Like many Canadians, I have extended family in the U.S. They’re scattered all over the map – Florida, New York, Pennsylvania. Most are Democrats. Some are Republicans – although the number of those has dropped off since Donald Trump was elected in 2016. One is a county legislator.
I’m in touch with them on Facebook. The space is usually confined to personal stuff, not politics. But sometimes the personal spills into the political. It’s clear from their feeds that four years of Trump has taken a toll on their personal relationships – not to mention, the psyche of the nation.
The U.S. is more battered and divided than it’s been since the civil war. It doesn’t feel at all like the baseball and apple pie I remember as a kid on summer visits.
Canadians in general are getting turned off to the American ideal. If there’s anything the Trump presidency has crystallized for us in the Great White North, it’s that Americans are not at all like us – or, at least, not as much like us as we may have believed.
Sure, they may be our closest neighbour and largest trading partner – and share the longest undefended border on the planet. But the Trump administration’s handling of the COVID crisis, ongoing trade wars and fomenting of white nationalist sentiment has drawn a line in the sand for most Canadians.
Most Canadians prefer Biden
The Environics Institute has been measuring Canadian attitudes towards its international partners since the mid-1970s as part of a research project with the University of Ottawa.
Its latest survey, released last month, finds that an overwhelming number of Canadians (seven in 10) would prefer Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden over Trump as Americans go to the polls on Tuesday.
Canadians have preferred Democratic candidates in U.S. elections since 2004, so that may be no surprise. But for the first time, Environics’ research has found that a growing number of Canadians view the U.S. as more enemy than friend since Trump took office in 2016.
Our view of our neighbour to the south has reached a new low. Trade wars over aluminum and softwood lumber and Trump’s America First policies have aggravated historical hostilities.
But in another first, a growing number Canadians think the two countries are becoming less alike since Trump took over.
Only 29 per cent of 2,000 Canadians interviewed report a “favourable” or “somewhat favourable” view of the U.S.
Environics says most of the change has to do with “the policies and behaviours of the current American president, and growing concern about the extent of social and racial strife in the United States as a whole.”
Race is the U.S.’s “original sin”
Wayne Petrozzi is an expert in the areas of political theory, comparative politics and public administration at Ryerson University. He says Canadians have long had a nostalgic view of our neighbour.
The racially charged police killing of George Floyd and the tense demonstrations that followed finally made most Canadians take notice.
“Canadians for the longest time didn’t understand the extent to which race is the U.S. original sin,” Petrozzi says. “Trump changed that. He used race as a way to rouse his support base. What had been for decades spoken in code became overt. We know they’re not like us. We can’t believe that anymore.”
“The truth is,” says Petrozzi, “white cops have been killing unarmed Black men in the U.S. since the 50s.”
The Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic will figure prominently in Tuesday’s results.
According to polling conducted by Angus Reid, three-quarters of those worried about COVID-19 are voting for Joe Biden.
Angus Reid’s polling suggests voting dynamics that marked the last election may also be in play this time around, although less so than in 2016.
Angus Reid’s polling suggests Trump voters are motivated by “a fervent support for their candidate.” Biden supporters, on the other hand, are motivated by “a more basic desire to keep Trump from a second term.”
But Petrozzi argues that mainstream media are “overplaying the similarities to the 2016 race.” Back then, polls showed Hillary Clinton’s lead over Trump narrowing in the final days of the campaign.
Make America Great Again is about nostalgia that never was
Petrozzi says it’s race that will be the defining issue of the 2020 election.
That’s already being seen in high voter turnouts at advanced polls in swing states. Young people and Black voters who failed to turn out in 2016 are showing up in record numbers. Already more people have voted in advanced polls than almost the entire 2016 election.
“That can only be good news for the Democrats,” Petrozzi says. “It will probably be the highest turnout in 100 years in the U.S. I suspect the Democrats will win and it will be a clear victory.”
Angus Reid’s data points to the racial divide. Trump leads by 12 points among white voters (55 per cent to 43 per cent). Among Black voters, however, he’s at 12 per cent, compared to 86 per cent for Biden. Biden is also ahead among Latinos and other visible minorities with 60 per cent support.
The demographics are working against Trump this time. While his base – non-college educated white males – is shrinking, support among suburban women voters is also solidly behind Biden. Women give Biden a 17-point advantage (58 per cent to 41 per cent) over Trump.
On the issue of the economy, on which Trump has set his re-election hopes, the pandemic has gotten in the way.
But despite some gaudy recovery numbers – the U.S. economy grew by 33 per cent this quarter – Petrozzi notes that Trump’s economic numbers are not the best of any president, as Trump has contended. That achievement belongs to Bill Clinton.
The Republicans, Petrozzi adds, have also held up a pandemic relief package.
“The whole Make America Great Again is about nostalgia that never existed. For most of us, what we know about the U.S. came from consuming popular culture that wasn’t predicated on historical accuracy. You would never know from Father Knows Best or Leave It To Beaver that Emmett Till was lynched for offending a white woman.”
