There’s a message from the south of us.
And it’s not that we should be afraid of an imminent uprising or anything like that.
The message is that it will always be important to choose our leaders carefully, and to choose only leaders who respect and uphold the democratic process.
Is there a Trumpist-style group of Canadians in the dark corners of this nation?
Yes, I hear from them regularly, oozing hate and, for the last four years, crowing about Trump’s autocratic actions as president. There are a significant number of them, and they’re kept in check primarily by the fact that most Canadian politicians are unwilling to give them a distinct rallying point. That may change: it’s hard to measure political opportunism and just what someone is willing to do for the trappings of power.
Strong leaders can achieve great things — when they work for nations, and when they work within (and respect) the democratic structures that give them their power in the first place.
Does it mean we’re in danger of falling down the same rabbit hole as the U.S., where bizarre conspiracy theories about international child molestation cabals now trump easily available, conscientiously curated facts? I hope not — but that’s not the message we should take from the terrorists that attacked the U.S. Capitol.
No, the message is, in some ways, a more discrete one.
It’s that democratic countries can’t afford to have leaders who put themselves above the law — and those same democracies have to be aware that exactly that kind of danger exists at all times, only an election away. Elections matter. The character of those we elect does, too.
Probably the most prophetic warning ever about Donald Trump — the warning that Americans and the rest of the world should have heard from the outset — actually came from his own lips.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” he said in 2016.
Think about that.
Someone with the belief that he could shoot someone and walk away free, in complete charge of one of the largest and most sophisticated militaries in the world.
Those are the words of a leader who believes himself above the law. Who believes that he is actually more important than law.
Strong leaders can achieve great things — when they work for nations, and when they work within (and respect) the democratic structures that give them their power in the first place. But their strength so often appears to be their weakness; they regularly seem to despise any sort of opposition, particularly within their own administration, surrounding themselves with coteries of parrots and sycophants.
Why does Donald Trump think he won the election in a landslide? If you listen to him, you can hear the conviction in his voice. He believes it, first, because he’s the kind of leader who can’t comprehend that people would actually vote against him.
He also believes it because he’s told that that he actually won, every day, by people either specifically hired to tell him exactly that, or by others who do it to advance their own agendas. It’s ironic that someone confident enough to trample democratic rules would be so easily and obviously played by those close to him.
Once again, strong leaders can achieve many things: they can move countries forward and lift many boats while they do it.
But when a leader puts themselves above all criticism, and even more, above all else? When the leader is bigger than life, and claims to be above any set of rules, electoral or otherwise? When they believe the lavish praise they’ve bought and paid for?
Be careful what you wish for.
And, by the way, the near-war in the American capital is not over. The players are all still in place and the tinder is still dry.
Russell Wangersky’s column appears in SaltWire newspapers and websites across Atlantic Canada. He can be reached at [email protected] — Twitter: @wangersky.
