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The day after
Re Trump Surges To Unexpected Victory (Nov. 9): The American dream: Any native-born American can become president of the United States. The nightmare: It has happened.
Diana Rowles, Victoria
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The pieties of democracy – the wisdom of the crowd, the decency of the common man – all empty slogans that no longer comfort. With the incomprehensible election of Donald Trump, I feel I'm living in an alternate reality. Or at least an alternate-reality television show.
While I can disengage from U.S. domestic affairs, it's impossible to step away from the indispensable country. Climate change, free trade, international stability are all under serious threat from a know-nothing, thin-skinned, vindictive and pathologically lying president-elect, an antediluvian Congress, and a reactionary Supreme Court.
I also have to wonder whether the same seething current of resentment, racism and misogyny lurks just beneath the surface of our own presumably more-enlightened polity.
I know that principled opposition and solidarity are called for. But in the interest of my own psychological survival for the next four years, the only recourse I see is nihilism and retreat.
Brian P.H. Green, Thunder Bay
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The election results suggest that the cultural gap between Canada and our neighbours to the south is much larger than I ever imagined. I'm looking at Americans with new eyes and my first impulse is to look away in sorrow.
Nancy McFadden, Calgary
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In a couple of days we will be remembering people who fought, and died fighting, against fascism, hate and intolerance in the Second World War, and Americans just voted in a person who embodies all three. Humanity just took a massive nosedive.
Craig Charbonneau Fontaine, Sagkeeng First Nation, Man.
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Over the past 30 years or so, the Democratic Party has sold its once-progressive soul to the country's moneyed interests and corporate elites, and turned its back on the poor and the working and middle classes.
Hillary Clinton was just the latest representative of that trend. The Democrats got what was coming to them in this election, but it's the country as a whole that will pay the price for their venality and for allowing this whole sorry mess to come about.
John Reardon, Toronto
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Let me get this straight: Donald Trump has been accused of sexual assault by 12 women; admitted to groping numerous others; made derogatory comments about Mexican immigrants, women and Muslims; strategically bankrupted six of his properties/casinos; was cited for racial discrimination with his rental properties; lost more than $900-million in 1995 and apparently used the losses to avoid paying income taxes for nearly 20 years; has faced more than 3,500 legal actions in the past three decades; and is the first presidential candidate in 40 years to refuse to release his income tax returns.
And he has just been elected president of the United States. Am I missing something?
Alex Roberts, Halifax
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I hope this is the moment Americans wake up from their dreams: the promise that every American can prosper; the rhetoric that they live in a land of equality, liberty, and opportunity, where the tired and poor and huddled masses are welcome.
It's not enough to say Donald Trump wasn't what Americans wanted. He is what they got. It doesn't matter if half of Americans aren't themselves racist or misogynistic. Just because they, personally, believe in equality and freedom doesn't mean it exists in their country. It doesn't matter if he doesn't reflect their idea of America; their idea of America turned out to be a myth. Now they know. With that knowledge, I hope they can finally start making their myth a reality.
Renée Huffman, Montreal
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If there were an award for "euphemism of the year" your editorial would have won it hands down (Donald Trump's Improbable Victory, Nov. 9). Describing Mr. Trump as "not the ideal candidate" after having listed, over the past several months, the many ways in which he was totally unqualified to be president is the triumph of faint hope over awful reality. And he is a "genius" only in the way that a narcissistic demagogue is brilliant in knowing the right words to fan the flames of racism, sexism and nativism.
If there is any silver lining in his election it is the prospect that, being a man without fundamental principles who continually contradicts himself, he might be persuaded to reverse some of his more outrageous positions if he senses that more sensible ones will make him more popular. Because, in the end, it is all about his ego.
Mike Hutton, Ottawa
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John Ibbitson optimistically suggests that because the United States has prevailed in other stressful circumstances, it will surely do so once again (Fears Of An American Decline Are Premature, Nov. 9). The trouble this time is that Mr. Trump represents an entirely original and unique domestic menace. Placing the world's possibly least-qualified person in the world's most demanding job is a disaster waiting to happen.
Mr. Trump is not the sort that would allow a mere fact to stand between him and his destiny. Indeed, he writes his own facts, each in the service of creating a threatening world from which he alone would be able to save his people. And, incredibly, his people seem to have bought it. God help us all.
Charles Sager, Ottawa
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We've witnessed an election campaign in which the "big lie" methodology was used to reduce Hillary Clinton's integrity down to Donald Trump's level. I expect it will be very difficult for Canada to negotiate any evenly balanced agreements with the new president. Due to his immense lack of integrity, we can't expect any would remain in place for any length of time. This also applies to any agreements we now have with the United States.
W.C.P. Baldwin, Toronto
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A Trump presidency presents a number of excellent opportunities for Canada to become a leader in the 21st century – in building understanding and tolerance, in strengthening global governance, in becoming the North American leader in green technology and renewable energy, in exporting thoughtful and fair media, and in building hope.
While we should welcome a modest number of the best of Americans who wish to move here, I propose we also signal a new chapter of Canadian moral leadership by building a wall along the Canada-U.S. border, adding Canadian-made solar panels so it becomes the world's largest solar utility.
This is a historic moment for Brand Canada. Let's be bold.
Doug Miller, Annan, Ont.
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Without wallowing in curses and black adjectives, how do we express our horror? Perhaps by quoting Albert Einstein: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe."
John W. Graham, Ottawa
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Re Legalized Marijuana Set To Be Big Winner (Nov. 9): I guess that's one way of getting through the next four years.
Trish Crowe, Kingston