TORONTO – Ahh, the art of the ultimate insult hurled against your opponent in the quest for support among the “great unwashed”. To hone that “skill” is to achieve the reward of winning the election. Anything else would appear as collateral sham passing for political programs aimed at improving the human condition – not to be confused with “human rights”. After the Republican display of “we are the greatest” at their Convention, the Democratic party is putting on its version of “no, we are”. 

I had to remind myself that this was a show, and, that once it was over, people would lapse into a quasi-comatose state of indifference, witness the ever-declining participation rate manifested in voter turn-out. I turned off after listening to Senator Bernie Sanders and Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois belt out why the USA (indeed, the World) needs the values of the Democratic Party.

Sanders, at his Evangelical best, preached a “needs and must” platform enumerating the full spectrum of a Marxist-Leninist, pacifist anti-capitalist, “make the rich pay their fair share” – collectivist agenda, surely designed to make everyone wonder whether he was indeed still in the USA. The crowd went silent after the second “we need”.

In what must classify as a great irony in scheduling, he was followed by a pompous, unrepentant, Billionaire (worth in excess of 3 Billon USD), Governor Pritzker, whose sole mission seems to have been to downgrade Trump’s net worth and praise woke values: “we are woke, not weird”, adding and “not stupid” for a good measure. The crowd shut him out too.

Former Presidents and Holywood types who lent their support for the now Democratic presidential candidate former Vice president Kamala Harris, were, aside from their “moral” support, hardly beacons of righteous rationale a Harris candidacy. Their own records were replete with political missteps and disastrous war inducing disruptive foreign/economic policies and their consequent social disruption – at home and abroad.

If democracy is about responsibility, accountability and working towards a collective goal there must be time for assessing value for input: who did what with their time at the helm – were they worth our trust? Name calling and buck-passing are a poor substitute for that evaluation.

The USA is a leader on the world stage, like them or not: it is the biggest economy by GDP; the most powerful military (equal to the next 10 countries combined); its access to vital resources is unsurpassed; its ability to educate and care for its citizens is still a standard to which many countries aspire. It still marginalizes and criminalizes at unacceptable rates.

Yet, it has elected a Black President and a Black Female Vice president. It just might be time to take stock of what makes a good leader without lashing out with diatribes laced with gender ideologies and pigmentation politics. Canadians take heed.