Archive for the News Category

THE ADULT IN THE ROOM

April 2017

trump Putin Russia ChinaAfter the legislative and popular failure of his forays into immigration and healthcare policy, the even more complex world of geopolitics has emerged as the favoured policy ground for Donald Trump.  Surprisingly, the un-nuanced and instinctive approach that he brings to every issue has provided him with some initial wins, both in terms of popular approval and arguable strategic merit.  The Middle East in general and Syria in particular is not a space in which any global power can hope to make lasting change by imposing a solution to any of the problematic schisms in the region.  Indeed, it is beyond doubt that it was the hubris of Britain and France believing that they could create sovereign states that aligned with their own arbitrarily defined spheres of influence in 1916 that got the region into the disarray that it finds itself today.

Against that backdrop, it is reasonable to argue that all that the UN or NATO or any Western power can and should do at this point is monitor the emerging regional actors and make sure that the means used to establish and/or consolidate power in the region are not unconscionably harmful to civilian populations.  By launching an attack to degrade Assad’s air capacity and dropping a powerful MOAB to similarly degrade the capacity of ISIS in Afghanistan, the Trump administration has arguably met that standard.  By providing a wrist slap to both the Shia-backed Alawite regime in Syria and the Sunni-led ISIS forces in Afghanistan, the US has reminded both sides that they will not tolerate excesses.  While it is ironic and unnerving to think of Donald Trump asserting himself as the adult in the room in the region, these moves, however conceived, have probably done just that, and would probably have been even more unreservedly saluted had they been an initiative of the previous administration.

So much for the good news.  The downside to all of this is The Donald’s inclination to go back to revisit every successful scenario again and again, be it post-election campaign-style rallies or successive seasons of The Apprentice.  There is more than a little reason to fear that he has decided that if it works in the Middle East, it has to work on the Korean peninsula.  That is not to say that it can’t; a more aggressive tone with North Korea may be exactly what is required to push China into exercising greater control over its volatile client state.  It is just hard to see Trump, or even the more seasoned heads in his administration, having the nuanced understanding of the geopolitical subtleties necessary to make this a constructive rather than destabilizing development.  The balance of power that steadies Korea is one in which the US is already an active participant as the patron of the South.  Its intercessions cannot be cautionary to both sides; they are already a partisan, and increased activity can only be a provocation.

In Syria, a successful return to influence in the region did not depend upon the prudence and wisdom of Putin’s Russia.  The success of Trump’s Korean strategy will entirely hinge upon the ability of Chinese President Xi Jinping to be the adult in the room.

TRUMP-PROOFING CANADA

March 2017

As I approach the two year anniversary of this blog, I now have a portfolio of pronouncements of sufficient volume and breadth to merit a critical revisiting.  Looking back at my rants, the one that caught my eye was the second piece that I did in August of 2015 titled “Good Things Come in Threes” that extolled the virtues of the Canadian three-party political landscape as a bulwark against Trump-style populism.

While the piece does give rise to a chuckle at my assertion that neither Trump nor Sanders were a real threat to gain their respective party’s nomination, it does identify a phenomenon of Canadian political discourse that is once again evident in the current races for the leadership of Canada’s two major non-governing parties.  In a three party system, the parties of the left and right are left at least somewhat obliged to remain anchored to the fundamental tenets of their purported ideology.  The right is pro-business and inclined to social conservatism; the left is the advocate for the working class and socially progressive.  The party of the centre is left to strike a balance between these competing but insidiously symbiotic political agendas.

Of course, this formulation does not always work perfectly.  The 2015 Canadian federal election saw the NDP lean right on fiscal policy, hoping to complete the occupation of the centre that had been initiated by the sainted Jack Layton.  This exposed their left flank to Justin Trudeau in the same manner that the old PC party exposed its right flank to Preston Manning’s Reform party in 1997 (the parties of the right and left are always vulnerable when hubris inspires them to lean too far to the centre).  But inevitably things return to their equilibrium state, and this is clearly evident in the current leadership races for both the Conservatives and the NDP.

The slate of candidates for the Conservatives predictably includes one candidate that openly courts the Xenophobic socially conservative arm of the Trump coalition, while the NDP leadership hopefuls uniformly embrace the anti-corporatist, anti-globalist economic strain of the Trump message.  Canadian xenophobes need not embrace anti-trade policy to find their voice, nor do anti-globalists need to embrace xenophobia to protect Canadian workers.  There is room on the Canadian ballot for both Bernie Sanders AND a party of the centre, and a ballot that has room for both of these political interest groups is not one that is accommodating to the Frankenstein’s monster that is Trump.

Many have raised the alarm that the Kevin O’Leary candidacy represents the introduction of Trump populism to Canada, but the equivalency is superficial.  The marketability of celebrity businessmen/reality stars as political leaders is definitely a troubling indication of where the political and social culture is heading in North America.  That being said, there is little likelihood that a Trump-style populist, even if so inclined, would find it as easy to straddle the disaffected on the right and centre-left in Canada as it proved to be in the US.

FAKE NEWS, SENSATIONALISM, SATIRE AND FALSEHOODS: A PRIMER

February 2017

fakenewsThe Trump regime is under attack from “Fake News”.  White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tells us so.  White House “Counsellor” Kellyanne Conway tells us so.  The holder of the most powerful office in the world tells us so.  But is it so, or is that Fake News?

The internet is a great source of Fake News.  It is also rife with actual facts.  I looked up the five most shared, reacted to and/or commented upon political Fake News stories on Facebook in 2016.  They were as follows:

  1. “Obama Signs Executive Order Banning the Pledge of Allegiance in Schools Nationwide”
  2. “Pope Francis Shocks the World, Endorses Donald Trump for President; Releases Statement”
  3. “Trump Offering Free One-Way Tickets to Africa & Mexico for Those Who Wanna Leave America”
  4. “FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide”
  5. “RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE to Reunite And Release Anti Donald Trump Album

My take on those examples, and from my review of the rest of the top 50 Facebook-circulated 2016 Fake News pieces: Trump supporters take a backseat to no one in supporting the Fake News industry.  Fake News is a problem, but it is not a bigger problem for Donald Trump than others.

That is not to say that Donald Trump is not also the victim of other disorders of our modern media.  However ill-considered and ham-handedly executed, a temporary suspension of entry privileges to the citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries is probably not fairly characterized as a “Muslim ban” any more than a 15-cm snowfall on a minus 6 Celsius January day in Toronto can be fairly described as (your choice here) “Snow-mageddon” and/or “an extreme cold emergency”, but that is how the media gets our attention these days.  And no one knows that better than The Donald himself: everything he speaks of is “bigly yuge”, except perhaps his hands.  He gives as good as he takes on this one as well.

Where he is inordinately plagued is in the area of satire.  No politician has been the subject of such unrelenting and scathing satire as Donald Trump.  It is true that Saturday Night Live has mocked every Presidential candidate that has run and President that has taken office during its 40+ year run, but never so consistently and savagely, and never without some tangible undercurrent of affection.  And the same is true of every other late night satirical news show.

It is easy to say (as Trump and his supporters do) that this is simply a reflection of the media’s liberal bias, but George W. Bush was almost certainly a more categorical right wing President than Donald Trump and even he received a more measured reception.  Perhaps the root of this unrelenting satirical pillaging lies in the nature of the Trump Administration itself.  Satire is a tool through which one expresses frustration with individuals and/or ideas with which one disagrees by knowingly and openly exaggerating those aspects with which one takes issue.  Donald Trump is simple and narcissistic, but nowhere near as simple and narcissistic as Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of him on SNL.  Through satire, opponents can tell Trump how they make them feel without pretending that that is the complete truth of what he is.

Trump takes a different approach.  Faced with a society that feels to him like one in which law and order has broken down, he reports to the American public that the per capita national murder rate is at a 47-year high.  Faced with uneasiness about the undisputed legitimacy of a Presidency that was not supported by a majority of the voters, he reports on 3-5 million illegal votes (that presumably all went against him).  Channeling xenophobic fears, he cautions Americans about unreported terrorist attacks all over the world, while his “Counsellor” makes three references to three news outlets over four days to the “Bowling Green massacre” as a domestic example of one such under-reported event.

None of these reports can be supported by any facts.  Given the resources available to the President and his staff, their assertion is at best gross negligence and more likely the deliberate circulation of falsehoods.  Unlike satire, these expressions of the feeling of Donald Trump and his supporters are dressed up as fact, not openly acknowledged as play.  They are not an outlet for frustration; they are a demonstration of and an excuse for ignorance.