RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2025. It is true enough that the Canadian people are not as divided as the American people at this point in time. And like many other Canadians I’m grateful for that.

A recent article by David Beers and Jen St. Denis at The Tyee in BC, however, has shown that living right next door to the USA does continue to have an impact. It’s headlined “The Dangerous Targeting of a Canadian Journalist … After the murder of Charlie Kirk, conservatives piled on Rachel Gilmore for expressing a well-founded fear. Then came violent threats.”

A short quotation from the Beers-St. Denis piece captures the main thrust of Ms Gilmore’s current troubles : “Kirk’s assassination was an alarming development … Rachel Gilmore took to social media to share insights based on years of reporting, writing that she was concerned some fans of Kirk on the far right who are ‘aching for more violence, could turn this into an even more radicalizing moment.

“‘Will they now believe their fears have been proven right and they have a right to “retaliate,” no matter who was behind the actual shooting?’

“Conservative MP Andrew Scheer swiftly reposted Gilmore’s comments, saying she was ‘twisted’ and had ‘so much hate in her.’ Other Canadian Conservatives also weighed in or reposted Scheer’s comment while … another post Gilmore made was circulated by right-wing influencers …

“Hours later, Gilmore’s name was the first to appear on a website called ‘Expose Charlie’s Murderers’ … Gilmore then received death and rape threats, including threats that say, ‘We know where you live.’”

(1) “Half of Canadian conservatives love the guy who is threatening to crush our economy and annex us”

I had just started to think about Ms Gilmore’s fate, when I came across further evidence on just how friendly some Canadian Conservatives (and conservatives) are towards President Trump’s quite seriously crazy USA.

The evidence was noted in a social media post from David Brown @ OrbitStudios, based on a recent Polling Canada report : “Half of Canadian conservatives love the guy who is threatening to crush our economy and annex us … Think about that for 2 seconds.”

The poll in question asked its sample of representative Canadians : “Do you approve or disapprove of the way the following individuals are handling their jobs — Donald Trump, President of the United States?”

As classified by political party voted for in the last election the results were : Liberal 99% disapprove, 1% approve ; New Democrat 99% disapprove, 1% approve ; Green 98% disapprove, 2% approve ; Bloc Québécois 93% disapprove, 7% approve ; Conservative 55% disapprove, 45% approve.

(2) Meanwhile back in the old imperial metropolis

While contemplating all this I bumped into a piece on the “origins” of Trumpism by UK pundit William Davies in the latest issue of the London Review of Books.

It strikes me as compelling enough (no doubt largely because it urges some views vaguely similar to my own) to warrant another somewhat extended quotation :

“While Trump’s first term looked like an aberration, a morbid symptom of a dying world, his second looks more like an attempt to enforce a new paradigm.

“The radical policies on trade, migration and international aid, the politicisation of federal spending and the attacks on constitutional process are made possible by the mania of the man at the centre, but they are being pursued according to an ideological agenda.

“As liberals struggle to get to grips with this takeover, they are forced to question some of their own presuppositions about regime change, political economy and the role of ideas in public life. To understand the intellectual coordinates of Trumpism requires us to look in less conventional places and to pay more attention to less obvious moments and rhythms.

“We may also need to reckon with the fact that, more and more, ideas can achieve influence and credibility by circumventing the world of academia altogether.”

(3) Starting to conclude with Pete Buttigieg and Brigitte Macron

In case this kind of talk seems (sometimes) somewhat too much like Old World cynicism, I‘ll start to conclude my Sunday morning quotations here with more New World idealism from Pete Buttigieg@PeteButtigieg. And I should note that my idea of free and democratic “left” philosophy involves A LOT more than any kind of identity politics. But I do think Mr Buttigieg is dead on with two succinct propositions he raised on social media just yesterday:

“Donald Trump is way less popular than he wants you to believe… And you are significantly more powerful than he wants you to think.”

This to me is the voice of one seriously intact part of the real-world Democracy in America today — the inclusive anti-slavery upside to what the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about in the 1830s. And in case this seems just too much idealism for the real world I‘ll almost finally conclude with a recent headline from The Independent in the UK :

“Forcing Brigitte Macron to court to prove she is a woman shows how mad (and powerful) conspiracists have become … Brigitte Macron, the wife of French president Emmanuel Macron, is going to court in Delaware to prove that she is a woman. This is where the mind-boggling world of conspiracy theories has led us …”

(4) And finally a few wise words from the At Issue guy on CBC TV

Saving the best and most compelling recent social media quotation for last, Canadian TV pundit Andrew Coyne has just given the tidiest response I’ve seen to President Trump’s recent complaint :“When 97% of the stories are bad about a person, that’s no longer free speech.”

In Mr Coyne’s post of this past late Friday night (made from the admittedly safer place on the north shore of the lake, in the true north strong and free) : “When 97 per cent of what a president does is illegal, unconstitutional, and otherwise reprehensible, what else can a free press report?”