What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Right I mean Trump is a cultural reflection of deeper problems.

But those same problems greatly influenced the sort of men who have power in the GOP in the House and Senate. The congressional Republicans are part of the same toxic culture Trump is, and they worship him as little more than passive slaves. In such an environment they would be no more effective a check on Trump in a parliamentary system.

[crazy canuck]

We had a good long discussion circa 2016 about why Trump could not exist in the Canadian Parliamentary system.  It think the consensus we reached then that he could not is even more accurate now.  But to summarize - we don't elect a Prime Minister directly.  We elect MPs.  The MPs of the governing party do not have to wait for a set separate election cycle to become PM.  If they can replace a sitting PM they become PM with no election.  Sure a party leader has a lot of power, but that power is dependent on keeping the sitting MPs happy - just ask former PM May.  It would be very hard for a leader of a party to attack their own establishment party members the way Trump has done and stay in power.

I missed this post at first.

What you're missing is that our Parliamentary system is different from Britain's.  MPs can not replace their leader in the Canadian system.  Each party has its own mechanism for triggering a leadership election - and pretty much each party has it involve the party members, not MPs.  That's what led to situations like Paul Martin's warfare with Chretien during the early oughts.  Or where the Canadian Alliance MPs generally lost faith with Stockwell Day, causing several to split and form an independent caucus.

Not all Canadian politics involves the take their ball and go home mentality of Reformers.

[Malthus]

Right I mean Trump is a cultural reflection of deeper problems.

But those same problems greatly influenced the sort of men who have power in the GOP in the House and Senate. The congressional Republicans are part of the same toxic culture Trump is, and they worship him as little more than passive slaves. In such an environment they would be no more effective a check on Trump in a parliamentary system.

Again, I can't disagree with that. Differences in institutions will not help against those determined to destroy respect for those institutions. If they have enough support to succeed.

This is why I think the true difference is one of culture and not merely of institutions.

[crazy canuck]

Right I mean Trump is a cultural reflection of deeper problems.

But those same problems greatly influenced the sort of men who have power in the GOP in the House and Senate. The congressional Republicans are part of the same toxic culture Trump is, and they worship him as little more than passive slaves. In such an environment they would be no more effective a check on Trump in a parliamentary system.

The GOP is worshiping at the alter of Trump because they perceive he is their best route to accomplish their own political ambitions.  None of those ambitions can realistically include becoming President before 2024.  They have to wait until the appropriate Presidential cycle.  There is therefore not much upside for them to take him out - the VP will simply replace him.  But imagine a world where a powerful Senator could become President without the need for a Presidential election.

That is the difference between our systems.

[Razgovory]

To arrogantly assume that "It can't happen here" was our mistake.  Don't repeat it.

[jimmy olsen]

I suppose it depends on what is meant by whether Trump can happen somewhere.  Of course right wing populism can happen anywhere.  PMs can be elected even if unfit to govern so long as they are popular with the MPs.  But that is the big difference, they must maintain their popularity with sitting MPs.  That was the only way Boris could become PM.

But they don't need to be popular with their MPs.  An MP who disagrees with what the leader does has exactly one recourse: vote against the leader and get kicked out of caucus.  There's no lesser action.  MPs can not replace the leader.

A single MP, or small handful of MP, can only do that.  But a big enough block can cause problems as we saw with the Brexit votes, and if they have 50% of the party plus one they can just vote in a new PM.

[DGuller]

To arrogantly assume that "It can't happen here" was our mistake.  Don't repeat it.

Damn near every human can have their rationality switched off, if you just find the right emotion to tap into.  Same concept works on a larger scale.

[Valmy]

To arrogantly assume that "It can't happen here" was our mistake.  Don't repeat it.

All you need is a story of persecution (it doesn't even have to be a true story, in fact it almost seems to work better when it is a myth) and an enemy and you can get people to do almost anything. Or at least that was what Georges Sorel thought, and I think time has proven him correct.

[grumbler]

Right I mean Trump is a cultural reflection of deeper problems.

But those same problems greatly influenced the sort of men who have power in the GOP in the House and Senate. The congressional Republicans are part of the same toxic culture Trump is, and they worship him as little more than passive slaves. In such an environment they would be no more effective a check on Trump in a parliamentary system.

The GOP is worshiping at the alter of Trump because they perceive he is their best route to accomplish their own political ambitions.  None of those ambitions can realistically include becoming President before 2024.  They have to wait until the appropriate Presidential cycle.  There is therefore not much upside for them to take him out - the VP will simply replace him.  But imagine a world where a powerful Senator could become President without the need for a Presidential election.

That is the difference between our systems.

I can't say for sure, but I think that a key difference is that there is a smaller percentage of Canadians who feel strong loyalty to a given political party than in the US.  There are Americans perfectly willing to see the US as a whole get hurt if the damage to the opposing party is great enough.  Thus, to his supporters, Trump's love of, and support for, anti-American dictators is a price worth paying because he drives the Democrats crazy.  Strict interpretation constitutionalists tolerate the destruction of the constitution because at least the Democrats don't get to appoint moderate judges to the Supreme Court.

[Malthus]

I can't say for sure, but I think that a key difference is that there is a smaller percentage of Canadians who feel strong loyalty to a given political party than in the US.  There are Americans perfectly willing to see the US as a whole get hurt if the damage to the opposing party is great enough.  Thus, to his supporters, Trump's love of, and support for, anti-American dictators is a price worth paying because he drives the Democrats crazy.  Strict interpretation constitutionalists tolerate the destruction of the constitution because at least the Democrats don't get to appoint moderate judges to the Supreme Court.

You are correct. It isn't unusual here to see big voter swings from election to election from one party to another.

[Grey Fox]

Then why are the Ontario MPs still stuck with Doug Ford?

As Malthus already pointed out, Doug Ford is not doing what Trump is doing.

but he is! He's destroying past policies & projects just to hurt his real & perceived opponents. The scale are different that's all.

[DGuller]

I can't say for sure, but I think that a key difference is that there is a smaller percentage of Canadians who feel strong loyalty to a given political party than in the US.  There are Americans perfectly willing to see the US as a whole get hurt if the damage to the opposing party is great enough.  Thus, to his supporters, Trump's love of, and support for, anti-American dictators is a price worth paying because he drives the Democrats crazy.  Strict interpretation constitutionalists tolerate the destruction of the constitution because at least the Democrats don't get to appoint moderate judges to the Supreme Court.

You are correct. It isn't unusual here to see big voter swings from election to election from one party to another.

It wasn't unusual in the US either.  What happened was that GOP decided to tap into a rather toxic culture war, and the sides in the culture war are a lot more stable than they are in politics.  The more tightly GOP aligned itself with the culture warriors, the more of a cult it became. 

Obviously in time Democrats became less likely to flip in an election, but that's just a rational reaction to the radicalization of the other side of the political divide.  While Twitter woke crowd is supremely annoying, and it's frightening to think about what would happen if they got the power, they're a recent phenomenon and still not nearly as influential on the left as the MAGA people have been on the right.

[PRC]

Then why are the Ontario MPs still stuck with Doug Ford?

As Malthus already pointed out, Doug Ford is not doing what Trump is doing.

but he is! He's destroying past policies & projects just to hurt his real & perceived opponents. The scale are different that's all.

He cancelled the Hamilton LRT yesterday which seems pretty vindictive and it was done in a fairly rude fashion.  Big project in an NDP region.

[Malthus]

Then why are the Ontario MPs still stuck with Doug Ford?

As Malthus already pointed out, Doug Ford is not doing what Trump is doing.

but he is! He's destroying past policies & projects just to hurt his real & perceived opponents. The scale are different that's all.

Again, being vindictive and cancelling past projects ordered by previous governments isn't why Trump is uniquely toxic. That's something Canadian and other politicians have done since forever.

Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Sea_King_replacement

[Malthus]

I can't say for sure, but I think that a key difference is that there is a smaller percentage of Canadians who feel strong loyalty to a given political party than in the US.  There are Americans perfectly willing to see the US as a whole get hurt if the damage to the opposing party is great enough.  Thus, to his supporters, Trump's love of, and support for, anti-American dictators is a price worth paying because he drives the Democrats crazy.  Strict interpretation constitutionalists tolerate the destruction of the constitution because at least the Democrats don't get to appoint moderate judges to the Supreme Court.

You are correct. It isn't unusual here to see big voter swings from election to election from one party to another.

It wasn't unusual in the US either.  What happened was that GOP decided to tap into a rather toxic culture war, and the sides in the culture war are a lot more stable than they are in politics.  The more tightly GOP aligned itself with the culture warriors, the more of a cult it became. 

Obviously in time Democrats became less likely to flip in an election, but that's just a rational reaction to the radicalization of the other side of the political divide.  While Twitter woke crowd is supremely annoying, and it's frightening to think about what would happen if they got the power, they're a recent phenomenon and still not nearly as influential on the left as the MAGA people have been on the right.

The point is that the culture of the two nations is fundamentally different in an important respect. You are giving an explanation as to why it is different, from the US perspective. I tend to agree with it.