YYJ on USA: A collection of local voices talk American election

October 30, 2024 Features

Among all the headlines, and the interviews, and the radio talks, I’ve found a timid silence penetrating the conversations I share regarding the future, as if not mentioning the monster will cease to wake it. I say “monster” as a stand-in for human rights, climate change, genocide, and affordability because I too do not wish to wake it. The risks are too enormous, we tell ourselves, regardless of if they are already awoken.

With each US presidential debate, and each US presidential rally, and each US presidential fact-check, tension brews carefully across state borders, bleeding outward toward roughly 8,000,000,000 other world citizens who will suffer the consequences of the US presidential election, as they do every four years. And I find it more trivial to tend to my own matters of routine and make life plans regardless of my Canadian citizenship. And I am finding the enemy on a greyscale that excludes good.

As students, and as Camosun College students, actively shaping our futures, among the “stakes”—a word tirelessly wired into every corner of media, suggesting there is only one source of peril—it may be paralyzing to account for what may be. Grief has whittled its way into question marks that end all my sentences regarding prospects beyond schooling. Grief has also whittled its way into the way I wake up each morning, attend classes, and perform my work as a writer, and I know I am not alone in this experience. That’s why it’s imperative that we discuss, to address transnational life, and to eliminate the fear of the monster, because it will always exist so long as it isn’t addressed.

 

First-year Arts and Science student Igo Campbell says they too avoid the topic to best evade unease for the future.

“I think I mostly try not to think about it on the day to day,” they say. “In thinking about the US election, I’m anxious and anticipatory. I think I see it as being a huge turning point in a lot of ways, and it makes it really hard for me to plan for the future… It’s just a thing that I have to brush away and not think about and just hope for the best a little bit.”

Camosun Political Science instructor Dan Reeve says the worst is not around the corner—it’s always been here.

“I think there’s this running myth that somehow things are getting worse,” says Reeve. “But I think that running myth is about two and a half thousand years old, and it couldn’t have gotten that much worse over two and a half thousand years.”

This does not, however, change how we, as students, worry about the future, whether it directly affects our lives or the lives of our neighbours on the other side of the globe. Student Nawal Hassan says this is the first US election where she has been a conscious bystander understanding the inner workings of government, and she says her worry lies on either end of the ballot.

This story originally appeared in our October 30, 2024 issue.

“It’s a little scary because I feel like either way it goes, we’re screwed because I feel like there’s a lot of [Democrats] that are using… abortion [support], but they’re still supporting Israel, which is also killing a lot of women, a lot of people,” she says. “Americans are not aware of how bad their system is, and they’re not doing anything to stop it or to revolution or to do anything to genuinely change the system. They think they only have two options, and it’s affecting everyone around [them].”

Reeve says that because we work in an interconnected capacity, the US defines the democracy that ripples into nations elsewhere.

“The United States is the pre-eminent democracy in the world,” he says. “They are not only the world’s largest economy, but their leadership in terms of democracy, they’re the first position in the world… When the American democracy seems strong and vibrant, that has a net effect around the world of supporting democracies. When the United States seems perilous or seems fractured, that has a tendency to highlight and bring fracture and have those same negative impacts in a variety of Eastern European democracies or democracies in Central and South America or in Asia. So it really has an outsized impact on the fate of if the world trending towards bureaucracy or more towards authoritarianism. And the United States now, it’s not the only player in this, but it has an outsized role.”

Second-year University Transfer student Flynn Passey says he has seen how American political culture has stirred into Canadian culture and is anxious with what may continue to come from Republican candidate Donald Trump’s policies.

“It’s really upsetting,” he says. “Because Canada and the US are so close, there’s easy pathway for rhetoric believed down there to make its way up here. We see that with Pierre Poilievre and a lot of his… It feels maybe disingenuous to directly compare to Donald Trump, but he does use a lot of that same rhetoric and vibes. In terms of human rights, I would definitely be concerned if Trump were to be elected into office.”

Community, Family, and Child Studies student Safiyyah, who asked that her last name not be used, says she believes we have already seen the consequences of Republican ideology spread further into Canadian politics.

“I think we’ve already seen that, especially with our own elections coming up next year,” she says. “Poilievre is not exactly a great representative for minorities, especially, speaking as a Muslim and as a racialized minority. So when it comes to Indigenous affairs, when it comes to most minority groups, his policies and the way he is is very, very close to the Republicans.”

Reeve argues that all political decisions make an international impact, citing climate-change policies as a major example of such cases.

“As a political scientist, I have to say politics and policy affects everyone,” he says. “But there are certain times and places where politics or a policy choice will have long-term implications. And of course, younger people will bear that for a longer period. And we’re at a critical moment in terms of climate action. And if, frankly, one of the parties wins, they’re not interested in making any action. In fact, they’re interested in pulling back all climate protections, essentially. And that has a pretty significant bearing on young people’s future, amongst many other issues.”

First-year Arts and Science student Kaelan Day wants to see variety in candidates; he says that while the two-party system in the US and two main parties in Canada still stand, social and economic needs will not be met, resulting in a lack of enthusiasm for voters.

“I think when it comes down to the two-party system,” he says, “a lot of people just feel overwhelmed and don’t really feel like their needs and wants are reflected in those candidates. So that could make them just not vote at all.”

Fourth-year Accounting student Ty Ferreipa says he is concerned with how Canadian image will be influenced by the outcome of the US election.

“[The US] reputation across the world also sneaks into us. We’re North America. So the outcome of it certainly will affect our reputation,” he says.

Trump’s policy that would increase tariffs on foreign goods by up to 20 percent concerns many people, including first-year University Transfer student Tyler Harvey Lange.

“[I]f he followed through on his tariff policy,” says Lange, “that would be really devastating for Canada as we export the majority of our goods directly to America… I feel like that could be really worrying. Canada would probably hurt quite a bit economically.”

Likewise, second-year Economics international student Charles Yam is worried about how the US economy will interact with his home country as Trump promises to impose tariffs of 60 percent or more on goods from China.

“So to international students who, like me, we may plan to [immigrate] to Canada or the US,” says Yam. “And after all, it’s still Donald Trump, he’s not a normal politician. Whether he’s elected or not, that could mean a big change for a lot of things. For example, the Chinese-US Trade War started in [2018]… I think a lot of Chinese normal people and the businessmen feel worried about whether the US is going to have a big trade war with China. Especially in those years, Chinese economy is not going very well.”

As a German immigrant, Gender, Sexuality, Women’s Studies instructor Karoline Guelke has observed the cultural similarities connecting Canada and the US, which has provided a nuanced perspective. She says she’s witnessed a strong US social influence on Canada, which has enabled certain behaviours to cross between borders. 

“My perspective as an immigrant, too, Canada is a bit different,” she says. “It’s interesting how Canadians very much define themselves against the US often and say, well, it’s worse down there. But whether we’re talking about racism or sexism, when I think from a broader perspective, there’s a huge influence that the US has… If they are moving more to the right, then we’re likely to do that here, too. That’s frightening. To just think we’re removed from that is wrong to think. We’re seeing similar right-wing tendencies here, not to that extent. I think more maybe in the realm of racism than the more sexist, anti-women, anti-trans. But those tendencies are here as well. And we are, I mean, socially, culturally, I see us quite connected. We’re not isolated. So what becomes normalized there and many more right-wing groups are very connected to other groups in the States. So I think we should be concerned.”

Guelke adds that although the Democrats may offer less threat to democracy and human rights, the social impact right-wing popularity has developed on its own is still a concern. 

“To see [Trump] as the one evil figure that we need to fight, and if he doesn’t win, then all is well, I think that’s naive,” says Guelke. “I mean, he only got into that position because that message, sadly, resonated with so many people. And so if [Kamala] Harris wins now, that seems the better choice for sure. But there’s going to be a backlash, and there are issues that are not addressed.”

First-year Arts and Science student Grace Patterson says she sees both candidates as a threat to the global political landscape and says she condemns Harris’ strong support of Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ceaseless war on Palestine. 

“When it comes to the genocide,” she says, “they’ve both been extremely disappointing to me. My mom and I were watching… the inauguration and Kamala was saying all these great things about her support for the queer community. And then she goes on and just completely transitions to be like, ‘and I support Israel.’”

First-year Arts and Science student Mattigan Waldron says her anxiety for the outcome of the US election lies too in human rights. However, she says this specifically manifests in her strong concern for the future of learning.

“I feel probably nervous, a little bit scared. Just general pent-up anxiety,” says Waldron. “I feel like, for myself, that’s mostly regarding education, like something that’s come up here that has been escalated because of some of the movements in Florida, in the States, of the book banning and what’s okay in schools has just started this movement that I feel has affected here as well. And in that movement, it’s brought up a lot of things going against SOGI 123, which is the Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity Act in schools… which people have been fighting against… And I just think that definitely started in the US.”

Guelke hopes to see continuous mobilization of activism, but suggests this can be performed in smaller ways. She says there is work to be done to shift the future in a positive direction, but dialogue is crucial.

“I think a lot is going on, and many people are feeling very overwhelmed and hopeless with the state of the world,” says Guelke. “So one reaction is to just close down and focus on one’s own little bubble. But I think then it just perpetuates. That’s not how we make change. And there are different ways, too, of doing that. Some people feel very drawn to going out there and talking and being politically active. For others, that is just not maybe the right avenue for activism… I’ve sometimes, personally, struggled with that because I’m also not somebody who is on the front lines of marching out there and doing those things. But there are other ways where we can indirectly have an impact as well, whether it’s even through private conversations or doing something on social media…there are many different ways to be active and have a conversation. And that I think anybody can do.”

 

As it so happens, this issue arrives six days before a decision has been made, on a heavy fall Wednesday. And with that, patient silence may grow. Or maybe murmurs stir in the narrow chambers of the individual. But, gathering voices in collection is how worlds march, how worlds grow, and how worlds stimulate change however they see fit, gathering before one land of the free unknowingly heads in backwards motion—a nation and beyond forced to lie in a bed they have not made on the threshold of history.