Now what?

Many Canadians will wake up this morning feeling mad, or perhaps sad, that Donald Trump has once again been elected President of the United States. They will worry about the state of democracy, the future of the world as a whole, of women’s rights, of human rights of assorted minorities, of freedom both of and from religion. And then they will reaffirm their support for Pierre Poilievre without any sense of irony. Some will even vote for Poilievre because Trump is there.

In 2016, Donald Trump was a brash anti-establishment con artist who talked his way into office on the backs of rural and small town disaffection. But the 2024 Donald Trump is an alt-establishment placeholder for a team of authoritarian 'Christian' fundamentalists who don't place any value on democracy, and see Trump as a vehicle, as a useful idiot, to achieving their own ends. Trump is not running his own show as he was in 2016. By 2028, the alliance of plutocrats and fundamentalists will have consolidated power so thoroughly that the next election will be pro forma, and they'll use it to place who they actually want, Trump being cast aside if indeed he is even still there. Even Russia still goes through the exercise of holding elections.

Republicans led by Trump come out of this election with control of the Presidency, the Senate, most probably the House, the Supreme Court, and a majority of state governors. There are simply no remaining checks against the President’s power.

Many on the left have warned for years about the authoritarian tendencies of right wing leaders. George W Bush and Stephen Harper were both hyperbolically derided as fascists in their time. Of the two, only Stephen Harper has endorsed Donald Trump, through the ironically named International Democratic Union, which he chairs.

George W Bush wasn’t a fascist; he was merely a proto-fascist. Donald Trump could not exist today without the groundwork having been laid for him by the incrementally more authoritarian régimes that preceded him. Each inoculated the population with progressive doses of institutional dismantling. Donald Trump 45, too, has inoculated the population against Donald Trump 47.

Democrats, of course, will accept and believe that they lost this election because they did not work hard enough, or because of deep-rooted flaws in American education, inherent racism, or any of a dozen other reasons that do not require any serious introspection. As in each election that they have lost since 2000, they will attempt to regroup and try better next time, looking for better strategies, better outreach, better fundraising, but never a better understanding of the electorate. Between when the presidency was decided over hanging chads in Florida and yesterday, the Democrats had only actually lost twice, in 2004 and 2016, after all.

The trouble is, this time, there’s no certainty that a next time will exist. Trump and his Project 2025 and billionaire backers are set to control every level of power. The Supreme Court has already granted him immunity as long as his actions are done in his official capacity as President, without providing any limits onto what constitutes an official act. There are no more restraints. The work of two decades of proto-fascists has been successful. All that is left now is to consolidate the power, defang what opposition remains, and ensure that the next elections are used to legitimise what they are already doing.

In Canada, Stephen Harper started the Conservatives on a similar, if somewhat slower, path of laying the groundwork for dismantling democracy as we understand it. He understood and worked within the confines of Canada’s constitution, and pushed its boundaries rather than simply ignoring it. He never held simultaneous control of all of the levers of power, and was limited to lengthy legislative means to attack Canada’s institutions. He largely failed and was not only defeated, but repudiated in the 2015 general election, with many of his changes walked back by the Trudeau government.

All of that was before Trump came to power the first time. The Conservatives have not won an election since, but have now had more than eight years and three American elections of Trumpism to learn from.

Pierre Poilievre’s style of politics which dispenses with all notions of civility or convention, where he leaves himself suspiciously wide open to the support of foreign powers who are not interested in Canada’s well being, where he will happily express obvious falsehoods as facts, is all learned from Trump. Unlike Harper, Poilievre does not have a clear transformative vision for Canada. His is far more shallow. Like Trump, his objective is simply power and the personal glory that comes with it, along with a narrow set of radical ideological positions. Like Trump, he is making unholy alliances to achieve it.

We, as a country and as Canadians, cannot be both mad about Trump winning the presidency, and willing to emulate our southern neighbours in our own upcoming election. Those who genuinely support Poilievre should come clean about their feelings for Trump, and their disdain for their fellow citizens and the democratic institutions that protect them.

This morning’s sunrise - red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.