Perhaps it’s not democracy that has been corrupted, nor the democratic process, but rather the electorate itself
If the majority of the electorate is not already disillusioned and alienated by the extreme partisanship of politics, the upcoming United States elections will likely push another generation of voters into the void of disillusionment, apathy and abdication of franchise. The U.S. is the so-called beacon of democracy. Yet the two political extremes have become…
It’s not that voters are dumb, it’s just that they’re busy. And in the midst of a brutal global pandemic, it’s become even worse
Forget it. Two years ago, in a limitless and sunny August when a global pandemic seemed like an impossibility, my daughter and I knocked on doors for the Democrats in Portland, Maine. We were using a list of registered Democrats living in a tidy West Portland neighbourhood. The houses weren’t terribly big nor terribly small.…
Polls shows older Americans abandoning Trump because they’re appalled by his mismanagement of the pandemic
None of us. There’s a simple reason why no one really wants to say Donald Trump is going to lose the U.S. presidential election in 2020. Because no one really got it right in 2016. I’m one of the many who got it wrong. Never saw it coming. And I was close enough to the…
When a leader suggests he will subvert the democratic process, voters have recourse. We’ve seen it in the Philippines and elsewhere
An apocryphal story circulated in the Philippines in the early 1980s of a dinner party conversation between President Ferdinand Marcos and Catholic Bishop Jaime Sin. Marcos reportedly said, “I really admire those Americans. They know the results of their presidential elections the day of the election.” In response, Sin reportedly said, “Well how about us…
Roosevelt was much sicker than anyone let on during the election campaign. In fact, he died just a few months into his new term
A few days ago, a Toronto radio newscaster used the word “unprecedented” while describing the drama around U.S. President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. And it’s true. No previous election had such a story just weeks before going to the polls. That’s because 2020 is a more transparent world. In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt – the…
His short battle with COVID-19 could lead to either added sympathy or further frustration
On Oct. 1, the news broke that U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, had tested positive for COVID-19. This was only three days after the first presidential debate between Trump and Joe Biden had been conducted. (If that’s what you want to call what happened in front of a televised audience of reportedly…
The entire Democratic Party strategy – to make the election a referendum on Trump – now lays on the floor, discarded
In another October, in another democratic contest, a man’s disability – a man’s health – almost changed everything. In October 1995, Quebec was voting in a second referendum on independence. The federalist side had been winning – until Quebec’s separatist premier passed control of the campaign to the younger and more popular leader of the…
Reuther had his finger in everything from labour negotiations to legislation to civil rights to election campaigns
Amity Shlaes’ Great Society is a chronicle of the United States in the mid-20th century. And reading it reminded me of Walter Reuther, a once famous name I’d almost forgotten. Reuther was a hugely influential player in organized labour and Democratic politics. With the United Auto Workers (UAW) as his power base, he had his…
Presidential debates rarely sway voters, but Biden-Trump will make for an entertaining, if vicious, spectacle
The first U.S. presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be held this evening. Two more debates are scheduled on Oct. 15 and 22. Here are some thoughts on what can we expect to happen tonight: Presidential debates, like any leaders’ debates, lack spontaneity and leave almost nothing to chance. Scripts are created…
For a political candidate, the most important thing to have in an election is a message. Donald Trump doesn’t have one. In 2016, he did. As dishonest as it was, “Make America Great Again” was a brilliant political slogan. It suggested, without explicitly saying it, that America was no longer what it had been. It…
If the majority of the electorate is not already disillusioned and alienated by the extreme partisanship of politics, the upcoming United States elections will likely push another generation of voters into the void of disillusionment, apathy and abdication of franchise. The U.S. is the so-called beacon of democracy. Yet the two political extremes have become…
