As far back as I can remember, I love the United States. Old Orchard child, NYC at 16 the first time, West in his twenties. Since then, I have frequented them assiduously, accumulating the kilometers of road trips. A sunny Saturday? Go Burlington! Manhattan in May, or Santa Fe, where I could live. Meet the Americans, share amazing and sincere discussions with them. Despite the fact that some Quebec intellectuals overwhelm us with our privileged link with France, I am, like Serge Bouchard, convinced that we are intimately more North American than French.
Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
We have traveled this continent, helped to rename it from north to south, we share knowledge with the First Nations, we are inhabited by this breath of freedom that crosses it. There are us in the geography of the United States, in the candor, the spirit of adventure of this country. WE are North Americans. It is no coincidence that on several occasions in its history, Quebec has wanted to rally to its neighbour. Something connects us. The link of the territory is as strong as that of the language.
But lately, during Trump’s tenure, and then with the attack on Capitol Hill (and of course the pandemic), I’ve distanced myself.
Not out of moral principle: I know very well that all kinds of people rub shoulders in the States, that the extremes have always been there, but because something has changed. The conversations are harsh, the encounters suspicious. It has to do with insecurity. That, global, diffuse, that lives a system that the whole world took for granted and which implodes. The United States were the trustees, the guarantors of democracy, and their melting pot, the guarantor of successful integration. This country was the trailer for success and it all seemed unchanging.
Now, all of this testified to willful blindness. American democracy was stuck. It has always been built on racism, discrimination, violence, shattered desires, barely buried anger, class injustice. Despite the gleaming façade and endearing bonhomie, the problems were written in the matrix. With the 2016 election, it is as if the appearances of solidity were dislocated. Trump exposed what was latent and no longer seems able to be repaired. The camps are now violently pitted against each other.
The January 6, 2021 insurrection, the recent attack on Paul Pelosi, the howling tension emanating from this society have done the rest. An additional stage has been playing out since Tuesday with the mid-term elections, which are in a way the antechamber to the return of the Trumpists. The venom of disagreement and disintegration is now flowing through the American system. Something has been released and will not disappear again. Everything, now, opposes the left and the extreme right, the frames have exploded, the parameters which traditionally civilized the disagreements have jumped. L’American Dream does not exist anymore.
What is happening these years in the United States, what will happen there in the coming months worries the whole world, because it is a model that is losing its footing.
In China and Russia, despots are laughing quietly as they watch the rout of ultimate democracy.
Americans, however, are not the only citizens to distance themselves from democracy as it was fantasized in the twentiethe century. They are neither crazier nor better than the others. But there is a conjuncture, an organic encounter that has occurred between some of them, Trump, the spirit of the times, anger, growing inequalities, to put it briefly.
I wrote earlier that we, Quebecers and Canadians, are American brothers on the ground, that we share an energy, a territory, even if our history is different in many respects. However, it is these similarities that worry me a little. We believe we are protected by our political system, by our less conservative values, by our enviable social safety net. We believe we are apart, safe. Superiors. Are we so?
Political systems make a major difference. But ideas travel freely. Are we so unalterable, so impervious to the madness and hatred that agitate our neighbors at this time? Let’s remember the occupation of Ottawa last January, think about certain libertarian ideas, see the unusual gap that has been created for us between certain camps in Quebec society lately, let’s think about the rage that inhabits social networks. Are we so safe from skids?
Because we are also North Americans. For the best, which is a tremendous vector of creativity, audacity and freedom. For the worse too, if we are not careful…