I am one of those who continue to think that our interest in the 2024 American presidential election has had something “sick” about it.
Qualification used by Guillaume Lavoie, expert in American politics, during a talk that I hosted at the end of October.
One day we will have to explain how the politics of another country became so prominent in our public debate.
From one industry to another
At the turn of the 1990s (our Meech and Charlottetown years), the expression “constitutional industry” was common. She designated the contingent of experts who monopolized our airwaves and obtained countless consulting contracts. For several years, these have been replaced: “The number of your specialists in American politics has multiplied at an astonishing rate,” remarked an American quoted recently in Duty.
Hypothesis: the process of Americanization of minds has intensified since the emergence of the public Internet in 1995, then social media. And finally with the digital transformation of cultural industries (Netflix, etc.).
It is legitimate that we collectively pay attention to what is happening to our neighbors to the south. And this is certainly nothing new: the quantity of Kennedy boulevards in Quebec bears witness to this, to take just one example.
But in 2024, we had the impression that many Quebecers no longer felt simply observers, but downright citizens of the United States. To a journalist friend, someone asked a few days ago: “Who are you voting for, Harris or Trump?”
In a conference a few months ago, Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner highlighted the Americanization of the legal arguments of some of the “red caps” of the so-called “Freedom Convoy,” which besieged his court. , in Ottawa, in February 2022: “The 2nd Amendment [invoqué par eux] obviously does not exist in Canada.”
Real effects
I certainly do not deny the significant effects that an election like Tuesday’s can have on our lives, our economy.
François Legault’s concerns about Trumpist policies, expressed frankly yesterday, were entirely justified: “Yes, we risk experiencing turbulence in the coming months, the coming years, in our relations with the Americans.”
Economic turbulence, due to the unleashed protectionism promised by the new tenant of the White House. But also a very possible sudden worsening of the migration crisis.
The Trump administration intends to deport between 11 and 18 million people it considers “illegal.” Many may decide not to wait. They could raise the markers towards the largest and least patrolled border in the world.
Even that the Quebec government will ensure, argued F. Legault enigmatically, that “the work is well done by the federal […] at the physical borders and then at the airport.
We will have to find ways to resist the worst effects of Trumpist decisions. While remaining jealous of our choices, our models, our principles. This is one of the great challenges that has always been ours in our relationship with the United States.
