What a week.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m writing this on Canada Day – July 1 – 2016.\u00a0 One week ago, the world awoke to discover that the British people had voted conclusively to leave the EU.\u00a0 The decision triggered convulsions of all kinds \u2013 social, economic, political \u2013 in Britain and abroad, and will continue to do so for years to come.<\/p>\n
One of the side-effects is a forced re-think of current affairs.\u00a0 Suddenly, all sorts of once-unthinkable things are now on the table.\u00a0 The impossible is, it seems, possible after all.<\/p>\n
For example: if the British people could make the colossal blunder of voting themselves out of Europe, it\u2019s not inconceivable that the American electorate could put you-know-who into the White House.<\/p>\n
Exactly.<\/p>\n
Ever since The Donald announced his candidacy, I\u2019ve watched his progress with growing disbelief, all the while assuring myself that the American public would never, ever, ever<\/em> actually elect<\/em> him.\u00a0 Reason would prevail.\u00a0 Intelligence would win out over ignorance.\u00a0 Common sense would triumph over delusional self-interest.\u00a0\u00a0 (One columnist called the Clinton\/Trump face-off America\u2019s ultimate IQ Test.)<\/p>\n Well, that didn\u2019t happen in Britain.\u00a0 It might not in the USA.<\/p>\n I\u2019m by no means the only person to see disturbing parallels between the success of the Leavers and the rise of Trump Nation. \u00a0Both campaigns targeted a deeply dissatisfied segment of the population, wooed them with simplistic solutions to complex problems and lied egregiously to make their case.<\/p>\n They also appealed to the very worst of human instincts.\u00a0 Intolerance. Racism. Distrust.\u00a0 The Economist summarizes the whole issue very effectively: the Brexiteers\u2019 entire campaign was a rejection of the liberal values that the western world has embraced for the last half century or so.<\/p>\n Ultimately, what they really succeeded in doing was to persuade people to value ignorance over evidence. \u00a0As Michael Gove \u2013 a high-ranking cabinet minister in the British government and leading Brexit campaigner –\u00a0 said: \u00a0\u2018People in this country have had enough of experts.\u2019 (The quote heard round the world, commented one journo.)\u00a0 If that isn\u2019t an invitation to ignorance, I don\u2019t know what is.\u00a0 Don\u2019t listen to them \u2013 they\u2019re informed and educated \u2013 what could they know?<\/em>\u00a0 The whole campaign could have come straight out of the playbook of the Flat Earth Society. \u00a0The other leading Brexiteers (Johnson and Farage, both of whom have jumped ship in the wake of the decision) were just as guilty.<\/p>\n As dishonest and manipulative as they were, Trump\u2019s worse.\u00a0 There\u2019s no \u2018nudge nudge wink wink\u2019 at work in his campaign; his rhetoric is as subtle as a sledgehammer.\u00a0 But after last week, my unshakable conviction that he could never become president has actually started to quiver a little bit. \u00a0I am actually beginning to worry about the inmates taking over the asylum.<\/p>\n Part of the reason is that I know some people this sort of thing appeals to, and I know how easily they are led to make bad decisions. \u00a0I\u2019m personally acquainted with a man who fits the mold perfectly.\u00a0 Mid 50\u2019s, white, thrice divorced and, at late middle age, not a lot to show for a lifetime of working at middling level service jobs.\u00a0 He is bitter, angry – and proudly ignorant.\u00a0 A high school dropout, he denigrates education as if it were an indication of some fatal weakness of character.\u00a0 (\u2018Poorly educated\u2019 is one of the polling segments Trump does particularly well with.\u00a0 \u201cI love the poorly educated,\u201d he gushed at one rally.) He\u2019s the kind of guy who could easily be persuaded by Trumpian tropes.<\/p>\n You just kind of hope that he\u2019s not in the majority.<\/p>\n But where does that leave us who believe\u00a0 otherwise?<\/p>\n Well, on that score, Canada is not a bad place to be.\u00a0 We went through a similar experience in our last general election.\u00a0 Like so many things Canadian, ours was a watered down version of other situations, but essentially it pitted a fear-mongering backward-looking right-wing white boys club against a more hopeful, inclusive centre left. \u00a0It was possibly the only general election in my experience that reduced me to nail-biting anxiety, but fortunately the latter kicked the former\u2019s collective ass and suddenly, to borrow Ronald Reagan\u2019s marvelous phrase, it felt like morning in Canada.\u00a0\u00a0 After a campaign that encouraged us to rat on neighbours we didn\u2019t like (to an official government tip line, no less) we have moved on \u2013 or back \u2013 to the Canada I always believed in: an open, tolerant, welcome, inclusive and meritocratic society.\u00a0 Sure, it needs work in some areas, but I truly believe we are setting something of a standard in these very troubled times.\u00a0 Other countries would do well to look at us, and copy.<\/p>\n But will they?\u00a0 A pessimist at heart, I doubt it.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just the US and the UK.\u00a0 All over the world, politicians are furiously fomenting hate, driving wedges into their populaces and encouraging people to turn on their neighbours, all in the name of political gain.\u00a0 \u00a0Rational, thoughtful discourse is pushed aside in favour of mindless, atavistic prejudice.\u00a0 Intelligence loses, ignorance wins.<\/p>\n Will Canada\u2019s lonely, virtuous voice be heard? Again, I doubt it.\u00a0 Which is why I am somewhat encouraged to read of radical, rapid advancements in the field of artificial intelligence, or AI.<\/p>\n With the real thing in such short and diminishing supply, it may be our only hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What a week. I\u2019m writing this on Canada Day – July 1 – 2016.\u00a0 One week ago, the world awoke to discover that the British people had voted conclusively to leave the EU.\u00a0 The decision triggered convulsions of all kinds \u2013 social, economic, political \u2013 in Britain and abroad, and will continue to do so…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts","category-filosofy-c","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}