What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Barrister]

Yeah I mean I read/liked National Review for years but I basically had the exact same experience with it almost down to the year I first really started reading it and when I realized it was just filled with Trump collaborators now.

[viper37]

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

The cancellation of the F-35 contract, by the same party, with the same arguments...
And people fell for it.  Again.
And we're still going to get the F-35... For more $$$.

[viper37]

Point being, if "access to a viable alternate candidate the Republicans could replace Trump with" might somehow change things, is the question--the answer is no. They have that right now in our system.

That misses the point though.  The issue isn't replacing with a more sane person, the issue is others other than the VP being able to become the President - that is the rough analogy to a Parliamentary system.  And that then gives an ambitious politician the ability to rise to the top immediately.  How much loyalty would there be then?  The knives come out pretty quickly if a leader shows weakness in a Parliamentary system.

Justin Trudeau is a bad Prime Minister.  Doug Ford is a bad Premier.  Both are bad for the country and their province, respectively.  Jean Charest was an extremely bad Premier in his time, corrupt to the core, on top of it.

And yet, they were there, at the top of the party, with barely any knives showing.  Why?  Because ultimately, they delivered the election.  Sure, both Trudeau and Charest had to face a minority govt.  Charest bounce from it, so will Trudeau for his 3rd and 4th term.  His policies hurt Canada a lot in the long term with the ballooning of the debt and will make it very hard for anyone sane to take over.  You can't outspend the Liberals, and any talk of "austerity" will be badly received.

[crazy canuck]

I mean Trump hasn't shown weakness among the people GOP care about--Republican voters. It's literally the same reason Jeremy Corbyn held all the cards within Labour up until the day he lost a catastrophic national election--because an unbeatable group of Labour party members were supportive of him.

There are a lot of other people who would appeal to the same group of Republican supporters.  The difference is no Republican senator can become president in place of Trump if impeached.  That goes to the VP.  There being no personal advantage, there is no reason to go along with the impeachment.

In a parliamentary system, a person with a shot at the top job would act if given a reasonable opportunity.

[Malthus]

IMO, it's a race thing.  White people have been running the country since its founding, and it was up to them to decide how much others would be tolerated.  Now it's more and more conceivable that others may have a real say in how the country is run, and that's perceived as a threat.  Seeing a reminder for eight years that white people no longer have a monopoly on power in the US certainly didn't help.

This seems to matter more in the US than in Canada though. Canada has a very high level of immigration as well, without as yet the same sort of backlash.

[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

The cancellation of the F-35 contract, by the same party, with the same arguments...
And people fell for it.  Again.
And we're still going to get the F-35... For more $$$.

Yes - the point being that this is hardly new behaviour, nor do the Conservatives have a monopoly on it.

[Barrister]

IMO, it's a race thing.  White people have been running the country since its founding, and it was up to them to decide how much others would be tolerated.  Now it's more and more conceivable that others may have a real say in how the country is run, and that's perceived as a threat.  Seeing a reminder for eight years that white people no longer have a monopoly on power in the US certainly didn't help.

This seems to matter more in the US than in Canada though. Canada has a very high level of immigration as well, without as yet the same sort of backlash.

First of all Canada historically was very, very white.  We didn't have an underclass of people of colour for the most part, and didn't have a lot of the cultural baggage that came with it.

Second our immigration patterns are very different than the US.  The US gets a lot of immigrants from latin america, a lot of which entered illegally.  They were often low-skilled, and due to being illegal tended not to integrate very well into society.

Here's the top ten list of immigrants to the US by nationality:

Code Select Expand


Country 2015 2016 2017
1. Mexico 158,619 174,534 170,581
2. China 74,558 81,772 71,565
3. Cuba 54,396 66,516 65,028
4. India 64,116 64,687 60,394
5. Dominican Rep. 50,610 61,161 58,520
6. Philippines 56,478 53,287 49,147
7. Vietnam 30,832 41,451 38,231
8. El Salvador 19,487 23,449 25,109
9. Jamaica 17,642 23,350 21,905
10. Haiti 16,967 23,584 21,824
Total 1,051,031 1,183,505 1,127,167

Canada, not being on the border of a developing nation, got to pick and choose our immigrants.  We picked immigrants for being highly skilled and being proficient in our official languages.  The biggest nations we get immigrants from are Phillippines, India and China.  Here's our top ten list:

Code Select Expand

Recent immigrants 1,212,075 100.0
Philippines 188,805 15.6
India 147,190 12.1
China 129,020 10.6
Iran 42,070 3.5
Pakistan 41,480 3.4
United States 33,060 2.7
Syria 29,945 2.5
United Kingdom 24,445 2.0
France 24,155 2.0
South Korea 21,710 1.8
Other countries 530,195 43.7
Source(s):
Statistics Canada, Census of Population, 2016.

[Malthus]

IMO, it's a race thing.  White people have been running the country since its founding, and it was up to them to decide how much others would be tolerated.  Now it's more and more conceivable that others may have a real say in how the country is run, and that's perceived as a threat.  Seeing a reminder for eight years that white people no longer have a monopoly on power in the US certainly didn't help.

This seems to matter more in the US than in Canada though. Canada has a very high level of immigration as well, without as yet the same sort of backlash.

First of all Canada historically was very, very white.  We didn't have an underclass of people of colour for the most part, and didn't have a lot of the cultural baggage that came with it.

Second our immigration patterns are very different than the US.  The US gets a lot of immigrants from latin america, a lot of which entered illegally.  They were often low-skilled, and due to being illegal tended not to integrate very well into society.

Here's the top ten list of immigrants to the US by nationality:

Code Select Expand


Country 2015 2016 2017
1. Mexico 158,619 174,534 170,581
2. China 74,558 81,772 71,565
3. Cuba 54,396 66,516 65,028
4. India 64,116 64,687 60,394
5. Dominican Rep. 50,610 61,161 58,520
6. Philippines 56,478 53,287 49,147
7. Vietnam 30,832 41,451 38,231
8. El Salvador 19,487 23,449 25,109
9. Jamaica 17,642 23,350 21,905
10. Haiti 16,967 23,584 21,824
Total 1,051,031 1,183,505 1,127,167

Canada, not being on the border of a developing nation, got to pick and choose our immigrants.  We picked immigrants for being highly skilled and being proficient in our official languages.  The biggest nations we get immigrants from are Phillippines, India and China.  Here's our top ten list:

Code Select Expand

Recent immigrants 1,212,075 100.0
Philippines 188,805 15.6
India 147,190 12.1
China 129,020 10.6
Iran 42,070 3.5
Pakistan 41,480 3.4
United States 33,060 2.7
Syria 29,945 2.5
United Kingdom 24,445 2.0
France 24,155 2.0
South Korea 21,710 1.8
Other countries 530,195 43.7
Source(s):
Statistics Canada, Census of Population, 2016.

I would dispute that we historically lack an underclass - only, instead of Black and urban, ours has traditionally been native and rural.

It is true that our immigrants on average come from different places. However, if the thesis is that the backlash is triggered by 'whites losing relative power', that should not matter - indeed, a 'yellow menace' ought arguably be just as threatening as a 'latino menace'.

[Valmy]

He said for the most part, I thought maybe he was suggesting that the native population is very small. After all you cannot say you have a native and rural underclass instead of our black and urban one since, you know, we have a native and rural underclass as well...and watch this space to learn all about it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ

It is true that our immigrants on average come from different places. However, if the thesis is that the backlash is triggered by 'whites losing relative power', that should not matter - indeed, a 'yellow menace' ought arguably be just as threatening as a 'latino menace'.

I don't think you can ignore the low skilled class issue piled onto the race issue there. I mean our anti-immigrant people are not too grumbly about the high skilled Engineers and other professionals we import.

[Barrister]

I would dispute that we historically lack an underclass - only, instead of Black and urban, ours has traditionally been native and rural.

It is true that our immigrants on average come from different places. However, if the thesis is that the backlash is triggered by 'whites losing relative power', that should not matter - indeed, a 'yellow menace' ought arguably be just as threatening as a 'latino menace'.

First nations comprise less than 5% of Canada's population, and even then most of it is concentrated in the west.  And because that population is rural, a lot of people living in cities don't ever see native people.  And that number has been increasing: 20 years ago it was under 3%.

And, as grumbler will point out, race is just a social construct.  Our Indian and Chinese immigrants do a great job at integrating into wider Canadian society.  On Josh's hockey team, out of 9 kids, 4 are some kind of east asian.  Their parents or grandparents certainly didn't grow up playing hockey.

The US fear of "losing relative power" is because the US has a long history of having disadvantaged groups (and treating them badly), and a lot of the immigrants that are coming aren't integrating that well into "white" society and culture.

[Valmy]

I am so glad that is our legacy.

[Malthus]

He said for the most part, I thought maybe he was suggesting that the native population is very small. After all you cannot say you have a native and rural underclass instead of our black and urban one since, you know, we have a native and rural underclass as well...and watch this space to learn all about it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ

I obviously am not disputing that the US also has natives. 

The indigenous population of Canada is about 5%. That of the USA, around 1%. So there is that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_social_statistics_of_Native_Americans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_in_Canada

I don't think you can ignore the low skilled class issue piled onto the race issue there. I mean our anti-immigrant people are not too grumbly about the high skilled Engineers and other professionals we import.

The issue is the allegation that te current kerfuffle in the US was caused by Whites losing power to non-Whites (follow the comment thread). 

I'm not disputing that the average anti-immigrant person dislikes low-skilled immigrants more than high-skilled ones. But if the allegation is that Whites feel "under threat" of having power taken from them - how is that threat less from non-Whites who are comparatively rich and successful? You would suppose it ought to be greater.

[Malthus]

The US fear of "losing relative power" is because the US has a long history of having disadvantaged groups (and treating them badly), and a lot of the immigrants that are coming aren't integrating that well into "white" society and culture.

This is the point I was getting at: that the two nations are, in fact, culturally different in some fundamental ways.

[Barrister]

The US fear of "losing relative power" is because the US has a long history of having disadvantaged groups (and treating them badly), and a lot of the immigrants that are coming aren't integrating that well into "white" society and culture.

This is the point I was getting at: that the two nations are, in fact, culturally different in some fundamental ways.

Here's the problem I have with that.  You make it sound like Canada's culture is better, more virtuous.  I think we're just geographically lucky.

[Valmy]

The indigenous population of Canada is about 5%. That of the USA, around 1%. So there is that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_social_statistics_of_Native_Americans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_in_Canada

Well that depends on how you count them. But I was just guessing what BB was getting at there.

But anyway I mostly just wanted to point out how excited I am for CGP Grey's Reservation series.

The issue is the allegation that te current kerfuffle in the US was caused by Whites losing power to non-Whites (follow the comment thread). 

I'm not disputing that the average anti-immigrant person dislikes low-skilled immigrants more than high-skilled ones. But if the allegation is that Whites feel "under threat" of having power taken from them - how is that threat less from non-Whites who are comparatively rich and successful? You would suppose it ought to be greater.

Yeah clearly it is complicated and while it kind of feels like there is something to that claim it doesn't make much sense when you look at behavior. After all the places where white people are acting out are generally places where they are less under threat, not more.