BOSTON – I am a Democrat.

Philosophically, ideologically, emotionally: the political party I belong to, in my head and my heart, is the Democratic Party of the United States. And if I still lived Stateside, that’s the party I would be voting for, and the party I would be working for, 24/7. (Full disclosure: my wife and I are, in fact, volunteering on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign this Summer and Fall in both Maine and New York.)

This isn’t to say, however, that I’m not still a Liberal Party supporter, or that I don’t think the Conservative Party or the New Democratic Party often have good ideas and good people. Notwithstanding their quirks and peccadilloes, I like Canadian partisans a lot. They’re passionate, intelligent, motivated folks – whether they be Grit, Tory or Dipper. They make a difference.

But, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the three main Canadian political parties aren’t all that different. They possess distinctions without differences. Case in point: the 2015 Canadian election campaign – when the New Democrats (with balanced budgets and billion-dollar budgets for defence) moved Right, the Liberals (with deficit spending and pulling out of the ISIS fight) moved Left, and the Conservatives (with their willingness to boot out any candidate who dared raise the topics of abortion or gay marriage) moved away from what they had once been.  

In 2015, and before, you needed a magnifying glass to detect dissimilarities between the Canadian political parties. The 2015 campaign was about personalities, not policy, and Justin Trudeau won because he had a nicer personality than the other two guys.

Not so here in the U.S. Here, there is true political clarity. Here, the contrasts are real and readily-seen. Here, there is (and usually is) a clear choice between two starkly-opposed political polarities.

Up in Canada, all of the Canadian political parties often become indistinguishable when they win the privilege of power. In government, they really aren’t all that different. Bob Rae’s New Democrats (appropriately) imposed austerity measures when they ran things in Ontario, Rachel Notley’s NDP enthusiastically (appropriately) supports pipelines and the Oil Patch, and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives (appropriately) spent like drunken sailors in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 global recession. And Justin Trudeau’s Liberals (belatedly, but correctly) decided they’d been wrong about ISIS, and have committed Canada to something Harper never, ever did – troops on the ground, in harm’s way.

But here in the U.S.? The Democrats and the Republicans approach governing very differently. The former believe government can be a force for good, and the latter simply don’t. The aforementioned 2008-2009 global recession came about precisely because Republicans eliminated government’s ability to regulate Wall Street’s excesses. Democrats, meanwhile, proudly used government power and spending to clean up the GOP’s mess.

In the U.S., they don’t pussyfoot around with Orwellian Newspeak, like Canadians do on the issue of abortion. Up in Canada, we prattle on about “choice” and play semantic games, calling one side “pro-life” and the other “pro-choice,” so that they almost sound like they believe in the same thing. South of the border, the issue is “abortion,” and you are either for it (like the Democrats always are) or you are against it (like the Republicans always are). I’m for it. Abortion should be safe, rare and legal.

In the U.S., Democrats don’t like capital punishment, and the Republicans do. But Democrats – like me – believe that sometimes the state is entitled to apply the ultimate penalty. When there is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt – in the case of Paul Bernardo, say, who tortured and raped and murdered children on film – Democrats reluctantly accept that capital punishment can and should be applied. I do, too.

In the U.S., Democrats don’t particularly like war, while Republicans think it is the solution to every problem. But, unlike in Canada – where our defence capacity has been underfunded and underwhelming for generations, through successive governments of all stripes, and where we depend on other nations to maintain our national defence – Democrats are unafraid to use military might when diplomacy fails.  

Thus, Hillary Clinton pushed for the assassination of Osama bin Laden, Bill Clinton led the military effort to stop the Bosnian genocide, and Barack Obama has raised military spending to historic highs – comparatively higher than it was during Ronald Reagan’s Cold War buildup, in fact. Under Obama, for example, Obama’s “surge” of U.S. troops in Afghanistan was double what it was under George W. Bush. Democrats aren’t wimps.

It’s worth noting, at his point, that most Canadians mostly agree with the Democratic position on all of the stuff above. An Ipsos poll showed in February that six in ten Canadian favour abortion “in any circumstances.” For years, in poll after poll, an equivalent number of Canadians – about two-thirds – support the death penalty. And various surveys over the past decade show slightly fewer Canadians support more or stable defence spending – about half. 

But, when it comes to taking on the likes of ISIS, as many as three in four Canadians opposed Trudeau’s promise to withdraw from the anti-ISIS bombing mission. And nearly as many want to see more resources devoted to the anti-ISIS fight.

See? I may be Democrat, but the majority of Canadians are, too. 

Liberals, Conservatives, and New Democrats, take note.  

 

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More proof below. Not bad. 

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The manager of Calgary’s first punk band, the Social Blemishes, has died suddenly. What a shock. 

Hadn’t seen him in years, but what great times we had, back then. 

Deepest condolences to his family. Man, time goes fast. Gravity Thugs forever.

Tom.

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Dear musicians: I've worked in politics & music: don't give politicians all-access passes. They try & make the show all about them. Yours, W

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) August 21, 2016

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On our journey Stateside, we did Trump sightings. 

Whenever we’d see a Trump bumper sticker, or billboard, or T-shirt, we’d point it out to each other. “There’s another one,” we’d say. Then we’d lapse into silence. 

All along highway 90, we were reminded that we weren’t in Canada anymore. It was weird. 

And, unlike when we are in Canada – where it’s safe to call Donald Trump a racist and bigot and a white nationalist out loud – we kept our comments to ourselves. At the border crossing in Niagara Falls, in fact, our son implored us to say nothing about Trump. “They have microphones at the border,” he said, nervously, and we did what he asked.

So, as we got deeper into America, we continued to keep quiet about Donald Trump. As our son suggested, it’s hard to know which white person supports him, and which one doesn’t.  

Gallup, however, has now given us a useful field guide. As everyone expected, it tends to be older, whiter men. But the assumption everybody previously made about the core Trump vote – me included – is wrong. 

Before Massachusetts, I simply assumed – like everyone else – that Trump’s vote was rooted in economic insecurity and resentments. Until Massachusetts, I had bought into all of the Rust Belt theory: he was attracting the support of older white men in the primaries who believed they lost their manufacturing jobs to trade deals, technology and globalization. Until Massachusetts.

Massachusetts has one of the highest rates of post secondary education in the union, you see. And, in the primaries, Donald Trump won Massachusetts in a landslide.

Gallup has now released a massive study about all of this stuff. The poll makes clear that the number one preoccupation of the Trump vote isn’t the economy. It’s race.

“His supporters are less educated and more likely to work in blue collar occupations, but they earn relative high household incomes, and living in areas more exposed to trade or immigration does not increase Trump support. There is stronger evidence that racial isolation and less strictly economic measures of social status, namely health and intergenerational mobility, are robustly predictive of more favorable views toward Trump, and these factors predict support for him but not other Republican presidential candidates.”

Race, not economy. That’s why Trump called Mexicans rapists and murderers, and that’s why he called for a ban on Muslims, and that’s why he said blacks are the cause of crime. Race. He knew exactly what he was doing in the primaries. It worked. 

Being a Canadian, I of course thought that the election and re-election of a black man as president meant that the United States of America – where I lived for years, and which I love – meant the end of racism. I watched Jesse Jackson cry on Election Night in 2008 (I may have too), and I concluded that America had been reborn. 

Well, it hasn’t been, and Trump is irrefutable proof. 

So too his vote. They aren’t a media construct, either. They aren’t made up. They are real people, flesh and blood. And they feel have been left behind by trade, technology and the times. If we’re being honest with ourselves, they actually have been, haven’t they?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not making excuses. Donald Trump is of course a deranged, autocratic, racist piece of shit. He is the worst of the worst. That is the truth. 

But, as we headed South along the turnpike, this also is true: he has awoken a beast. And, after Trump loses in November, everyone will still have to contend with that beast roaming America, upending conventions and common wisdom. 

The beast is coming to Canada, too. Just watch. Rob Ford was just the beginning. 

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Like most Canadians, I see good in all of the Canadian political parties. I think they all occasionally have good ideas, and they all have some great people.

But they are all sort of the same, aren’t they? They often become indistinguishable when they win the privilege of power. In government, they really aren’t all that different. 

Bob Rae’s New Democrats (appropriately) imposed austerity measures when they ran things in Ontario, and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives (appropriately) spent like drunken sailors in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 global recession. And Justin Trudeau’s Liberals (belatedly, but correctly) decided they’d been wrong about ISIS, and have committed Canada to something Harper never, ever did – troops on the ground, in harm’s way.

In my reclining years, I seek clarity, however. I seek a real contrast. So, I’ve made a big decision. I’ve chosen a new political party. Next week, I formally announce it. But can you guess which one? Vote now, vote often!

[polldaddy poll=9500306]

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Three years ago! Wow.  Times flies when you’re super frigging old.

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Knew his wife, who was simply amazing, better. Him, not so much. 

Anyway. You know what I liked about him? Happened on one day. 

It was 2005, Spring. He’d been with The Boss early on, and then he abruptly wasn’t. He went over to Martin, when things were really bad. Some things you don’t forget. 

So, we ran into each other in front of Centre Block. Shook hands. Him: “I don’t like what you say about the Prime Minister.”

Me: “I don’t fucking like what you did to the real Prime Minister.”

He laughed, and so did I. Small talk. We parted ways, smiling. 

Always remember that. He was the only one of them who had the balls to take me on, to my face. I liked that. Didn’t leak stuff anonymously, like some of those little bastards in the Martin Blip PMO. 

Anyway. RIP and safe travels, Belanger. You weren’t perfect, like all of us, but you did good when you were here. 

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Ever curious about what Warren does late at night, when he can’t sleep? Well, he leaves his genius supermodel wife to the heart-shaped water bed, slips out, fires up some Google in the North Wing, sips at some port, and asks himself stuff like: “I wonder what Anita Pallenberg is up to these days?”

So, here, an absolutely classic yarn by the late Chet Flippo about that time the Strolling Bones came to Toronto and genially upended Canadian politics. I was a skinny, pale teenage punk rocker in Calgary when I first read this epic, and I loathed everyone in Flippo’s story, for their corporate cock rock excess and solipsism. But I simply loved Flippo’s writing. 

Oh, Anita is still alive. Go figure. 

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