About that Elephant

Jeff Green | Nov 16, 2016

I was a bit distracted when putting the paper together last Tuesday. As the evening wore on the unease I had already been feeling due to matters close to home, began to mount and mount as the results of the US election rolled in.

By 11:00 when layout was fully under way, it was clear that Donald Trump was likely to bet Hillary Clinton, and later it was confirmed.

It was a shock, of course. I had been concerned about Clinton being not being as progressive force as is needed in times of change, but this was the worst possible outcome as far as I was concerned.

But the US is not our country, and while a Trump Presidency carries implications for Canada, the whole mouse and elephant analogy of the first PM Trudeau comes to mind, our way of life is not really threatened.

While the idea that a new regime will be less extreme than its election rhetoric has been bandied about over the last week, it is becoming clear that on some key issues there will be serious global implications from the US election.

It took 20 years for the governments of all major nations to come together and create the Paris accord on climate change, an accord that just came in to force last week, and one individual will be able to scuttle the whole thing, and he intends to do just that.

While the planet doesn't care about climate change, it has time on its hands. As a species, we do not have that luxury. There is also the matter of the millions of other species that are victims of the human propensity to alter the basic life support systems of the planet on a local, regional, and global scale.

The implications in the middle east and Eastern Europe are also potentially disastrous. Both the Syrian and Israeli governments are using the US election to consolidate dangerous policies. In Syria, the Assad regime will kill off more and more of the Syrian population as they consolidates an alliance with the Soviet Union and its new partner, the United States.

In Israel, settlements on the West Bank will multiply and the faint prospects for peace with the Palestinian Authority will be shattered. A US President who sees eye to eye with RussinPresident Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu does not bode well for the world.

As the news comes in about appointments to positions of power and the alliances that are being forged internationally by the incoming administration in Washington, my feelings of unease are settling in to a sense of dread.

I fear we will all pay a dear price for the results of the US Presidential election, as Canadians and as global citizens.