The American claim to ‘exceptionalism’ and its history of support for democracy around the world has been delivered a severe blow.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 11, 2021.

OTTAWA—Whether or not Donald Trump remains in office for the next two weeks is hardly the point.

His ugly legacy has unleashed a venom in America that will be very difficult to suppress.

The world has watched in horror as domestic terrorists stormed the capital, wreaking havoc and death on the ultimate symbols of American democracy.

We have witnessed extremists becoming so mainstream that one of them, Georgian Marjorie Taylor Greene, is now sitting in the House of Representatives.

The American claim to “exceptionalism” and its history of support for democracy around the world has been delivered a severe blow.

Lindsey Graham’s ridiculous response to the Washington attack was to claim equivalency between the attackers and Black Lives Matter activists who took to the streets to protest the death of multiple Black citizens at the hands of the police.

Does anyone truly believe that if the same group of Washington attackers had been racial minorities, there would have been so few arrests?

Graham’s claim that Democrats needed to call out protesters of police brutality at the same time as he was criticizing the terrorists simply reinforced the fact that the day Donald Trump leaves office will not be the end of this reckoning in America.

The CBC revisited footage from the summer protest at the Lincoln Memorial, where row upon row of riot police were lined up to truncheon protesters. That footage was compared to the police treatment of emboldened white supremacists and conspiracy theorists who considered the attack a victory for their cause.

Some television outlets carried footage of those storming the capital taking selfies with police guarding the gates. And the Confederate flag was carried into the Senate by those who paraded their hatred right onto the floor of the Senate.

At the same time as the anarchists were outside of the Senate, chief representatives inside were speaking about the “incredible” four years of Trump rule and some of them were still trying as of last week to claim the election was stolen.

The attack on the Senate was greeted with glee by the president, who tweeted his love for the protesters.

At the same time as the state of Georgia elected its first Black Senator and its first Jewish Senator, most people are not talking about how those elections made history.

Instead, we are witnessing a country that is still deeply divided on racial grounds, and whose leadership actually promotes the supremacy of one race over another.

Trump illustrated his true colours more than three years ago, when white supremacists stormed Charlottesville and killed an innocent bystander while shouting slurs against Jews and minorities.

Trump was the first to lay out this false equivalency when he tried to claim that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville protest.

And multiple members of the Senate still cling to the view that there is validity in the absurdly false claims of election interference.

Notwithstanding these shocking perspectives, even in the consequential Georgia Senate runoffs, the state was almost evenly split on those who supported Trump’s choice and those who opposed.

Largely due to the incredible organizational work of Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight Action to oppose voter suppression, the Democrats were able to pull off razor-thin victories in both instances, thus securing the balance of power in the Senate. That vote paves the way forward for president-elect Joe Biden and vice-president-elect Kamala Harris to receive support in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

But they still have to face the job of uniting a country where almost half of the population oppose their vision.

All those who chose Trump were not voting based on his racial record. But the fact that they could overlook it and cast their ballot for him in such large numbers, is truly frightening.

From misogyny to racism, from his affinity for dictators versus democrats, the president still managed to garner the support of almost 75 million voting Americans, the largest number in the history of the country to vote for a Republican candidate.

Even when the president vacates the office, whether of his own accord or not, his leadership scars will endure long past his departure.

The suspension of Trump’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts are not enough to stem the flood of hatred that has been unleashed during his presidency.

Pre-Trump, racists were largely in the shadows. But his sick vision for America has enlisted millions of followers.

This past week has only emboldened them.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

First published on Monday, August 21, 2017 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—The northward drift of the American alt-right may have been stopped in its tracks in the aftermath of Charlottesville last week. Or it may actually be energized by the post-Charlottesville fallout.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer announced Thursday that he would no longer give interviews to self-stylized right-wing online presence, Rebel Media, after it provided positive coverage and streamed live images of neo-fascist, Nazi-chanting Virginia marchers.

In normal times, a quarter of the Conservative caucus has been interviewed by The Rebel, with a YouTube audience of 400,000. Scheer was a regular until his disavowal last week.

Rebel’s troubles began when a contributor, covering the event in Charlottesville, retweeted insinuations that the murderous white supremacist driver who is alleged to have killed one person with his car, may have been provoked because anti-racism protesters who hit the speeding vehicle before it ploughed into the crowd.

Rebel co-founder and former Sun Media journalist Brian Lilley exited the online news organization days before Scheer’s declaration, claiming the outlet suffers from a “lack of editorial and behavioural judgment that left unchecked will destroy it and those around it.”

With the departure of Lilley, and the Charlottesville fallout, Scheer had no choice but to publicly cut ties with The Rebel.

Lilley posted his leave-taking notice on Facebook, linking co-founder Ezra Levant with the alt-right movement in his comments.

“I was never enamoured by the ‘alt-right,’ never saw the appeal but I take Ezra at his word when he describes his evolution. But just as he has evolved, just as The Rebel has evolved, so have I and the uncomfortable dance that I have been doing for some time now must come to an end. … As a serious journalist with nearly 20 years’ experience at the highest levels in this country, and abroad, I cannot be a part of this.”

Lilley bluntly went much further: “I am not comfortable being associated with a group that, rightly or wrongly, is being increasingly viewed as associated with the likes of Richard Spencer. Like many of you, I had family that fought the Nazis, I never want to be in the same room as one. I am also not comfortable with the increasingly harsh tone taken on issues like immigration, or Islam. There are ways to disagree on policy without resorting to us versus them rhetoric.”

In attempting to tone down The Rebel backlash, Levant issued a statement claiming that “the alt-right is, in my mind—the mirror image of Black Lives Matter.”

His statement was eerily similar to the declaration of American President Donald Trump, who shocked the world by claiming that “very fine people” on both sides were undermined by a few bad people in both the alt-right and, in Trump’s words, the “alt-left.”

Most Tory caucus members will likely follow their leader in finally refusing to do interviews with The Rebel.

Earlier in the week, in a CBC interview, Conservative analyst Rick Anderson confirmed that 75 per cent of the caucus is already declined invitations.

But Conservative MPs who were dancing with the The Rebel, including the leader, depend on religious conservatives for their electoral base. Scheer himself courted that cohort in his successful bid to overtake libertarian Max Bernier for the Tory leadership.

Former Stephen Harper aide Hamish Marshall, who managed Scheer’s leadership campaign, served until recently as a director of Rebel News.

Scheer’s unexpected win was predicated on courting the sizeable right-wing contingent in his caucus, the group that until last week were key to Rebel messaging.

Within the Tories, a group concerned by the current right wing drift of the party has been meeting secretly to consider alternatives.

Meanwhile, emboldened racists are demonstrating across Canada too. An anti-Muslim rally in Calgary last month was to be followed by an anti-immigrant Vancouver gathering in front of city hall last Saturday.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson decried the event but said he was powerless to stop it because of laws governing free speech. Both events were organized by anti-Muslim groups seeking a return to “European-based” immigration.

The University of Toronto is attempting to halt a similar Sept. 14 rally. University officials say the event will not be allowed on campus, but organizers are still advertising it, without citing a specific location.

During his leadership, Scheer vowed to cut funding from universities that do not permit “free speech” on campus.

When mid-September rolls around, the Tory leader may have to revisit that pledge.

Unlike Donald Trump, Scheer won’t get away with playing both sides of this story.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.