A frightening scene to the south - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston
After ignoring U.S. President Donald Trump as much as possible in this column, recently, I find that the madness of this powerful leader cannot be ignored forever.
Thousands of Canadians may lose their jobs because of major tariffs Trump has slapped on products like steel and aluminum and cars. Our government must be careful what they agree to in these negotiations, because such decisions might undermine conditions for the renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement next year. That agreement, you’ll remember, was renegotiated during the first Trump term after he decided it was unfair. When that new agreement was signed he called it magnificent, but now he sees it as unfair.
After moves that eliminated trade barriers more and more for most of my lifetime, we now have a U.S. president who loves
them.
Ironically, after complaining that his predecessor Joe Biden had driven up the cost of living, Trump’s tariffs are costing Americans even more, with estimates they are adding thousands to the annual cost of living.
U.S. Presidents of the past have attained their positions after dealing with other politicians for decades, learning what is, and isn’t acceptable. Trump rose to the top of U.S. (and world) power after decades of running a company, without learning what is acceptable to government terms. Many U.S. voters thought this was a reason to support him because he would be cut free from traditions. In his position in business, he had total control.
He wants government to be the same. In his first term, his hands were tied by cabinet ministers who generally supported him, but nevertheless reduced his ability to rule single-handedly. When he regained power last November, he chose people who would let him be in control: U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, from Fox News; Attorney General Pam Bondi: Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick and more.
He chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy is a former independent and famously is against vaccination, one of the reasons Americans were saved from diseases like polio, measles, chicken pox, mumps and whooping cough. Trump, himself, had been against vaccination to protect against COVID-19. In the U.S., where there was resistance to being vaccinated, 1,225,528 people died. In Canada, where all governments supported vaccinations, 60,871 have died.
Trump wants total control. He has cancelled support for several universities where they weren’t supportive enough of his policies. He has constantly battled newspapers that dared to oppose him. Television networks have bent a knee to avoid lawsuits or approve changes of ownership which normally are automatic but, for Trump, are a way to buy support. Government cuts have left public networks like the Public Broadcasting Network, (where the Muppets began) forced to shut down.
Worse, on a world-wide basis, cuts in U.S. foreign aid will cost millions of lives of children who won’t get food donations or medicine. Here in Canada, the Slaight Family Foundation gave $13 million to 13 different organizations, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the losses due to U.S. cuts which The Lancet medical journal estimates will lead to 14 million deaths, 4.5 million of them children.
Polls show that Trump’s support has dropped six months into his four-year term (and no one is sure yet if he won’t try to run again). But he gets more autocratic. Last week he fired Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, because he accused her of fiddling with labour statistics after a weaker-than-expected jobs data report.
Day after day we see this president attempt to gain more control of government, as he had in private industry. He also refuses to follow other presidents who divorced themselves from their previous possessions, for instance playing golf at his Scottish golf course recently before negotiations with European and British leaders.
He suggested to the Republican government in Texas, that they could rejig the boundaries for elections to gain more Republican seats and help him stay in control. Redistricting is normally done only after the national census, still five years away. Democratic politicians left the state so there wouldn’t be enough politicians remaining to pass such legislation.
One hesitates to say this, but the situation seems similar to being in Germany in the 1930s and seeing Hitler consolidate his control of the government. Hopefully it won’t work out that way, but the situation is serious. We could be witnessing the loss of a democracy admired around the world for nearly 250 years.