American Pahlitics

It's a lot of fun.

So Barbara Walters was interviewing Bill O’Reilly on 20/20 the other day. O’Reilly was plugging his new book, and he alluded to a dichotomy of there being two types of Americans. One type thinks that America is fundamentally good and noble, and even the Canadian in me was thinking – hey that’s me. And then he asserts that in the other camp are the “secular progressives”, people that think America needs to change, and I was thinking that’s me too. Why are the two mutually exclusive?

I think O’Reilly’s statement is reflective of the bimodal frame of thought that I find is all too pervasive in America. People here tend to put themselves firmly into one of two camps; there’s no gray area. You’re either on the right or left, a conservative or a liberal, Republican or Democrat, in a red state or a blue state. Throw in a war most people think is pointless, 6 million cable news channels with 12 million political pundits, the most divisive President in recent memory, and underlying it all the omnipresent threat of terrorism, and you have a healthy tempest for polarization, paranoia, finger-pointing, and squabbling.

It’s nasty, maddening, deafening... and oddly entertaining. I love it. Forget the junk on NBC’s Thursday night lineup - Fox News is the most entertaining thing on TV. How awesome was Slick Willy going apeshit on Fox News the other night? I love that I can be a spectator to it all, and be all detached and neutral and laugh at the buffoonery knowing that this stuff isn’t of much consequence to me, and all the while knowing I can retreat to humble ho-hum boring old Canada in a few months.

But living here completely enveloped in Americana has shed some perspective. It's reinforced my view of what sets Canadians apart from Americans: Americans are ideological. Canadians are pragmatic.

I think fundamentally, this is what sets apart us apart from Americans. We can be Conservative supporters one year, Liberals the next. In the 1988 Free Trade election, Canadians elected Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives to a majority. 5 years later the PC government was trounced, reduced to two seats! Ontarians went from electing a quasi-socialist NDP to office in one election to Mike Harris’ hard-right neo-con goons the next! There’s something to be said for the Parliamentary system of government.

As a people, Canadians are very pragmatic and prudent. We'll do whatever we feel is in the best interest of the nation at the given time . Americans are ideological, and I think it’s owing to their history. It’s a country born out of revolution, in the name of liberty. Our independence was a more ho-hum affair – alright, sign these papers, you got your country.

Canadians vote with their heads, Americans vote with their hearts. And I think it’s our prudence and pragmatism that’s allowed us to avoid the ugly divisions that permeate American society.