The title of this article comes from the titles of two songs. One is the national anthem of Canada and the other is from a JimmyVan Heusen's, It Could Happen To You, with the lyrics by Johnny Burke. If you look up the lyrics to the latter, you will find that the message from the original It Could Happen To You is a bit more cheerful than what I am warning Canada about.
I remember many times when I was reading about or watching the Nazi takeover of Germany, I thought how that could never happen here in the good old USA. The recent election and current coup attempt by our two Wicked Witches, Trump and Musk, have proven me wrong. And the US has been, in part, experiencing what went on in Germany in the 1930s only American style. Certainly we didn't experience the same kind of political tactics used in Germany back then. In addition, the longer Trump's rein continues, we won't see here the kind of carnage that the Nazis forced on Germany back then. Rather, we will have our own version of carnage and the elimination of programs of human uplift, the accusations of fraud and waste leading to the mass firing of the employees without any due process, the elimination of agencies that held government and business accountable, and the economic blitzkrieg of tariffs and threats of tariffs that would seriously threaten the economies of at least some of our allies currently going on are a foretaste of the carnage to be caused by our two Wicked Witches.
O Canada, our dearest ally and friend, and the nation I prefer to be a citizen of, what we are seeing now just didn't happen to us, it has happened elsewhere such as in Hungary, and it is threatening to happen in Germany within a decade if things continue the way they are. And it could happen to you too as well as to every other friend we have in Europe. In reality, what we are experiencing can happen to anyone. What we are seeing here today is a battle between Democracy with equality vs Authoritarianism with hierarchy with the latter one winning. Sometimes that hierarchy is ethnically based as it is in Hungary. Other times that hierarchy has a façade of being ethnically based but is really class based as what has been existing in Russia and is the direction in which the US is heading. And the equality that comes with Democracy is often overlooked the more people focus on their immediate economic concerns.
Please don't let your Canada First be the Canadian version of America First and Germany's previous Germany First versions. Be different from us and Germany of the past in how you pursue Canada First. Be different in the goals you pursue.
Here are some hints to determine what kind of nation first should be avoided by how you vote in your upcoming election.
- Research The Friends And Supporters
- Lookout For False Or Misleading Claims
- Look For Traits Of Authoritarianism
1. Research The Friends And Supporters
If the supporters of a politician or movement include Elon Musk, then do what is often sung in the Bear Hunt song and what is sometimes heard in the Monty Python And The Holy Grail movie during a battle: RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!!!
If a politician is being supported by Musk now, he will be owned by Musk after the election. If a movement is being supported by Musk, it must be significantly contributing to the carrying out his agenda. If one is unsure what Musk's agenda is, then look at what is happening to the US.
If a candidate has the same traits or agenda that Trump had, then, again, RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!!! The most evident personality traits of Donald Trump are a high level of narcissism and authoritarianism. And he has extremely high levels of both personality traits.
But a candidate doesn't have to have a Trump persona to lead a nation astray. Examine each candidate's past and present agenda. For Trump, that agenda included cutting the ties to social responsibilities for the wealthy. In other words, through Trump's agenda, despite benefitting the most from America's infrastructure, the wealthy are coming closer and closer to having a free lunch while the rest of us will be paying for that free lunch.
But taxes that support America's infrastructure and social safety net programs are not the only cutting of the wealthy's ties their societal responsibilities. Trump is axing our government's ability to protect people from the harmful and exploitive practices of those businesses whose only concern is with the maximization of profits.
II. Lookout For False Or Misleading Claims
In times of crisis or widespread discontent, our ability to distinguish false claims from factual ones is infringed by wishful thinking. And our wishful thinking grows more during hard times. That is what America was experiencing with an inflation that followed and was even caused by the pandemic. And so Trump's campaign opportunistically scapegoated Biden for the inflation. And then his campaign used false, misleading and exaggerated claims about immigration as fear mongering technique. Then his campaign took full credit for the absence of conflicts, like Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Hamas's October attack on Israel. And he not only claimed that neither event would take place if he was President, he claimed that he would solve Russia's war against Ukraine in one day.
He basically said what many here were clamoring to hear. We were wanting to hear such claims because of the legitimate tension we felt our problems with inflation and immigration as well as over world events.
Realize that Russian sources have been busy in affecting elections both here in the U.S. and in Europe. I've seen that activity here in the US on Facebook and the blogs. Russian sources have spread disinformation in the form of misleading and false accusations. By doing so, those Russian sources told both those on the real left and the right that regardless of the flaws Trump has, he is preferable to Biden. And so, many a leftist 3rd party votes as well as many conservative votes for Trump were actually anti-Biden votes.
You have a similar situation that we have. You have a population suffering from inflation and because of their focus on that, you can easily become inadequately concerned with maintaining equality and human rights. And so you too are ripe for receiving Russian disinformation and are looking for simple solutions.
III. Look For Traits Of Authoritarianism
Speaking as a former political conservative--I actually voted for George Bush in 2000--conservatives tend to be more authoritarian than their liberal and leftist counterparts. It's not that there is no authoritarianism in liberalism or the left, there is. Authoritarianism gets its start when people in a political party, ideology, or ism become too loyal to that political party, ideology, or ism. Once they pass a certain threshold, the more loyal they become the less objective they can be in the flaws of their own groups. They soon passionately embrace moral relativity in approving of their party, ideology, or ism practicing the same actions that they condemn outsiders for.
Why conservatives tend to be more authoritarian than other groups is because conservatives start with a high degree of loyalty to their traditions. It is like in a 100 meter dash, while most of the followers of the other political parties start at the regular starting point, conservatives tend to start 25 to 50 meters ahead. And so please apply a sharper eye out when examining conservatives than any other group. But also look out for those who are party loyalists, ideologies, and those who have strong loyalties to whatever group they belong to. One way to do that is to replace the word 'Western' with a fill-in-the-blank in the Martin Luther King Jr. quote below
'The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just'
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