Post 119 Election Mudslinging

US Campaigns in the Media

The media, especially TV, have inundated us poor Canadians with election rot. There’s this interminable US presidential campaign that’s been going on for ages--for years it seems, especially if you’re not particularly enamoured with that kind of public engagement. Though we don’t have a voice or any influence whatsoever in this process, even our own TV stations bombard us with talk shows and news talk about that drawn-out procedure, if you can dignify it as such. Of course, our stations are nothing compared to CNN and its competitors. With CNN it seems it’s 24/7. 

Canadian Campaigns

And in the middle of all that, we had a double doze with our own Canadian road show that ended with Harper out and Trudeau Jr. in, this boy who, the Harper wordsmiths continually maintained, was not ready for such elevated office as Prime Minister of the world’s second largest country. In hindsight, there’s a lot of evidence that this claim may well have been right on. As to the rest of their claims and the opponents’ counterclaims, it was at the same sordid sewer level we still suffer daily from down south.   

Campaign Levels 

The language political opponents use to describe each other is really out of control. In any other cultural segment the insults and outright lies would end up in legal suits and in the courts of the land, with our friendly lawyers having a hay day. What’s unacceptable in every other segment seems to be the thing to do or say in the realm of political campaigns. Of course, that should not surprise you, since the segment is laden with lawyers in whose realm half truths and outright untruths appear to be the daily diet. 

You, readers of this blog, have witnessed the Canadian show and continue to witness its prolonged American variety. You probably shake your head occasionally in consternation at the level to which our honourable leaders can sink. Just now, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a US Supreme Court Justice, one burdened with the awesome responsibility of speaking and judging the truth of things told CNN that Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is not consistent and says “whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego.”  Of course, Republican leaders disagreed, while some on the other side agreed.  However, even some left-leaning newspapers called the justice on it. As a Supreme Court justice, she is expected to maintain an impartial stance and not sink into the sewers of politics. The Washington Post commented, “There’s a good reason the Code of Conduct for United States Judges flatly states that a ‘judge should not . . . publicly endorse or oppose a candidate for public office.’ Politicization, real or perceived, undermines public faith in the impartiality of the courts.”  That may be true, but such public comments are an indication of the low level to which participants in the race and their henchpeople sink today. (Sorry for the awkward neologism. “Henchmen” would not do it today and a bare “hench” is not acceptable to the Webster crowd. I’m caught between the linguistic “devil and the deep blue sea.” I am open to suggestions here, please.)

Fathers of the Nation

But if you think this is a recent phenomenon, think again. You may have a surprise coming.  People identified as fathers of the United States used the same kind of language. The Denison Forum shares the following shockers:  

The 1800 election pitted John Adams against Thomas Jefferson. A Jefferson surrogate labeled Adams a "repulsive pedant" and "gross hypocrite" who "behaved neither like a man nor like a woman but instead possessed a hideous hermaphroditical character." An Adams surrogate warned that electing Jefferson would create a nation where "murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced." Stephen Douglas claimed that Abraham Lincoln was a drunk who could "ruin more liquor than all the boys in town together." (Actually, Douglas was a heavy drinker, while Lincoln abstained from alcohol.) Lyndon B. Johnson ran an ad against Barry Goldwater claiming that the latter would bring about nuclear destruction, killing America's children.

A Questionable Corollation 

So, if these greats did not shun such language and, apart from Johnson, they left us with the legacy of a great nation, I guess we should not worry about the low level of our Canadian politicians. There’s hope for us. Is this a case of the deeper the filth the greater the legacy?  Who knows what greatness lies ahead for us in Canada! Hmmm. This conclusion somehow does not have the ring of truth about it. Can anyone point out the logical fallacy I employ here? 

Exporting Democracy

Apart from the legacy question, one of the problems I recognize here is that the nations who practice this kind of shenanigans are also the nations who export “democracy” to the “primitive” nations of other continents and, by so doing, destroy the unity of ethnic groups. I will try to bring some details of this in the next post.

If you have been with me long enough, you may remember previous posts in which I promised not to make any more promises to you, my readers. You may have noticed that in the previous sentence I have just sunk back into the morass of promises, a place where long ago I promised not to descend. I retract that promise. I just can’t live without making promises. But if that’s true for politicians, perhaps I should loosen up as well and just fly with them. If I can’t live without promises in this blog, then I will just have to break that one promise. Just that one!

Post 105--Trump: On the Lighter Side!

After the heavy subject of Post 104, you deserve something lighter and more pleasant today: Donald Trump! See the last sentence in previous blog—a pun for the lighter side. Did I say “lighter and more pleasant” with respect to Trump?  Yes, I did, as incredible as that may seem to you at this point.  Just read on.

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Donald Trump Family Interview

This evening I watched the Trump family being interviewed on CNN, not just the old man himself, but also his current (third) wife and four of his adult children, two daughters and two sons, all of them perhaps half-brothers and half-sisters.  Not sure just how they relate to each other, but all of them Donald’s children. They seemed like very nice people, well brought up, well mannered, all good looking and nicely groomed. And that’s in spite of the two divorces in their family, something that, according to marriage and family specialists, should not happen. They should be disturbed people with lots of problems in their lives.

Of course, they may all have been groomed for the event and be on their best behavior, including Donald himself. So, they may have been cleverly prepared for this show of civility. You never know what goes on behind the scene. However, they all seemed pretty genuine, again even including Donald. They all spoke so highly of their father in answer to questions from the floor that they would not have been able to practice on. And Donald, that tough bear of a political campaigner, himself came out as a really friendly and likeable chap. His children all spoke so highly of him in spontaneous unrecited responses to questions. But in spite of all that, the fact of two divorces does throw kind of a shadow on the whole situation, especially on his repeated claim that he has a wonderful family. Nevertheless, the programme was a very pleasant change from Trump the vicious campaigner. He himself explained the reason for showing this different side of him: he was in a friendly environment instead of in the hostility of vicious campaigners who are dishing all sorts of untruths about him. So, at least, he explained.  But perhaps there is a brighter and lighter side to the man. Political campaigns can bring out the worst even in the best!

Certainly there is one thing I accept from him, namely that he is largely free from the pressures of special interest groups and their lobbyists, since he is rich and can act independently. I believe we are all aware of how tied most politicians are in the US—and probably in Canada as well—to these groups and their agents, how unfree they are to vote their conscience and convictions. It would be a refreshing experience to have a US President who is free to do what he sees as the right thing after full consultation with all the stake holders. I would expect him to reign in some of his seemingly atrocious “promises” or threats once in office and after consultations. (The use of quotation marks in this last sentence is significant for grasping its meaning.)

The Lighter Side

A lighter side? Another one? Indeed there is.  There are various skyscrapers in the world associated with the Trump name. Canada has one in Toronto and right now as we speak there is one under construction in downtown Vancouver, my city. It is the second highest building in the city. The outside seems to be completed; the interior is still being worked on.  I wonder about the things architects take into consideration. I know they at least sometimes take the shadow a high building casts over its neighbourhood into consideration, but I wonder about reflections of the sun. We live in downtown, the West End. Between us and the downtown high rises north of us there are a few blocks of lower building and various parks. So we have a wide open view of the city’s sky line.  Some of these buildings reflect the sun right into our apartment, so brightly that we either have to move to another chair or draw the drapes.

At dawn, the sun rises in the east where we cannot see it, but reflects its bright beams onto the windows of high buildings in the north, from where the reflection bounces off right into our apartment.  We can’t even see the sun but it blinds us!  During the evening sunset in the east, the same thing happens, but now from other buildings.  Again, we can’t even see the sun but we have to move to another chair. 

What does that have to do with Trump? Well, I warned you this would be about his lighter side. That new Trump building, more than any other, reflects the morning and evening sun from many of its different floors separately so that our dining area is totally lit up from an invisible sun. If our bathroom door is open, those reflections in the morning totally light up the world map on the wall behind the toilet, while in the evening the reflections are lower and lighten up the toilet itself! When you consider that the sun itself is in a totally different direction and hidden behind a dozen or more high rises, then our bathroom lighting system is the cause for much amused laughter on our part and that of our guests. So, that tiger we see on the TV day after day—at least if you can stand him that long—has after all and indeed his brighter side!  His family showed it during the family interview and we see it every morning and evening.

So, we do wonder whether architects take such reflections into consideration.  Whether we like it or not, we are reminded of Donald Trump every morning and evening. We are grateful that it is that lighter side.

Pun intended!