1st off, I voted for the Jill Stein/ Ajamu Baraka ticket simply because they were the only presidential ticket consistently acknowledging the fact that racism against African American people is still a major issue in America.. I also liked their focus on working towards replacing existing energy industry/jobs with renewable/sustainable energy industry and jobs..
I've personally never felt either the Republicans or Democrats have ever had any real interest in doing anything other than maintaining the status quo, at best. These are the parties that represent bovine, placated, out of touch America. I think that the nominees for both major parties showed that nothing was going to change in that regard, so I couldn't vote for either of them in good conscience.
This is a 3-section piece.: section 1 is on what I didn't like about Trump, section 2 is on what I didn't like about Clinton, and section 3 is about how I feel about the outcome of the election.
Section 1: Donald Trump
The man is an overt racist, misogynistic, (probably) homophobic blowhard. I don't even have anything to say about the man, really.. He is what he is, and he hasn't exactly tried to cover that up. In that sense, I can almost respect him. Almost. The man talks about how African Americans are "living in hell" while his whole support base and his personal code of ethics are exactly the reason that that "hell" exists. Since the man actually got elected, I'll save most of my comments on him for section 3.
Section 2: Hillary Clinton
My main problem with Hillary Clinton (I still seriously don't know if I'm supposed to refer to her a H. Clinton, or H. Rodham-Clinton) is that she never went to the African-American communities where police were (and are) shooting, and sometimes killing, black people.. Adults and children. She expected the African American community to rally around her even though she put little to no effort into courting that community. She took African Americans votes for granted. She took their lives for granted the second she boiled them down to a guaranteed vote that she didn't have to work for to win. She said over and over again how necessary the African American vote was to her candidacy, but what did she do to earn the vote? Went to Flint once or twice and had Jay-Z and Beyonce come up on stage? And that's "reaching out"?
In general, I just lost whatever little bit of respect I had for her as soon as she tried to go "bully comment for bully comment" with Trump. She was supposed to be the smart, experienced candidate, and she decided to act like she was on a reality show with Trump instead. She surrounded herself with celebrities to make herself look "cool" instead of doing the real work to actually EARN votes. . She was a hypocrite to call Trump out on his misogyny, but then show up to Jimmy Kimmel's show to laugh with him (reminding you all: Jimmy Kimmel hosted a show called "The Man Show", which featured such great bits as "Don't send your daughter to college, send her to Juggy University"[not safe for...anyone anywhere if they have good taste and a sincere disdain for misogyny] , and airing footage, nationally, of scantily clad girls jumping on trampolines...EVERY EPISODE. For four years.). How can you be the feminist, woman-empowering candidate, but you can't call out one of the worst public misogynists of our generation? I can't be cool with that. I couldn't bring myself to vote for someone who could write a whole page of vitriol against a cartoon frog, but was too scared to call out one talk show host, and was too scared to call out homicidal racist police. What's "progressive" about any of that?
Section 3: "Survey saaaaaaaaayyysss..."
At the end of the day, no matter how much I dislike both of them, one of those two above was/is going to be president.
As it turned out, that one was Donald Trump. I'm sure there's a-million-and-one reasons or excuses as to how that happened. The fact of the matter is that...well, he won. And, to a certain extent, I believe he's the president America deserves. I'll explain:
Look at American culture. America is consumed with the desire to live a life of leisure from sun up to sun down. America spends countless hours watching "reality" tv shows where rich people yell and scream at each other over petty things while driving expensive cars and living in multi-million dollar homes. Every one has an iPhone, so they can be up on all the latest gossip and also tweet/text their friends about said gossip in real time. America votes for a black president, but still follows black people around in stores because America still thinks African Americans are predisposed to stealing (even when they're not poor or criminals) and general petty crime. America still shoots a black man for doing his job as a caretaker for an autistic man (see the story of Charles Kinsey from a few months ago) while letting someone like George Zimmerman walk free for killing a black teenager carrying some iced tea. Liberal, white America has had 8 years to help Black America overcome this kind of systemic, overt racism, but Liberal white America isn't really concerned with it. Liberal white America is concerned with the same things as their supposed polar opposites (Conservative white America). Their concerns are money, power, respect, biased 'justice' and general self-interest. Liberal white America wants to set up a tent in the Wall Street area over summer break between the end of undergrad years at an expensive private university and the beginning of grad years at an expensive private university and call that 'revolution'. They want to post selfies with a sign at a march they attended for 2 hours and then go home and play video games on all 4 different systems they own (not including iPhone games) on their big screen tv for 25 hours while eating $20 pizzas every other day and call themselves "warriors for justice" and "broke". Liberal white America gives their kids $50,000 cars for...graduating high school. For doing what they're supposed to do anyway. Liberal white America gets jobs as university professors and such, and then go off and practice racist, sexist, homophobic hiring practices as well as racist, sexist, homophobic treatment of students/employees/customers. And then liberal white America acts like SOMEHOW they're different than Conservative white America. The only difference I see between the two is that Conservative white America is at least honest about where they're coming from and who they are and how they feel about groups like minorities and the poor.
The results of this election, in my opinion, were more a result of liberal white America's lack of honesty with itself as well as its dishonesty with the rest of America.. I know where a Confederate flag waving white Conservative who calls me "n___er" stands. Like I said about Trump earlier in this post, I can ALMOST respect that more. The honesty. Because I come from a place of honesty myself (at least these days.. I wish I could say the same about my 20's). It's hard to respect someone who present themselves as educated, btu is really just an wanna-be-entertainer whose complete understanding of issues and social climate is a cutesy phrase like "Love Trumps Hate" and who claims poverty while spending more than I live off of in a year (approx. $15,000-$19,000 with the $19,000 figure based more on flexibility of credit card & good credit in general. If you don't include credit card, I live off of $1200 a month, $500 of which goes to rent. I spend, on average, $45/mo. on utilities & $35/mo on a basic prepaid phone) on JUST their car, or JUST their entertainment (iPhones, video games, pizza/beer for movie nights, etc.). Be real with yourself. Be real with others. Who are you really? What are your REAL ultimate goals? Justice? Equality? Freedom? Or do you just want popularity, money, and as much leisure as possible while doing the minimum amount of work? Are you really about helping people, or are you just trying to have people pat you on the back? That's why someone like Bill Maher has me laughing. I like his show just because he plays himself. Like, he's going to spend all this time talking about government programmes and need for funding and economic consequences and the Trump Thunderdome we're all about to live under....and then starts his new season off with a brand new set for his show. With like, a backdrop of tv's (that only show his logo) that rises into the air to reveal his panel table. That's...that contraption is worth more than my life. Like, literally, my life. Same for other people. It's just like...a perfect snapshot of the disconnect that rich white liberal America has with reality. We know rich white conservative America is disconnected. They basically tell you that much. It goes back to "at least they're honest about it".
Most of you are in it for the creature comforts. Most of you want the easy way out. And your president-elect reflects that. You president-elect is the barometer of the zeitgeist. A reflection of who you are, with or without a mask of false-compassion on.
I feel Obama's presidency was the same way. I love the man for being the first African-American president and for handling that job with such dignity, while staying true to his core ideals. Even though I didn't always agree with his policy (eg; I thought Obamacare was a good idea that was horribly thought-out and even more horribly executed), I could always respect him because he WAS so dignified and articulate in expressing that policy. I felt bad for Obama in some ways, because I saw how he was a reflection of Liberal white America's insistance that it was open-minded enough to vote for an African-American, yet that vote was almost always based off of one-word slogans and attractive graphics on campaign items being handed out and sold. People were so eager to show how open minded they were that they gave the man a Nobel Peace Prize for.....getting elected. Even Obama thought that was...odd. In my opinion, that reflected liberal white America's unreasonable level of expectation for what Obama's presidency would result in. I believe that (consciously or not) caused him to force some things through (eg; a poorly planned health care system reform). America wanted hope and change so badly, they tried to personify it (unreasonably) into one president who was expected to hand them the world on silver platter while they lounged on the couch and watched fake news programmes like the Daily Show and Real Time (both of which I like, by the way, but I recognize them for what they are: comedy, not real news) and called that being informed and politically active.. It's telling that America is now, federally at least, a majority Conservative government in the Executive and Legislative branches, and will possibly be majority Conservative in it's Judiciary branch in the next few years. It's telling that, since Obama couldn't give them everything they wanted gift-wrapped and free-of-effort, all of the people who said they were all about change and activism either didn't show up or went about the business of changing their political affiliation. I didn't even mean to get into all that about Obama's administration, but there you go.
My main concern with a Donald Trump presidency, outside of the hate-mongering I mentioned in Section 1 (eg; racism) that he represents is primarily economic. And it very much ties into why I say "America deserves this". My main concern is economic. Think about how we buy all of these things we don't need. TV, extra TV, big house we can't afford without 30 year payments we can never fully pay, etc. In an attempt to emulate the image of success we're fed (via, amongst other things, the ubiquity of celebrity "reality" tv & social media). How much debt do we, as a society, accrue in an attempt to have as much as we can, in the immediate present, with the minimal amount of work and maximum amount of leisure. Think about that, and think about what a isolationist, xenophobic hate-mongering government means on a global economic scale. American banks, and they debt they own, are ultimately owned in debt to many of the countries and regions America is poised to isolate itself from. These countries, if they feel a Trump presidency is threatening to their existence and general well being, can decide to collect, or to cut American banks off. American banks won't be dry, but they won't have enough to cover basic banking functions on a suddenly-extremely-truncated supply of international fiat exchange. They will have to collect much more, much sooner, at much higher rates (with accompanying steep increases in interest rates). If Trump makes good on breaking trade agreements, nations will react. If he refuses to acknowledge the delicate balancing act that is foreign diplomacy in a global economy, the nation will suffer economically. A certain amount of allowing refugees in is to ease the burdens of countries that simply cant afford to help them. Those countries have allies, who themselves have debts to more powerful economies. Isolating ourselves from the Arabian/Islamic states or Europe or China or any region/country dependent on the agreements and income generated from America's place in this greater machine already in place.. While I didn't like Hillary, I know she at least respected the boundaries and had the ability to maintain our place in that grander scheme, and could have possibly helped along in further integrating us into the inevitable global economy (not necessarily global government, but certainly global economy) that is already in place. The rest of the world has far more money, natural resources, and people than a lone-wolf ultra-conservative, isolationist America. And on top of that, we owe them some very large amounts of money. A Trump presidency, and it's ultra-conservative executive, legislative, and possibly judiciary foundation and ideology, will most assuredly be poised to make such a giant mistake as to alienate the rest of the super-powers and their not-so-super allies. My views on this might be tainted by a lack of understanding of the global market and international trade agreements and such, but it just seems kind of way too late in the "international economics game" to all of a sudden start bucking the peace.
I think, in many way, the above logic can be applied to more social, and less economic, issues. In general, the world is moving towards a place of more tolerance. Due to geographic mobility and ubiquity of devices that allow us to interact with anyone on Earth at any time in as many ways as we can dream up, we are forever and completely intertwined as an international culture. On a global scale, we are more socially aware and more ready to begin the process of understanding ourselves through the eyes of others with what we once thought were fundamental differences. Globally we are seeing a trend towards the acknowledgement that philosophical (including religious), racial, sexual, gender, and other such divides aren't such great divides after all. People are seeing that their gay or "ethnic" or hippie or whatever neighbour likes the same things, gets miffed at the same things and is really only different in a few ways. Isolationism on the level a Trump presidency has promised would upset that equally important balance. And I don't think the economic or social balances are as independent of each other as a Trump/hard-line conservative government might think they are.
End of the day, I'm a mathematician (or at least a student of mathematics) and I only know so much and can spend so much time thinking about politics and social climate. I admit to my bias along the line of that limited view point. Most of my political viewpoint is shaped by my stance on racial justice and racial equality and African American Empowerment.
All said and done, from my limited and personal perspective: I feel like so much of this came down to the fact that so much of America values entertainment and catchy slogans and hate/anger (because those make for the best entertainment, apparently) and leisure over any kind of real progress and the work that goes in to actually making the world a better place where we can all be the people we want to be, individually AND collectively.
Peace to the people who's lives were ALWAYS going to be on the line no matter who won. Whether that be poor African Americans, poor members of 1st Nation tribes, poor Latino/Latinas and even some of you poor white folks who aren't about hate and are just trying to get by. All those people. Of all genders and sexual and philosophical persuasions. All the people marginalized by BOTH liberals and conservatives. I always have love for all of you. Peace.
As an aside, I know I'm more...confrontational?... in my tone than I should be if I'm trying to make a point in a diplomatic way. I'm really trying hard to adjust that tone to a more diplomatic tone (see the "word on language" post), but while I'm working on my tone, I still have to comment on these things and that tone will rear its ugly, confrontational head once in a while. I can't be silent on something like this. If I waited until I learned how to "talk right", I might never get to the point where I address issues like this. So, I apologize if I use offensive or overly confrontational language. I don't want to alienate people or be unnecessarily rude. It's just my general lack of education and my poor upbringing coming to surface despite my best efforts and intentions. I apologize for the WAY I've said it, but not for what I've said, if that makes sense..
Last thing I'll add, I swear.. I want to better define what I meant by "out of touch America" when I used that phrase in the... preamble ramble?...of this piece.. I believe educated (especially UNIVERSITY educated) America is completely out of touch with uneducated America. I think this is EXACTLY why so many people identified with Trump despite of his very public shows of immoral behaviour. Between writing this (and I admit, this has all been written in "realtime", which is to say, I'm writing it as I go, not writing drafts & such. what you might call "off the dome", btu with spell check & google to fact check) and working on studying for the midterm/four-fifthsterm, I've thought about that divide. Especially with respect to my own story. I've seen both sides of the track, in terms of economic class and education. I never saw the furthest extremes of either side, but my pendulum swing had an arc large enough so as to allow me to see more than a blurred middle (which, I learned, tended to favour the educated, rich side of said metaphorical swing).
In post election coverage (noting I search for articles w/ AP, Reuters, and other mainstream sources as well as the occasional extremist source on any which side), I see a lot of people inn the educated, affluent communities, be they people of colour or white, completely shocked at the idea that, as I said before, they weren't handed a Hillary Clinton victory on a silver platter.. It is that exact sense of moral superiority that uneducated America finds so hypocritical. It's hard to take seriously the candidate that claims moral superiority while trying to hide her dirt. Trump was as dirty as a dirty rag in a dirt pile, and it was all public...but he never really tried to hide it or even attack it on any level higher than the political equivalent of two Kardashians fighting each other for ratings.. What I think liberal, educated, generally rich (not necessarily WEALTHY, but maybe making more than just ends meet) America lost track of was that things like the internet and increased geographical mobility (and thus increased access to more diverse experience and sources of education) made uneducated America educated, but without the rhetoric of the educated, wealthy class. It wasn't JUST that Hillary had the whole email/FBI investigation thing going. It's that she tried to cover it up and double talk it in the way politicians do. And, formerly, that would have worked. But now uneducated people can read articles (biased or not) and see the facts themselves. How they filter the facts is another matter, but it's that there ARE more facts available for them to filter. And the FACT is, Hillary Clinton was under investigation by the FBI (an extension of the government) and wasn't going to black communities or making protection of black people a priority in such a violent time for their community. I think the email thing bothered mostly uneducated, white America because it DID seem like a hypocrisy to them, that she would stand up and cast herself the most moral and experienced candidate while making a rookie/"noob" mistake with something so important as classified/protected government information/intelligence.. That's the way I've..well, filtered.. white working class America's (non-racially biased) opinion on Trump support: "If you have to choose between hypocrites, why not choose the hypocrite who favours you?". It's an echo of "If you have to vote for two evils, vote for the lesser of two evils." which tends to be the rallying cry for on-the-fence-voters that Democrats chant around election time.
I think for non-university educated African-Americans, it was the lack of direct community engagement and resorting to last minute tokenism that really resonated. African American turn out for Clinton/Dems was (as always) disproportionately high with respect to the size of the African American population in the larger American population. America forgets though, there's a disproportionately large group of African American adults (and even children) who can't vote in the first place because they caught a federal charge for non-violent, usually insignificant amounts of drugs. Including marijuana. People who had everything taken from them (years, money, family as a result of divorce due to absence durinng prison time, voting rights, etc.) for having maybe an ounce of marijuana are watching rich white Americans legally set up marijuana collectives/shops right in front of the world and they aren't going to jail, losing families, or losing their right to vote. And those people legally selling have POUNDS AND POUNDS in their presence at all times, not an ounce. So it looks hypocritical on the part of liberal white educated America to NOT take that into account, address it, and say "If you can buy recreational marijuana in Washington D.C., you should be able to vote even IF you had a non-violent marijuana charge that prohibits your ability to exercise your vote. And make that retroactive.". (Note, I did NOT say offenses relating to drugs other than marijuana. Heroin, meth, prescription opiods sold illegally, etc. are real killers. I support continued [but FAIR] enforcement against those hard drugs). Those African Americans who took those federal charges also have family and neighbours who are affected by that kind of biased sentencing (again, noting this is fact, that African Americans are, in terms of their population within the greater population, disproportionately sentenced/prosecuted in a more aggressive manner).
I honestly feel there is just as big a gap between university educated African Americans (UEAA) and non-university educated African Americas (NUEAA) as there is with their white counterparts. And it cuts a little deeper because, really and historically speaking, it wasn't THAT long ago that slavery ended. And social/economic mobility wasn't something that just happened once emancipation was ok by the government.. There was a SPOKEN bond between many in the times during and after slavery that "if we make it, we ALL make it". And that vow has been broken to the point where UEAA will walk right by any NUEAA with their nose high, no head nod no hello no nothing. But when UEAA needs someone or something to help them party, it's all about being buddies. You love Jay-Z because he's a celebrity, but you hate the people who are still what he once was. Jay-Z hasn't sold drugs since the early 90's, but he's STILL popular because that's what he raps about. He has other messages, but we can be honest that it was the gangster talk/ street swagger that made him popular. It's an image that still projects even through the "reformed" lens of his new reality as a legitimate business man. Educated America still hasn't accepted him or his message as legitimate business, lets just say. Obama, at least publicly, treated NUEAA as equals in a symbolic fashion by actually talking to people like Jay-Z and having a working knowledge in NUEAA culture and language and hopes and desires. It was something that was missing from the current Democratic run, and was never addressed. So, no,NUEAA voters weren't as enthusiastic about Hillary as they were Obama. They still turned out, but not as many and not as enthusiastically. Can you blame them? To have your first taste of real (symbolic, at least) equality in government, and then go back to a totally disconnected candidate?
There is just so much context that can be missed by being bogged down by the rhetoric and language and double-speak that seemingly comes with the territory in the world of politics and, if we're being honest, higher education in general. I think people understand that with any job/position where you have power over others, there will always be a certain level of disconnect, hypocrisy, and powerplays for more money. I think that average people just want the same ability to be hypocrites and eff-ups on occasion and still be able to get a degree or a job or both. If Hillary and Donald can both be major federal (alleged) criminals and have tons of money and expensive education, why can't the average American who has a bad temper due to PTSD they got from being injured in a war they didn't start? Why can't the petty, non-violent drug offender just trying to make ends meet do the same thing? If you can't see the hypocrisy in that, then it's no wonder you're still surprised this man Donald Trump is our president.
11/28/16 update:
Dear everuone saying this is the worst America has ever been: this isn't the worst it's been for America. Not even close. I'm sure, off the tops of our heads, we can ALL think of at least a few moments in America's history that were much worse. I think one thing people aren't realizing is that so much of what's happening now has always been happening in America. We're just more aware of everything that's going on because we're all on live feed now and we're all posting to a global audience via the internet now. A few things to note:
1) While hate-group membership has apparently risen recently [I'm paraphrasing SPLC and a few other similar sources there], it's important to note that membership in such groups is still significantly lower than other periods in our history (taking in to account that we're talking proportionality with respect to population growth]. The fact of the matter is now, unlike before, America has a whole wall of laws protecting minorities from violence, and we now have ways to provide concrete proof of rights violations via smart phones and such. If hate groups couldn't get away with blatant segregation and terrorizing groups of people in the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's....under presidents who actually had at least a fundamental knowledge of law...it's probably not going to happen now. Meaning I doubt that, in 2017, Night Riders in full Klan regalia (or even in regular clothes) are going to get away with killing people at will. I seriously doubt Dylann Roof will get off or be pardoned simply because Trump is president. Trump isn't smart, but he's not so stupid as to see that a mass murderer caught red-handed getting off or being pardoned would cause serious rioting at home and would bring about increased international scrutiny that Trump could ill-afford with his already-suspect abilities to be a capable national or international leader.
I think a lot of hate groups who think they're going to have a "field day" under a Trump presidency will be sorely disappointed, in other words. As I've said before, about many other things, we no longer live in 1776 and we'll never be able to get back there. Ever. I think the same thing holds for violence from the police. Too much is on camera now. The public wants more transparency from police. The police can't really go back to a time when they had a "street level dictatorship", so to speak.
2) I support the recount effort, but not because I think it will change the outcome. I just feel that if we're talking about something so important as a national election, it's probably not a bad idea to double-check tallies. Sort of like...you don't hand in a rough draft of a paper (the 1st attempt). You write a rough draft, check it over, make adjustments and such where necessary, and then you write a final draft. There should just naturally be a recount after an initial count just for the sake of being thorough and as error free as humanly possible.
3) Everybody just needs to be cool with one another, vigilant of cases of abuse of all kinds, and willing to speak up and act when something is afoul. It's really trite to say, and I personally hate platitudes. But if there's actions behind the words, it ceases to be a platitude.
"The Revolution", or whatever people say, isn't some single event that changes the world. It's a long process that involves actively working towards correcting the minutiae elements of society that work against progress. It involves a few broken bones, metaphorically and sometimes literally, in the pursuit of changing an ingrained social norm that has come to be identified as outdated and/or harmful. I think this goes back to the first point I made in this update: things have already changed and most people (the majority) don't want to go back to a more unenlightened time. Most people don't care what someone else believes or who they have sex with or what colour they are. Some people still have prejudices that negatively impact society, but in the end I believe that the majority of people aren't concerned about anything more than having a safe place in this world. Which also sounds trite, so I'll stop with this point before I consign myself to platitude-hell.
edit, 1/4/16: I think the (supposedly pending) repealing of Obamacare/ACA is beyond reactionary. and ridiculousness. While I have my own personal contentions with the programme, it's only just now really "getting off the ground". It's something that could and should be "tweaked", not outright discarded. Right now, the Republican led-Legislative/Executive axis is looking like the type of bandana-masked molotov-cocktail-throwing protesters who seem more interested in just destroying things they don't like than they are in actually working on making the system...well, work. They look like those people who go and start fire-bombing Nike stores because they don't like capitalism, without realizing they're destroying a place where members of the proletariat make wages necessary for survival. It's just another case where...I can't really see much difference between one extreme and it's opposing extreme. I don't think ACA is extreme, my argument against it was always that it wasn't necessarily a complete picture. It was a start, but it still needed/needs some adjustments and still needed to address certain issues (eg; a plan like the basic Oregon Health Plan does cover bills related to medical doctors and dentists, but doesn't cover vision care). To me, the problems with ACA were/are more based on it being incomplete when it was presented and less a case of it being a fundamentally flawed system. I think the current Conservative Axis in power will do itself, and the citizens of this country, a great disservice if they repeal ACA/Obamacare.
I want to say, also, about Obamacare... Most of the problems with it weren't policy problems. They were mostly technological problems. The computer system was (and is) very ambitious, and was bound to have a lot of mishaps. My biggest beef with the policy itself, besides the fact that it didn't really do much to address inequalities in actual types of health care available to poor VS. rich health care recipients, was funding. Funding problems were to be expected. And really, the only way to make the system work to its fullest potential was to raise taxes significantly, especially for those making that 1% cash (which, I'm to understand, is every wage over $200K per year.). Even now, you basically have to raise tax rates significantly to get the basic services (NOT INCLUDING Obamacare/ACA) to reach any kind of stability in the tax/benefit system.
2/13/17:: I wish we could trade Donald Trump for Justin Trudeau. The more I read about him, the more I like him. Anyone who's socially liberal scores big with me. He's fully aware of the spectrum of his constituency, in terms of its diversity (be it in terms gender, race, religion, whatever). He' s a prime example of some one who doesn't seem to be taking advantage of the privilege he was born into for his own gain (if I'm not mistaken, his father was a prominent Canadian politician), he seems to be genuinely using it to do good for his country (and not just one certain portion of his country). Nothing about him seems like it's all a front and he's going to pull off the sheep's clothing and bear his wolf-ish teeth. I liked that he stood tall and didn't seem even the least bit intimidated by The Bully In Chief today. If he stays true to himself through-out his term (and what I imagine will be his re-election, assuming he continues his current arc in public favourability), I personally believe he'll be the model for the 21st Century political figure: aware of the totality of his population and their needs, compassionate (but not to a fault), and not prone to knee jerk reactions. I've seen pictures and interviews actively participates in public events geared towards social equality (he marches in LGBT marches and other such events). He seems like he's as sincere as any politician could hope to be, and maybe even a bit more sincere than that. I think he's what I'd consider "Obama-plus": he's got all of the good qualities of Obama, and he's built something even a bit better off of that. I think the Canadian system work to his benefit. Canada just doesn't have the size and diversity of either population or inherent systemic problems/failures that the USA has. For instance, Canada's health care system is more successful specifically because they don't have the problems USA has in terms of size of population or income inequality. America has. Canada's population is slightly less than California's by about 2 million people. and a marginally (but not excessively so) lower national rate of income inequality. Obama didn't have those things working for him. He didn't have the more social-programme-friendly national tax system that Canada has. But I think Justin Trudeau could represent the mindset of taking the good points/laws, and building something better from them. Just an after the fact thought I wanted to pin to this post.