The election of President Donald Trump is unsurprising and anyone who thinks it isn’t deserves a smack in the head.[i] Wake up America, and you too Canada.
The two-party system will always result in one side coming out the loser.[ii] The subsequent whining of the centre-left in the wake of the election has me wondering whether democracy will succeed. The inability of people to accept democratic outcomes and differing political opinions, only serves as an erosion of democracy. While more Americans voted Democrat in the popular vote, the Republican's had the edge in the House and Congress; business mogul Donald J. Trump as the president-elect, is what they got. You don’t have to like it.[iii] As anti-Trump protests in major cities across the United States extend into the fifth day, the behaviour of the people protesting continues to unravel. In a video shot on the streets of Los Angeles, adults on the perimeter of the circle cheer each time the child – wielding a bat – successfully connects with the Donald Trump-inspired piñata dangling by its head. Smash, tear, rip – the harder they hit, the more it rips.[iv] Deep fissures have emerged among the American people and reconciliation appears unlikely at this time. Party politics are meant to polarize, isn’t that the strength of a democracy?[v] After desecrating traditional American politics, the president-elect – in his victory speech – espoused a very different rhetoric: “Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division; we have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.” The damage has been done. It was a paltry attempt to sew together the wounds of his words[vi] that served to ignite the disaffected and villainize marginalized groups. Hillary Clinton’s concession speech wasn’t much better, an artificial appeal to her supporters to accept the outcome of the election. In the same breath encouraging them to keep “fighting for what’s right” and “keep up these fights now and for the rest of your lives.” They certainly have, except their fight is with democracy. To borrow from the book of Ecclesiastes: A racist president is better than a dead democracy.[vii] *Opinion piece written for my advanced print journalism class at Carleton University.
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Megan McPhadenArticles produced during my Master of Journalism at Carleton University. Archives
March 2017
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