The difficulty of having a discussion about Donald Trump

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Canada is not Mark Carney. He is the current prime minister and represents us. But like all PMs, he will come and go and we will remain. Most people would agree with that.

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The United States is not Donald Trump. It’s amazing how many Canadians can’t agree with or even have an intelligent, reasonable conversation about that.

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I tried to have that conversation recently on my Newstalk1010 radio show. It had to do with a report that said that nearly 20% of Americans think the U.S. should take over Canada.

I took solace from the fact that two-thirds of Americans responding to the survey said they believed that Trump should back off from threatening and bullying sovereign nations like Canada and Greenland. I am speculating, but I wonder if that polling was a part of Trump’s decision to announce in his speech in Davos, Switzerland, that he would not use force in his relations with other countries.

Hard to have reasonable conversations

My attempt to talk about Americans as distinct from Trump failed. Too many people will not talk about Americans or America without venting hate for Trump. A reasonable conversation cannot be had.

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Mention in front of too many of my fellow citizens anything — anything — to do with the U.S., from bad weather in Texas to the price of groceries in Buffalo, N.Y., and the furious hatred of Trump is all you get back.

Hint: He doesn’t control the weather and groceries are expensive here as well.

Don’t get me wrong. Trump has brought it on himself. I am not defending him.

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It has become Canadian to hate Trump

On Sunday, I had a pleasant conversation with a group of people who do not suffer from this derangement. To a person, they don’t like Trump. They worry about the damage his tariffs and anti-Canadian bluster will cause.

But they could also understand why Trump’s polling numbers are good on border control and the stock market. Border control is also not necessarily the same issue as with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota, but good luck trying that out as a topic of conversation.

They also understand why his numbers are bad on affordability — a more important number than all of the rest.

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Beyond that small group of friends, if I mention anything Trump has done right, it is frightening to see the hate explode in supposedly polite Canadians. There is no nuance. No desire for nuance. No desire for conversation. Just loud, angry and, I must point out, Trump-like behaviour.

It is not a liberal-versus-conservative thing. It has become a Canadian thing.

Friends lost over ideology

Meanwhile, I have lost at least one American friend who is so dedicated to the cult of Trump that rather than listen to me tell her why Canadians are angry at Trump — indeed, why I am — she wrote, “Lose my number.”

I’d like to go on the air and have that conversation about the border and why Americans are happy and why that is a win for Trump and an overdue policy and practice from a president.

Carney has admitted we overdid it with a lack of control of our own border, immigration and refugee programs. But I see no reason to ignite the fuse. Trump will be gone in three years.

Or maybe you want to scream at me that he will ignore the constitution and stay. That’ll be a fun talk.

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