The General US Politics Thread

Sympathetic Canadians Have a Message for Americans: You Guys Are Great

By LIAM STACK OCT. 17, 2016

The presidential campaign has exposed deep divides in American society and has left many in every political party anxious about the future. During this time of political tension, our neighbors to the north have one thing to say: America is just great.

Some Canadians watching as American politics have hit rock bottom again and again in recent weeks decided that the United States needed a cross-border pep talk. Thus was born a social media campaign called "Tell America It’s Great," complete with a hashtag, a Twitter account and a series of You Tube videos.

It was the brainchild of the Garden Collective, a creative agency based in Toronto, and in the videos, a diverse and polite group of Canadians earnestly recite all the things they like about the United States.

"Sometimes friends just need to look out for each other," Shari Walczak, a founder of the agency, said on Sunday.

"Hey, guys!" says one cheerful man in the campaign’s main video, which was filmed on webcams and smartphones. "We’re just up here in Canada talking about how great you guys are down there, and we thought we’d just send you a little bit of a love note."

(YT video here)

His testimonial is followed by two dozen more Canadians warmly praising the United States for things like its diversity, its space program and for being the birthplace of Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur.

"You guys are great," one woman on the video says. A second woman, sitting besides her, agrees: "You really are great."

To a jaded American eye, it may all look like the most Canadian thing ever.

"I guess we are living up to the stereotype aren’t we?" Ms. Walczak said, laughing. "We have managed to personify the whole country with this one initiative!"

Ms. Walczak said she and her co-workers started the campaign as a labor of love — they are not using it to sell anything, she said — because they wanted to make a positive contribution to an election season that, has been downright depressing.

"Every morning we’d come together at work and there would inevitably be a discussion about another negative piece of news about the election," she said. "We look at it through a Canadian lens, but all of us have friends, family and colleagues who live in America. We realized they’re immersed in it day-in and day-out and how awful that must feel."

Over the weekend, many Canadians chimed in to cheer up their neighbors to the south by tweeting their favorite things about the United States. Ms. Walczak said the hashtag #Tell America Its Great was intended as a play on Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."

Beyoncé, the food, (Omg! the food is to die for), innovation, music, parks, sports, hospitality, accents & diversity #tellamericaitsgreat ❤️

— Bryna Corcoran (@Bryna Tweets) Oct. 16, 2016

Your passion for exploration and pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge is a constant inspiration! #TellAmericaItsGreat #Science

— Mike Sheriff (@Mike_Sheriff_) Oct. 15, 2016

America, you gave the world cherry Coke & the internet & the Golden Girls. Don't let anyone tell you you're not great #tellamericaitsgreat

— emily sinclair (@emilysinclair) Oct. 15, 2016

Canada and the United States have a unique relationship. They share the longest land border in the world, and their economies, societies, law enforcement and defense operations are deeply entwined. Over $1.8 billion a day changes hands in cross-border trade, and roughly 400,000 people travel between the two countries daily.

Those ties were further cemented last year with the election of Justin Trudeau as Canada’s prime minister. The young, handsome and frequently shirtless liberal politician has become a symbol of a forward-looking nation, as well as a king among memes.

Of course, every four years American political partisans of one stripe or another swear they will move to Canada if the presidential candidate they oppose wins.

Mr. Trudeau has been gamely fielding questions about a potential flood of immigrants from the United States for months. In March, he told an audience at American University in Washington that he found the idea "humorous."

President Obama teased him on that visit about the frequency with which Americans threaten to decamp for Canada: "Typically it turns out fine."

(Another TY vid here)

Ms. Walczak said that close relationship is one reason Canadians were watching American politics so closely. "Everything is so intertwined, we can’t help but realize that we’ll also be affected by the outcome of this election," she said.

Another reason: an embarrassing twinge of recognition. The rise of Mr. Trump and the descent of the campaign into a spiral of scandals and sexual assault allegations reminded Torontonians of the city’s experience with Mayor Rob Ford, she said, "when everyone was laughing at us around the world."

Mr. Ford, a conservative populist, was caught on video smoking crack cocaine in 2013 and later said the drug use happened "probably in one of my drunken stupors." He died of cancer in March.

So, Canadians may like America, but if they could vote (instead of just tweet) which candidate would they be more likely to choose?

"I am pretty sure most Canadians would vote for Hillary Clinton," Ms. Walzcak said. "Our right-wing is like the Democrats.

"Some people have tweeted that they think Justin Trudeau would win the election as a write-in candidate, but we are not giving him up."

ATLANTA — Over the past few months, a cavalcade of Republican policy wonks, pundits and partisan strategists have beclowned themselves on national television trying to defend the indefensible: their party’s nominee. Free-trade advocates have become protectionists. Strategists are treating Drudge Report surveys as scientific endeavors while dismissing legitimate polls as Clintonian propaganda.

And this past week, leaders of the “religious right” solidified themselves as religiously wrong when they defended Donald J. Trump’s comments that he could grab women by their genitals because he was a celebrity. It was just words, some of these pastors asserted.

In November, when Mr. Trump’s meteor enters the atmosphere of the voting booth, Americans will be treated to a spectacular flameout as late-night comedians and professional Twitter warriors rush to tweet, “You’re fired!” But when the Russians go home, the pastors repent and riot police disperse white nationalist protests, the Republicans will need fresh ideas.

Republicans first must acknowledge there are legitimate concerns that fueled Mr. Trump’s rise. Both parties are more interested in listening to check writers than voters. Many Americans see their neighborhoods being overrun by addiction and poverty, but see neither help nor recognition of the problem from Washington. It is not hard to conclude that Republicans and Democrats alike value cheap, imported labor and could not care less about the heartland.

To win back the trust of the people, the Republicans need to recognize that the people have answers. The bulk of both major-party candidates’ support comes from voters who hate the other candidate more. Voters are being held hostage by hollow promises from both parties that Supreme Court nominations and Washington power will make their lives better.

Yet the founders never meant for presidential elections to be struggles over the Supreme Court. Nor was Washington to be the center of all solutions. Republicans need to focus less on Washington and more on fostering local community.

My wife and I have learned a great deal about community this past year. In March, angry Trump supporters showed up on our doorstep to berate me for not supporting their man. In April, I entered the hospital for a week with dozens of blood clots in my lungs. In August, my children were yelled at in a store by a man who wanted them to know their father was destroying the country by opposing Mr. Trump. This month, doctors confirmed that my wife, a nonsmoker, has a rare form of lung cancer. Just the other day, my son crept downstairs in the dead of night while I was working to ask if Trump supporters would be coming to our house again after the candidate’s latest scandal broke.

Through all of these events, it was not the federal government keeping watch on our house. It was our neighbors. It was not the federal government delivering meals to our home. It was our church. It was not the federal government picking up my children from school when my wife and I could not. It was our friends. It was not the federal government praying for us. It was our community.

Most Trump supporters believe their communities are under assault, and many feel too powerless and isolated to do anything about it. People need to feel more in control of their destiny, and that happens only when we ensure that their local governments shape their lives the most, not nine black-robed masters or a dysfunctional Congress in Washington.

That’s why Republicans should empower individuals by making school choice a priority. Education must be treated as a civil right, and parents should be allowed to pick where their children go to school. Education dollars should then be allowed to follow those students to those schools.

The Republican Party must be the party of religious liberty. When beliefs clash, people and government need to accommodate those differences. To force people of faith to adhere to secular standards is as much an imposition of a religious viewpoint as forcing secular people to adhere to the standards of a religion.

The party must also get government out of the marketplace, except to ensure a level playing field and protect against fraud. It must support innovation and creative disruption, lower taxes and reduce regulation. And it must find ways to help people transition out of our archaic social welfare programs by assisting them in establishing individual savings accounts that could pay for health care and college educations.

Lastly, Republicans should establish themselves as the party of heterogeneity, opposed to one-size-fits-all morality. Different communities should have the freedom to be different in the public square. To do that, the party must reduce the one-size-fits-all government in Washington and empower those laboratories of democracy: state and local government.

Most important, the Republican Party must recommit to a basic principle — character counts. The party that once impeached Bill Clinton for lying about an affair has defended a man who bragged about sexual assault. Character cannot be wedded to party politics, and the Republicans will have to make amends for defining deviancy down to defend the indefensible Donald Trump.

Get government out of our lives.

Except for the people who want government to recognize the drug crisis in their communities. Except the people who want government to establish vouchers to support school choice. Except for the people who have been harmed by water unfit to drink and air that is dangerous to breathe. Except for the people who need support because of illness and disability.

I could go on.

People want government in their lives- but only for what they approve of. People want government in their lives - but they want someone else to pay for what they want.

There's a new interview that Fareed Zakaria did on CNN with Bill Maher in which Maher unloads on Trump and criticizes the media for their insistence on playing up Clinton "non-scandals" in order to keep the race closer than it should be, all in the name of ratings. He discusses how an atheist like him could never run for President, and worries that Trump will be a Che Guevara-like figure should he lose, inspiring a right-wing insurgency. I like how he calls Hillary a "government nerd", a person who believes in getting her hands dirty with the details of policy, who fundamentally believes that government works and can do good for people.