appeal to American bigotry. He was going to build a wall to keep those despicable people out of the Good Ole U.S. of A. It is going to run all the way from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. And to handle any concerns about this idea, he said he was going to make the Mexicans pay for it. And would you believe that lots of bikers, bigots, holly rollers and Tea Party crazies were stupid enough to think he was presidential material?

But his crusade went on. He said he was going to stop all Muslims from entering America. His only really dumb bit of bluster was to ridicule Hillary for being a woman. And in the process he denigrated women. He has actually pissed off half the population of America.

But there is still a lot of hot air coming out of the Trump campaign and very little of it is in the realm of reason. And this hot shot spin doctor he has hired to make him acceptable to the Republican establishment is just more hot air.

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America’s Trump: Buffoon or Fascist?

April 4, 2016 by Peter Lowry

When we handicapped Donald Trump’s campaign for the American presidency last month we were generous with the 25 to 1 longshot. We later remarked on some of his oratory that smacks of the confused and simplistic Adolf Hitler diatribes in Munich in the 1920s and his corporatism that smacks of Benito Mussolini in the same era.

But Trump has a long way to go before you can label him as a fascist or a Nazi. Nobody seems to be able to define him in his megalomaniac state. If he had any instinct for politics though he would have gone out and bought the best political strategist that money can buy and then do what the hell he was told.

Trump was the buffoon that stepped into a vacuum of leadership in the Republican Party and surrounded by a broad field of losers, he ran amok. As former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin put it, he is loved by those rock ‘n’ rollers and Holy Rollers of the GOP. And if you could not stand out in that dismal mob of alsorans, you were not trying.

The man is now spending half his time trying to explain away some ignorant statement he made a few hours earlier. He has even achieved the almost impossible task of being hated by more women than any potential Republican candidate in history.

Trump has his baying pack of sycophants actually believing his claim that he can make the Mexicans pay for a ludicrous wall between their two countries. The Mexicans have some very basic Anglo-Saxon words for that idea.

There is no question that Trump is a bully and unrealistic in his ideas, but so far he has said nothing about the violent takeover of the government. He does seem to consider democracy a drag but he apparently does not see himself as a dictator. He has been sincere in trying to secure a majority of the GOP delegates for the July party convention in Cleveland. (Frankly the GOP would be wise to change the venue of that convention to somewhere in the middle of the Mojave Desert.)

So far in this Republican race, Trump has enraged blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, the LGBT community, liberals and women. Only a buffoon would make that many enemies while trying to win the American Presidency. And even if he wins the nomination, there might be the highest party crossover vote in American history to make sure he is defeated.

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Bernie Sanders occupies the Occupy revolt.

March 29, 2016 by Peter Lowry

The good news for the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 is that the revolution lives on. Watching the Occupy movement at the time was painful as the young and inexperienced organizers took their ideas nowhere. It was an ill-timed revolution without a plan. Only the now established anger at the one per cent for holding most of the money lived on.

But the American Senator from Vermont, 74-year old Bernie Sanders, obviously understood. He must have looked at those youngsters on Wall Street and said: There is my mob.

But without a younger understudy, Bernie Sanders efforts are also wasted. He is gathering an army that will need future leaders. It is a movement that America so desperately needs.

Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist but the reality is in his political career since becoming mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981, he has proven himself a social democrat. He can wear that appellation proudly.

In Sanders presidential campaign, he has denounced the corrupt Super PACs of American politics and will only accept donations from individuals. It might leave him behind Hilary Clinton in delegates but it makes his supporters even stronger.

Bernie’s vociferous legions are already confronting the bread and circuses mobs of Donald Trump’s right wing and the battle could rage all the way to the November elections.

The only problem is that Hilary Clinton is still the front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination and Sanders’ problem will be to bring his followers on-side for Clinton. It will all be wasted if Clinton does not embrace some of the left-wing ideology of the Sanders campaign. She will be unbeatable in November if Sanders can get her on board.

Clinton already owns the stance on women’s rights. She needs to speak out on income and wealth inequality, free college tuition, a living wage for all and restoring democracy in the United States. The rest of Bernie’s pledges are all good but she needs to pick those that resonate best with American Democrats. And it is always best to be recognized for one or two things while the rest become a blur.

But Clinton knows all that. She will run a strong campaign for the presidency and she can guarantee the win by bringing along Bernie’s Occupy supporters. They will bring a fresh vibrancy to the campaign. And because the very idea of Trump’s America must be stopped.

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“There will be rioting in the streets.”

March 18, 2016 by Peter Lowry

It is terrible that Donald Trump cannot seem to find a better playbook for his campaign than that of the Weimar Republic of the 1930s. He is raising spectres that were thought to have died more than 60 years ago. He is causing comparisons with tactics that might have worked in the past but have no place in today’s North America. The man invokes fascism at every twist and turn in his campaign.

Fascism feeds on the anger, bigotry, frustration, ignorance and jingoism of the masses. It can be cruelly manipulated by the uncaring megalomaniac. And who is it that chose this Trump guy to even consider running for President of the United States of America?

Is this a person anyone would trust who threatens rioting at the Republican Convention in July? He is defiant of the democratic process. He has already decided that he is the winner. Yet he is the beloved of the losers, the bikers, the religious fanatics, the extremists. For he, Trump, thinks he is their leader.

Trump wants to be leader of the free world and yet there would be no freedom under him. He preaches the politics of exclusion, hate, distrust and destruction. He wants to build walls against people seeking asylum. He would tear down the world-renowned Statue of Liberty. He would tear up agreements between nations. He would be kept busy by his bigotry. He would foment new hatred and resentment against America around the world.

Trump promotes bigotry over understanding. He thinks violence should replace negotiation. He panders to extremism. He looks down on those who question him.

Any riot during the Cleveland GOP Convention will most likely be of his creation. The only problem is that there are many who will willingly pitch in against Trump’s losers and troublemakers. Democrat Bernie Sanders has shown Americans that there are legions of the American left that will stand up to fascism. Added to that are Cleveland’s own young and unemployed blacks who hate Trump and whose emotions in the heat of the summer will simmer just below the boiling point.

To further escalate matters, Cleveland’s police have ordered 2000 riot outfits to dress their people for the event. Will everyone bring their weapon of choice to see how effective these new suits might be? It could be an event of epic proportions—like a remake of Birth of a Nation.

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The Morning Line on Trump: 25 to 1.

March 12, 2016 by Peter Lowry

We are not saying that it is impossible but it is quite unlikely that Donald Trump could make it all the way to the American White House. The odds of 25 to 1 are not only a long-shot bet but realistic. Mind you, the serious loser in this race is the Republican Party. And it can mean difficult times ahead for the GOP if Trump takes the party down with him.

But the truth is the party brought it on itself. The GOP created and fed that anger in its ranks and now it is paying the price. Once you get on that tiger, the biggest problem is figuring out how to get off.

What did the leadership of the GOP think was going to happen when Republican supporters saw nothing but controversy, confrontation and confusion in Congress during the Obama administration? The GOP had to accept its share of that anger. The leadership was part of the problem. It forgot to be part of the solution.

The leadership laughed when Donald Trump came to the door and said “Let me in.” The elite of the GOP never expected Trump to become the new doorman.

Trump became the toy boy of the angry, the Tea Party crazies, the losers, the screw-you right and the Holy Rollers. They had a guy who was telling it like it is, brutal and seemingly uncaring. He measured out his own brand of shock and awe. He is going to take his people to the promised land of America the Mighty. He is going to wall-out the wetbacks, block the Muslims and keep America safe for the Ku Klux Klan and the National Rifle Association.

And why should the GOP leadership care about what he is saying when they have been pandering to those same demographics for many years? They would be happy campers if they had not finally done the mathematics and realized that Trump and the GOP are marching to Armageddon together. Short of the South Rising Again, Trump is never likely to be President in anything other than his own mind.

The GOP leadership have no wish to contribute to this debacle and sent patrician Mitt Romney after Trump. Romney solemnly told the party the truth about Trump. The party ignored Romney. He had no effect.

It is now way past the time that wiser heads in both the Democratic and Republican parties get together and talk about measures to prevent this happening again. They have to come to the conclusion that having money to throw at election campaigns is not the answer to running a country. A corrupt system corrupts all the players.

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“Stoop and Scoop” on the White House lawn.

March 10, 2016 by Peter Lowry

Canadians visiting the White House in Washington need to remember to never piss on the president’s rug and carry a plastic bag in your pocket for your errors in protocol on the White House lawn. While we most often criticize the Americans for their brashness in business and international relations, it is really Canadians who need the most help in getting things right. And we seem to forget our manners most frequently with our wayward American friends and neighbours.

It was never just President Richard Nixon that complained about Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau Senior could annoy friends and foes alike in his travels. President Lyndon Johnson had every reason to take Prime Minister Lester Pearson to the White House woodshed over his public speech in the United States about Vietnam. Despite the many contributions Canada made behind the scenes to the Vietnam War effort, Pearson’s public criticism of Johnson was simply bad manners.

And speaking of bad manners, Prime Minister Stephen Harper lowered the temperature of relations with the Obama administration considerably with his complaints to American business audiences about the delays in approving the Keystone XL pipeline. You could tell that President Obama enjoyed putting the cap on Keystone after Harper was defeated by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

But we should not assume that everything is sweetness and light between Canada and the U.S.A. with the change of regime. Justin must have been taking a crash course in international relations since last October but he has a long way to go. With Obama in a lame-duck position with his last year in the White House, Trudeau would be best to settle for short-term objectives.

While both the American and Canadian news media will gush over the entire event in Washington as though it is the two leaders’ first date, it is not all that important. It will be a one-day of amnesty between the American news media and the administration and President Obama will feel grateful for that. For Justin and Sophie, it will be an event of confusing protocols, inane conversation, with inedible food on outrageously expensive dishes and with cutlery that the White House staff count carefully before and afterwards.

If Obama was really friendly with the two Canadians, he and the wife would take them out for some decent food afterwards. There really are some darn good restaurants in the Washington D.C. area.

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