Right in the centre - Ancient humour
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- Published on Friday, March 6, 2020
By Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner & Press
It’s a good thing that we can believe that God is in control of our world. If it wasn’t so, we would have to believe that the politicians are in control and that would be truly scary.
Enough ink has been spilt over the Donald Trump issue. He is outspoken, blunt, offensive and many other things. The problem facing the U.S. is that he will likely get re-elected. Many Canadians question why, or how can that happen?
The answer is really quite simple. A majority of U.S. citizens, or at least enough to get Trump the required electoral college votes, think he is better than any alternative the Democrats can put forward. If the election was held this week, Trump would likely win.
The Republicans are somewhat more oriented to rural and farm life, ranching, perhaps, and certainly to smaller urban centres. While the large cities tend to be more Democratic than Republican, there seems to be a majority of people who don’t favour what the mega-cities have to offer. There is crime, drugs and murder in every city, but it’s painfully obvious that the large cities are generally not as safe as smaller centres and rural areas. With that in mind, there is general distrust of large cities, even among people who live in them. In the 2016 U.S. election, it was obvious that the smaller and rural communities voted Republican and would seem that the voter breakdown was based on the idea that rural and smaller urban areas think much differently than large cities do.
It’s also a sad commentary on the Democratic Party when Trump, at 73, is youthful compared to the leading Democrats. The Democrats, as of Mar. 2, had pretty much squeezed out all the younger candidates. The remaining candidates, namely Joe Biden and Birnie Sanders, are 77 and 78 years old, respectively. The Democrats, who would claim to be the party of youth and change, have squished every young candidate off the campaign trail. The Democratic party is led in the Congress by an 80-year-old. I have a great deal of respect for older people, but the field of U.S. presidential candidates is alarmingly old.
That said, Canada elected a young prime minister and if Justin Trudeau represents youth, maybe the Americans are onto something. Everybody laughs at Trump, but at least he (or more precisely his people) is running a strong economy and there is little doubt that they put up a pretence of standing up for the middle class, small businesses, freedom of speech, individual rights and faith-based belief systems.
This column is being written on Monday night, the eve of the so-called Super Tuesday in the U.S., when 14 states cast their vote to choose the Democratic Party candidate. At least three young presidential candidates have climbed onto 77-year-old Joe Biden’s wagon. After Tuesday night, or whenever they get the votes counted, we will likely see which old Democrat gets to battle it out with the old (but a bit younger) Donald Trump.
It will be quite a humourous ride. Wonder if God is laughing too?
Disclaimer: The writer serves as a volunteer chair of the Manitoba Community Newspaper Association. The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the MCNA board or Banner & Press staff.
