Canada is not immune to Trump's brand of vile demagoguery

By Scott Reid 

Donald Trump’s campaign for the White House isn’t politics. It’s pornography. Over the past few months he has flashed voters a grotesque reel of insults, mistruths, attacks, hate-fueled rants and barenaked race-baiting. It’s been raw, titillating and deliberately crafted to provoke base urges among the watching public.

The only major difference between Trump’s candidacy and pornography is that most people try to hide their consumption of X-rated content. Trump and his supporters prefer to revel in their excess Caligula-style, growing ever more offensive, xenophobic and unapologetic.

Mexican immigrants are rapists. Female reporters are menstruating. POWs are labeled losers for being captured. Muslims should be registered and tracked electronically. And media who happen to be disabled can expect to be mocked for it. When challenged the GOP frontrunner bellows and bullies and the dumbasses around him cheer like extras in a Mad Max sequel.

He is, quite simply, a bigoted, loudmouthed pig of a candidate. But he’s winning, he’s been winning for a while, and it is no longer possible to dismiss his campaign as a crank vanity project that will soon collapse. Trump is for real. And that is a real bad sign for the state of politics in the United States. But also for all those who are heavily influenced by what goes on in the United States. Which is pretty much a textbook description of Canada.

Those of us who dwell north of the 49th parallel might think ourselves immune to this particular brand of vulgarity. After all, didn’t we just select the sunny ways of Justin Trudeau to lead us forward? Haven’t we, this very week, convened a new Parliament under the promise of elevated conduct? Can’t we take some pride in the idea that our politics appear to be headed in the opposite direction of that represented by Trump, Fiorina, Cruz and the other horsemen of the apocalypse?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Like the anthem says, we must stand on guard. Because the disturbing appeal of Trump does not get stopped and turned away at the border. It washes over our airwaves, piques our curiosity, finds its fair share of fans and is greeted as entertainment by a sizable constituency right here in the true north strong and free.

It’s also not like we have to struggle to identify home-grown examples. We can shake our heads and mutter “not here” but it wasn’t so long ago that Toronto The Good was ruled by a crack-addicted peddler of point-the-finger rhetoric. And he was admired by legions. Probably still is.

Tell the truth, how many friends have you heard say about Donald Trump or Rob Ford that “at least he-tells-it-like-it-is”? Add up the lies, errors and bombast and it’s more like “tells-it-like-it-isn’t” but people love an unvarnished, blame-slinging contrarian. Especially if that candidate is a bit rough around the edges, quick to denounce the powers-that-be and ready with a few simple solutions to intractable problems. Like building a wall around a country with a 14,205 km perimeter.

Canada has every reason to fear Donald Trump, the prejudices he elicits and the divisions he feeds on. Fool yourself for not one second, we’re as vulnerable as West Virginia to his appeal. Even at the dawn of this new Trudeau era.

Campaigns like Trump’s have a pernicious effect. Even after they fail – and it’s still a safe bet that his will ultimately crater — they warp the political landscape. The demagoguery we’re witnessing doesn’t suddenly vanish. It lingers in the form of shifted boundaries and diminished standards. In reduced notions of what constitutes acceptable – even expected — political behaviour. Candidates like Trump lead the race to the bottom and with each passing yard, it becomes harder to recall what the top even looked like, or which way is up.

It is also a political fact that what comes first in the United States, comes here soon after. There is no political culture quite like America’s. The money, the stakes, even the ubiquity of electoral races. Campaigning is a profession and our political class looks to the south to pick up innovations and approaches. The Pearson Liberals borrowed political polling from the Kennedy Democrats. Direct mail was imported by all parties in the 1980s. Harper’s team embraced the micro-targeting techniques of Karl Rove. Even Trudeau’s campaign leaned on Obama’s brain trust for advice on social media and volunteer activation.

With a federal Conservative leadership race set to begin in a few months is it such a stretch to imagine lessons learned from the GOP’s unconventional primary might wend their way north? Not if history is any lesson.

But the most important caution isn’t for those on the right. It’s for those newly installed in power. We must remember that candidacies like Trump’s arise for a reason. They grow in the rich fertilizer of political disaffection, taking root among an alienated and ignored public who feel powerless. Reactionary politics are, as the name suggests, a reaction. Rob Ford could not have happened if Toronto’s City Council had not lost the thread. And Donald Trump would not exist if Americans weren’t convinced that its politics are broken.

This is the great opportunity – and possibly the great risk – that confronts Trudeau. He has promised to do things differently. To take the acid out of Ottawa. To set a new tone. He’ll need to deliver on all that. But it will take more.

Our new prime minister has to deny would-be Donald Trumps of the symbols they wish to rally against. Refuse them their anger. Frustrate their ability to cry victim. Stay connected. Don’t grow cocky or content. Reject the crown of the status quo.

That’s how you beat the likes of Trump. Not by defeating his campaign at the finish. But by strangling it of the rage oxygen that carries it to the starting line.