President Biden framed the 2024 election as a “battle for the soul of America”. Well, he lost. Now, a convicted felon will again run the most powerful country in the world. Who would have thought?

Like many, I remain troubled by the prospect and I’m not alone in my feelings. In a study by polling firm Pollara, held right after 5 November, 44% of Canadian respondents reported being “very angry” with the results, an 18-point jump from before the election!

But my unease is more centered on what the outcome reveals about a majority of American voters, than what it says about Trump.

Everyone, it seems, had an immediate opinion on his victory. Beginning on the morning after the election, the analysis, the retrospection and the laying of political blame came in quick and furious. It has been unrelenting ever since. All the main campaign issues have been relitigated, and every twist and turn of the campaign methodically dissected. And there has been a ton of free advice for how the Democratic Party must rebuild itself, if it is to stand a chance in four years time.

I get it. It was a tumultuous, consequential election. Yet, precious little was said about the prevailing temperament of voters in the US, especially their willingness to ignore Trump’s many legendary indiscretions, which have become a sad and integral part of his public persona. In this regard, I am reminded of the adage that says, ‘show me your friends, and I will tell you who you are.’ This, I believe, also applies to elections. Namely, how votes reflect peoples’ values and principles.

And for me, this was the most disturbing feature of the verdict. The decision lacked complete moral vigour when it came to assessing Donald Trump’s character and integrity for the office of President. I naively thought it would matter, as it usually has. But that was then.

Whenever Trump would go off on one of his infamous tirades, Joe Biden often scolded him by stating, “That is not who we are as a country!”

Really?

Contrast this to the results of a poll taken in Canada, before the election, by the firm Leger, where 64% of respondents favoured Harris, 21% Trump, with 15% undecided. Europeans shared a similar assessment. In a YouGov Euro Study of seven Western European countries, Harris was the runaway winner, from a high of 81% in Denmark, to a low of 46% in Italy (only 22% of Italians favoured Trump).

The pertinent question, therefore, is why were so many of us and so many Europeans easily repulsed by Trump,........

© OpenCanada