June 8, 2024
HERE'S MY TAKE
The jury’s actually been in for quite some time. That’s not to say last week’s guilty verdict by the jury of twelve of Donald Trump’s peers wasn’t climactic. In fact, based on both the coverage of the trial and eavesdropping on the conversations of my lawyer friends, it seems many weren’t expecting a conviction.
Most seem to think that Donald Trump is guilty of many things, but being criminally liable for falsifying election records five years ago wasn’t one of them. Few would dispute that legal games and political motivations coloured this trial, but that may just mean that Donald Trump was being treated the same as everyone else by the U.S. justice system, the very structure of which makes it vulnerable to such shenanigans.
Rather than wade into the details of the legal process here (that’s beyond my expertise), the politics of the Trump trial (opinions are baked in and little can be said that would change anyone’s mind), or the implications of this verdict on the upcoming election (we’ve not been here before and I don’t think anyone really knows), let’s instead step back and reflect on what this exposes about our present cultural moment.
Let me start with a short historical excursus. In 1993, New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s essay 'Defining Deviancy Down' created waves. Senator Moynihan was talking about crime. His point was that every society has a finite amount of resources and attention that it can pay to dealing with deviants. Invariably, when the amount of crime exceeds our ability to deal with it, we end up redefining crime. In the 1940s, a survey of teachers indicated that the behavioural issues they were dealing with included talking out of turn, chewing gum, and running in the halls. The 1990s list was headlined by substance abuse, suicide, and rape. When you are dealing with these issues, you end up redefining what is a problem (you only have limited resources to deal with crime after all). Talking out of turn, chewing gum or running in the halls become quaint jokes. What counts as deviance gets redefined, although it’s pretty hard to put a finger on any one event that causes it.
There are those who want to blame either Donald Trump or his prosecutors for bringing us into our current ugly political predicament. Without justifying either, I’m of the perspective that both are simply reacting to and giving expression to now-redefined but culturally accepted social norms. Somehow we have collectively travelled here without realising fully where the road leads. The last decade has confirmed that we have arrived at someplace new.
I’ve been following politics for almost four decades (just a bit too young to have experienced Watergate in real time). The intersection of legal processes and political decision-making has always been part of the story. Allegations of corruption, police investigations into the inappropriate sharing of information or documents, or the use of political influence to get friends or family out of legal difficulty occur frequently enough. But what was significant is that until recently, an external standard was being appealed to. The facts and motives were often disputed, but whether sincerely or to get out of trouble, at least everyone acknowledged a standard that they had or had not violated.
Today the standards aren’t objective but personal. We give great weight to individual autonomy. Whether our political orientation is from the left or the right, individual expression is prioritised over following norms that are imposed on us. Guardrails aren’t respected but dismissed as part of the problem. The left tends to use the language of choice and authenticity; the right’s language is of conscience and freedom. But those concepts without an external standard lead to a similar place. If there is no external standard by which to evaluate our own beliefs and opinions, our perspectives become ultimate and defining. That may have a self-satisfying appeal, but it's corrosive to society and a shared common life.
The North American project (with differing versions but essentially similar in Canada or the United States) has been built on respect for individual rights but within a shared public good frame. But when that frame crumbles, all we have are individual rights which somehow our political system needs to facilitate. There is no public standard to appeal to. Politics gravitates toward a “might makes right” exercise of power. We get our guys in power and then seek to silence the enemy.
The 2016 American election exposed this mindset in a blunt manner. “Drain the swamp” gave expression to a growing distrust of institutions to which elite leadership had been deaf for too long. Trump personified the breaking of norms as a virtue. At the 2016 nominating convention, he celebrated stiffing contractors of contracted fees as evidence of business ability and skill at getting a good deal. The response was not “this is a violation of the rule of law” but as confirmation that he was a good dealmaker and therefore qualified to oversee trade and security negotiations. The guardrails were gone. And since the impulse of electioneering always presses to create as big a gap as possible between you and your opponent, taking advantage of the opportunity to lead a group chant of “lock her up” about your political opponent makes sense.
Former President Trump warned this week that if he wins the election, it will be his opponents’ turn to face charges and jail time. Trials, convictions, and prisons are now part of our political process. How did we get here? The charge can be laid at a generation that has facilitated the decline of our politics from any normative standard relating to the public good. Voters on the left and right have voted based on individual belief and interest without expecting leaders to be accountable for upholding the public good, including justice for all.
The verdict is in. We are all guilty of defining the standards of our politics down.
WHAT I’M READING
Are Algorithms Uncompetitive?
An interesting Vass Bednar Globe and Mail piece mused about the capacity of algorithms to create dynamic pricing (as seems to be the case for gasoline prices and airline tickets) to do things that if people did them, would be illegal price collusion. She cites a series of cases as well as some experimentation that has artificial intelligence work to nudge price inflation in a manner that impacts behaviour. To date lawmakers have dealt with this mostly as “theoretical issues” but Ms. Bednar implies it has gone well beyond theory.
Is Quebec Less Woke?
I’ve quipped for years that the only thing I understand about Quebec politics is that I don’t understand it. So, I am not sure what exactly to make of this piece. However, the argument that Elie Cantin-Nantel makes regarding Quebec being more progressive but less woke than the rest of us, and that American influence may be the cause of this, is provocative and one I had not previously considered.
Accusations of Political Rot
A bombshell report last week heightened concerns regarding foreign interference in Canadian elections, with evidence that unnamed MPs have been knowingly assisting the efforts of governments like China and India to influence local politics and election outcomes. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians reviewed intelligence from ten federal agencies and authorities and concluded that certain MPs “began wittingly assisting state actors soon after their election” often to further their own political interests. This recent Globe and Mail op-ed notes how this changes our understanding of the channels and scope of foreign interference. The Trudeau government has committed to conduct “an internal follow-up” but has not yet agreed to release the names of implicated MPs.
Cheaper by the Dozen
Podcaster and founder of pronatalist.org Malcolm Collins is on the defensive lately, arguing strenuously that he’s not on the “far right” for wanting more children—and encouraging others to have more of them too. He writes in The Free Press about his ordeal, including death threats, in response to his and his wife’s activism in favour of larger families. They’re in their mid-30s with seven kids and hope to reach 12. Collins' article is worth a read if you want to get an eye into the media reaction to counter-cultural behaviour that isn’t the result of a Christian or even pro-life worldview.
Down But Not Out
“[Justin Trudeau] is used to people counting him out and he likes to show people that they’re wrong,” said Paul Wells on The Hub Dialogues podcast this week. I enjoyed reading Wells’ relatively quick-read take on the prime minister, Justin Trudeau on the Ropes: Governing in Troubles Times. Wells also appeared on The Herle Burly with Stephen Maher whose more comprehensive book on Trudeau, The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau was released last week. I’m only partly through although I’ve heard Maher observe how he started the writing process more sympathetic to the Prime Minister but concluded that it is time for him to move on. The metaphors each author uses to organise their assessment of the Prime Minister are interesting. Wells presents Trudeau as a fighter, having literally leveraged a 2012 charity boxing match to establish his leadership ambitions. Maher takes us to Machiavelli’s Prince, highlighting how having been born into the family of a sitting Prime Minister (on Christmas day no less) has led to a mutual understanding of Mr. Trudeau and the public that somehow he was a person with some destiny. It’s the season for political biographies as these, along with Andrew Lawton’s straight-forward Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life released a few weeks ago, provide insight into the personal motivations and beliefs of the two main candidates who will be competing to be Prime Minister in the upcoming election.
MEANINGFUL METRICS
More than six in 10 adults in Canada say they’ve “been exposed to a potentially traumatic event at some point in their lives,” according to Statistics Canada. By “exposure,” the statistical agency means a traumatic event could have been a direct experience, something someone witnessed, or something that happened to a close friend or family member.
The most common traumatic event is a transportation accident (31%), like a car crash or bicycle collision. Alarmingly, physical assaults come in at 18%, life-threatening illness or injury at 17%, natural disasters at 15%, and unwanted sexual experiences (other than sexual assaults) at 15%.
TAKE IT TO-GO
My son has a rich imagination. Stories like The Lord of the Rings are a hard hobbit to break for him. I, however, am the opposite. I don’t find such tales nearly as enchanting. In fact, even trying to watch the Lord of the Rings movies with all their expensive production and special effects, I find it hard to stay awake. The ent just can’t come soon enough for me. I guess I’m just Sauron the whole thing. My take-away from all of this is that the problem with long fairy tales is that they tend to dragon.
That’s enough to Tolkien for this week. I’ve got my cue to exit stage right which I will do, planning to be back in your inbox next Saturday morning.
‘Til next week.