EDITORIAL – How could you, America? How could you possibly do such a thing?
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
FOUR YEARS AGO, I went to bed thinking Joe Biden had lost the election to Donald Trump. To my great joy, I woke up to find out he had made a near-miraculous comeback with late votes in some battleground states to pull it out of the fire.
That’s not going to happen this time. At this writing, with almost all states counted, Trump sits on the verge of one of the most remarkable, undeserved and sadly ridiculous political comebacks of all time. To use one of his favourite phrases, “Never seen anything like it.”
The writing was on the wall at 9:36 p.m. (our time) when he won Georgia. There were only five battleground states to go, and Trump was leading in all of them. At 9:44 p.m., Kamala Harris’ campaign announced she wouldn’t be making a speech tonight, and would comment in the morning instead.
At 11:06, Trump took Pennsylvania and it was all but over.
In a half-hour ramble that started just before 11:30, he bragged at length about his “magnificent” victory and never once mentioned Harris; never a gracious word about a worthy opponent. He had, he said, “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
Millions of people — of which I was one — approached Nov. 5, 2024 with optimism that Vice President Harris could succeed in keeping this terrible man from regaining power. And become the first woman in the job, and mixed race to boot.
After all, even though she entered the race late after Joe Biden’s implosion, she ran an excellent campaign, a mostly positive campaign, one of hope and “not going back.” Trump, on the other hand, became more and more unhinged, irrational, racist, nasty, vengeful. And yet, somehow, he’s going to be president again.
How could this possibly happen? How could our great neighbour be so out of touch with reality about what Donald Trump says and represents? How could they ignore what he will bring to the highest office in the United States: mass deportation, dismantling of affordable healthcare, removal of abortion rights, retribution, incoherent ramblings, lies, ignoring climate change, probable removal of anti-COVID vaccination programs, massive tariffs on imports, abandonment of the people of Ukraine, branding of dissenters as “enemies,” the erosion of democracy. Not to mention he’s a convicted felon who will now likely be able to avoid facing justice for the many legal cases against him.
He will carry out his great mission with family members back in places of influence, no doubt, and with Elon and RFK Jr. and J.D. Vance.
It would be so nice if we could simply watch this from afar and not have to worry about it, if we could simply observe that the American people are getting what they asked for, what they deserve, and it’s up to them to live with it for the next four years.
But that’s not how it will work. All of the worst things about this man will deeply affect us here at home. We, too, have to live with him all over again, and it won’t be pretty.
Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Common Sense Won, Child Mutilators Lost, U’r Safe Again
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How many unwanted children have you taken in and are raising?
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That isnt actually an ‘opinion’ … is it?
Smacks more of troll bot
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What is a real concern is that former Prime Minister Stephen Harper supported President elect Donald Trump. In doing so he supported all the disgusting and repulsive items you itemized about Trump in your editorial.
The former Prime Minister also supports Pierre Poilievre so Mr. Poilievre by way association also supports Trump.
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Sorry about your TDS Mel. I heard Pfizer they are working on a cure.
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Democracy has spoken…for the “Marxists lunatics” the tribe is after you!
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Woke tears are being shed on sidewalks, kitchen floors and desks across America.
This election is a sign of significant realignment of politics in America. Democrats will need to have frank conversations with themselves, and if they hope to win in the future, figure out why they’ve lost the votes of youth and non-whites (examples are obvious and abundant). That presumes of course that the system doesn’t get dismantled over the Trump presidency and that there are subsequent elections.
Democrats have only themselves to blame. The pandering to the most outrageous woke impulses have led them to this result. A cautionary tale for the rest of the democratic West, lest a similar thing take hold in other countries.
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The American political culture is well entrenched above the 49th parallel. They are not attacking Pierre Poilievre policies but his character. The lie is repeated until it becomes the truth. The Hollywood went to work on Trump to make him a target for an assassin. Comedians like Colbert, Kimmel and the Hollywood Mafia De Niro and even (Hanoi Jane) labelled Trump Putin’s “useful idiot”. This template was used over and over again on every political leader who opposed us and wanted to revise history of their country and reshape the world. The media fed us a diet of how we look not how we think regarding the rest of humanity particularly the North American worker They elected Trump to fix the economy that NAFTA has destroyed in USA and in Canada
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why would he mention a candidate who did not even show up to thank her workers at the rally she said she would be at? Stick to local politics, Mel. You show a lot of weaknesses when you write about America- double standard is just one of them.
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I didn’t find it surprising that she didn’t make a speech last night, as the 270 threshold hadn’t officially been reached at that point. This has happened before in presidential elections, and she will speak today.
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Do you understand what a double standard means? The irony of using this phrase in defence of Trump is comical. The man who said, grab them by the pussy, there were very fine people on both sides, laziness is a trait in blacks, shit hole countries, the election is rigged, they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, etc., etc., etc. That’s not worthy of rebuke? The man, whom was having an ongoing affair with a playboy centrefold whilst his wife was nursing a newborn baby, cheated on his mistress with a porn star, that’s not worthy of disapproval. You draw the line at not saying thank you to her supporters in the worst night of her political life and having the audacity in having them wait until the next morning for them to hear her thank you’s. That’s the bar for her, really? Trump still refuses to concede defeat in an election and instigated an insurrection, you’ll ignore that b/c, well that’s different? Do you see the double standard?
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What keeps going through my mind is if the Democrats had nominated Bernie Sanders and he had been President instead of Joe Biden last term, bringing new light and hope and actually progressive policies to help the average citizen, would Trump have won this time?
I blame the Democratic Party for this mess. They nominated a do-nothing, do-what-I’m-told candidate and his presidency was only remarkable for its lack of anything positive or proactive and its nasty support of Israel’s genocide upon the Palestinians. Then while Kamala Harris was running, the Democrats still refused to stand up to Netanyahu, as most of their supporters wanted.
Trump and the Republicans didn’t deserve to win, but Harris and the Democrats deserved to lose, imo.
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I have always thought that many Americans were ignorant.
This result shows how much.
When Putin starts raining bombs on us will our big brother say it’s fake news?
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Mel, I see you did not sleep well last night. In the next four years lots of people will wake up from their long sleep including the political left that needs to wake up and re-read Shelly’s poem “The Mask of Anarchy” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_Anarchy.
I have always believed that “poetry, music, literature, contribute very special power” in finding the truth, the Achilles Heel of the government that manipulates society. In the next four years I hope that the media finds it as well and understands that if Biden, Harris, Clintons and Trump are the best that USA has they and we are in deep trouble.
As Sagan said we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken.
The people of the United States elected Trump just like the Germen people elected Hitler, just like the German people and the people of the EU fought for Hitler, did the evil things for Hitler, that some in our own nation call “Freedom Fighters” and salute them in parliament.
It was not Hitler that had all of Europe, the present EU, marching East, West and South. For the past 120 years an entire industry, of falsehoods produced by the media corporations and institutions worked to increase the power of the lie with a conspiracy of silence.
A nation just a month ago abused an old man with dementia claiming that he was suited to be president surprises you that they elected another old man on a say so of porn stars and ass swinging actresses to whitewash their dirty laundry.
The bamboozled rejected Snowden, Assange, Hersh and accepted champions of democracy, porn stars, and clients of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s, “pimp” for Lolita Island where Bill Clinton’s and many other prominent Americans names are prominent. What is it that some don’t see what Melinda Gates saw?
Why is it so hard for the Media to understand that a nation devoid of free and fair elections, and freedom of speech, and morality cannot claim to bring freedom to others.
You dismiss society’s need for the truth with insults, personal attacks, and disqualifications, as you are doing now with J.D. Vance, and spread the official narrative with the question “How could you America”?
Why are you fighting so hard against the truth? The power of the lie infiltrated almost all aspects of society in America, its culture, including political rhetoric, education, film, television, literature and music which the Media ignored. These media Trojan Horses divided the world into ‘thinks and think-nots.
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You don’t get the moniker “Ugly Americans” for nothing, you have to earn it. This is who Americans are, as a nation they’re ugly, repugnant, amoral. Individually, sure they’re pretty much the same as any other person, but put them in a group and the “Ugly American” comes to surface. This is who they are, they can’t help themselves.
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Unbelievable … and the result is … thats it.
And I don’t blame trump, he’s just the idiot and the opportunist. I blame entirely the American populous for this. How could you?
All respect lost … all of it. You did it once, we in the rest of the world winced but eventually forgave you. You had your reasons, anti Hilary whatever, ok.
Even after what the orange blob did every day while in office, the laws he broke, the damage he did, the dictators he cozied up with, the obvious and unhidden corruption he committed.
Then you threw him out, we thought great … its over.
Now?
Oh man … no … this time, this was on purpose.
To America … f off.
Signed,
The world.
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I feel your pain. I will never understand.
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