Modernity vs. Trump and the Extremists: “If We Want Peace, We Must All Work For Justice”

Reflections From Alan Bishoff

Modernity refers to a set of beliefs, values and common scientific knowledge that characterize the modern era. These include a trust in the use of scientific methods and research to understand our natural world. Tradition and belief systems are relegated to last-place guides for any understanding or resulting behaviour.  A part of this is an agreement that there is only one reality – with different aspects and perspectives on reality, but not two or more distinct realities. Not “alternate facts”. Modernity favours the more liberal and egalitarian interpretations of differences and social relations.  For those who have studied and accepted the norms of modernity, as well as for the very young and those who just absorbed the foundations of modernity from the world around us, the “modern” ways of looking at the world are natural, and indisputably the correct way of interacting with the world.

We often hear the question, “How could people be so blind and stupid as to believe and support a person like Donald Trump?”  The people who support Trump, or his sound-alikes in Canada, or in countries all around the world, can be divided into movement leaders and movement followers.  The leaders and plutocratic funders in Trump’s political movement understand very well what Trump is about, and they expect to be among the top beneficiaries of the changes he will make.  The followers, in their anonymous millions, are making an emotional response to the stresses they feel in their lives without knowing or understanding where Trump is going and how he will impact their lives.  These supporters are probably experiencing cultural and/or economic insecurity, based on the rate of real change in all aspects of our societies around the world; the changes do provoke personal issues, so common in our modern world, like decreasing sense of belonging, loss of the means of “getting ahead”, even lack of meaning and purpose. The causes of such anxiety are not obvious or well understood, so most people don’t have a rational, thought-out or researched response to guide themselves through their situation. 

Instead, they make an emotional response.  When the Donald Trumps of the world blame the intellectuals, the scientists, the bureaucrats, the media, trans people, immigrants,  Muslims, blacks, Mexicans or Indigenous for people’s real, felt stress, this answer fills an emotional need that preempts or co-opts the rational.  The people who accept this type of definition of the world are rejecting what is or has been the rationality of modernity in favour of a simpler, more impacting emotional response.  Theirs is not a response based on facts or logic but is an attempt to provide a simple answer to disturbingly complex issues.  Being able to blame one’s stress on someone else also eliminates the hard work of examining or changing one’s own behaviour. The immediate emotional release fostered on fact-impaired social media goes a long way to short-circuit the reasoning process typical of the consensus of modernity. When the social media lie is repeated over and over for reassurance, entire structures of common agreement in society are, well, Trumped. Realistically, of course, with our serious social issues, we all need to share a part of the responsibility and be a part of changes for improvement. In the era of Trump, this must include sharing support for the spread of scientific solutions to real problems, and also supporting social media creators who spread rational discourse; we need to back the hosts who debunk hate-filled conspiracy theories, and who expose all those false claims used to keep up the “us vs. them” tension.

 When our social/political leaders don’t recognize and address the genuine stresses people are experiencing in their lives, people begin to look outside the body of mainstream social leaders to the mavericks who offer more extreme alternatives. In our modern liberal world where left-right ideology is glossed over and not well understood by most, people can be attracted just as readily to unconventional political ideas from the political right as from the political left.  It is somewhat ironic that about 10 percent of the people who supported Bernie Sanders (arguably the furthest left candidate to seek the U.S. presidency in modern times) in the 2016 Democratic primary for president ended up voting for Donald Trump (arguably the most radical right-wing candidate to ever seek the presidency) in the presidential election between Trump and Hilary Clinton.  It seems people wanted a leader from outside the mainstream to shake things up, and it didn’t matter where they came from.

As we descend further into the rabbit hole of over-simplified political slogans, blaming others, and all the polarized politics, the opportunity for a rational discussion and a search for common ground seems more and more remote.  The question, for those of us who want peace and stability in our modern world, is how do we create a political culture that is capable of addressing – honestly and openly – the stresses and needs that we all experience in our daily lives?   I think it is best to start by trying to understand what has been at stake throughout the development of our current political institutions.

Our Canadian system of political institutions and practices is built on a British model, which evolved over centuries as the king/monarch gradually lost absolute power.  With the first change hundreds of years ago, the monarch required support from a council of the nobility from around the country if he/she was to be able to govern and stay on the throne.  Over the centuries, this council/parliament increased in power and the monarch gradually lost power.  Over the same time, the parliament came to represent a larger portion of the population.  From a Parliament of only titled lords and nobility it was hundreds of years until the “House of Commons” held more power than the House of Lords.  Initially, the Commons was not made up of common people at all.  Common just meant people without birth nobility or title.  Over more centuries, the right to participate went out to a broader range of people, with the right to vote in the selection of members of parliament extending first to men who owned land, then to all men and by about 100 years ago, also to women.  When Canada was formed, our political institutions were modelled after the British system of that era and then followed a similar evolution as more men and women gained the right to participate in government. 

The point of this very brief history is that our democratic system, which now allows every adult citizen to have a voice and participate in choosing our government, did not come as a gift.  It is the result of centuries of political pressure and even civil war, as people from lower in the social hierarchy fought to challenge the power of the more privileged, and the privileged fought to protect or improve their status.  There are few instances where holders of privilege and social power have given it up voluntarily or without a struggle.  As our world becomes more uncertain, people will seek to increase and hold on to their privileges as a form of security when all around them is changing.  This struggle for control of government, between those with privilege and social power and those without, is the essence of the right and left struggle in politics that began when people first questioned the absolute power of the monarch.  This right-left dichotomy is the lens through which we can “follow the money” and begin to understand why political parties/governments make the decisions they do.  This is the foundation that lets people see where their real long-term interest lies and who they need to make alliances with to have their needs met.

In terms of our political institutions and official rules, we, the common people,  have won.  However, our society still has great differences in wealth and power outside of our political institutions that easily translate into differences in influence and power between the rich and poor within our government/political system.  For me, the clearest, most recent, example of this is the SNC-Lavalin incident with the federal government in 2019.  SNC-Lavalin  Corporation was facing the possibility of criminal charges related to bribes paid to a foreign government to secure contracts.  SNC-Lavalin, a large company (annual sales in the billions of dollars), had a close and influential relationship with the federal Liberal Party.  (They are on record as having made significant illegal contributions to the federal Liberal Party.)  SNC-Lavelin was pressuring the federal government for an exemption from prosecution for their illegal international behaviour.  The Prime Minister (Trudeau) in turn pressured the Justice Minister to give SNC-Lavalin this exemption. The Justice minister and one other minister resigned their positions in the cabinet in the face of what they saw as a move to undermine the integrity of our political system.  (The rest of the cabinet didn’t seem to mind at all.)

While the SNC-Lavalin incident became very public, and it became evident that a privileged company was willing to break the rules at several levels, most of the influence on government and politicians by the wealthy and powerful in society is very quiet – and legal.  In spite of every adult having an equal vote, the playing field is not level.  Most of our governments -- federal, provincial and municipal – make decisions that favour the interests of the wealthy and powerful over the interests of the people at the lower end of the social hierarchy.  The real political contest, the real ideological divide at play today, is still, after centuries of political contest, who gets to control or influence the government.  Who does the government serve?  Is it the proper role of a government to protect and enhance the power of the privileged, or is it the proper role of the government to ensure more equitable opportunities and living conditions for all citizens? 

This is not necessarily a zero-sum game where the gains of the underprivileged are matched by the losses of the more privileged.  The health care of the wealthy in society is actually better in a more egalitarian society than in a more divided society.  The more divided society, the greater the spread in living conditions between rich and poor, and the more social stress there is.  If we want peace, we must all work for justice.

What’s really at stake is who gets the money.  Our refusal to talk openly about the influence of money on politics – and politics on money -- and having political parties who claim to be all things to all people,  means that the public never really knows why things are the way they are: housing shortages and high real estate prices, poor service in the medical system, lack of support for public education, high taxes on earned income with loopholes for unearned income, etc.  Ideology defines real choices and makes democracy meaningful.  Understanding ideology is the foundation of rational, not emotional, political decisions.  We all have a role to play in demanding clear, honest statements from politicians.  Just as all politicians have a role to play in providing honest statements and offering clear policy alternatives to make democracy meaningful.  The middle-of-the-road politicians left a void. Trump and his sound-alikes filled it.  Whose fault is that?


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