Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 17, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A7 THINK TANK PERSPECTIVES EDITOR: BRAD OSWALD 204-697-7269 ? BRAD.OSWALD@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ? WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A7 THURSDAY DECEMBER 17, 2020 Ideas, Issues, Insights CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES/TNS The presidential aspirations of Republicans such as former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley will be stymied by the looming possibility of a 2024 run by Donald Trump. Graceful exit unlikely for Trump W HAT do you think will happen to Donald Trump once he finally vacates the White House on Jan. 20? Will he simply squirrel himself away at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida? Will he content himself with spending most days playing golf and relaxing beside the pool? Is there a chance that he could immerse himself in the creation of his own TV network or media empire? There is always the prep work for a presidential library and the prospect of a lucrative speaking tour. But I somehow think that he has bigger plans. Initially, Trump is likely to have his hands full with a slew of legal challenges and criminal investigations. He also has outstanding loans to- talling some US$400 million that will be coming due in the near future. And no political memoir, however much anticipated, can demand that kind of signing bonus or advance. It's also worth noting that many Republicans in Congress (and at the state level) would like nothing better than for Trump to quietly exit the political stage - and to never return. There are other ambitious Republicans, such as Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri or former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who have their eyes squarely set on winning the party's presidential nomination in 2024. There is a strong likelihood, however, that Trump is also setting his sights on re-entering the fray in 2024 - not unlike Grover Cleveland's second-term presidency in 1893. Now, four years is an awful long time in politics. And many things can happen between January 2020 and November 2024. But as marketing professor Tim Calkins of Northwestern University explains, "There's no reason to think that Donald Trump will act like any former president that we've ever seen." He went on to tell BBC News, "He will leave the pres- idency with a brand in some ways just as power- ful as it was when he came into the presidency." Branding aside, there's a reason why Trump will never admit that he lost the 2020 presidential elec- tion: he wants to fundraise for his political action committee (PAC), to lay the groundwork for his electoral comeback in 2024 and to soak up as much media attention as he can before the end of his term. Indeed, much of what happens to Trump will depend on the oxygen that he receives from the mass media. Will Fox News still be interested in what a former U.S. president has to say? Will he still be able to masterfully manipulate the journal- istic pack as he has done for the last four years? What about his almost 90 million Twitter fol- lowers? Will they continue to stay loyal? Outside of the Oval Office, will anyone still care about Trump's latest Twitter-storm or outrage? There is, of course, the possibility that once Trump leaves the presidency, his influence will inevitably wane over time. He just won't have the power anymore to implement the favourite agenda items of his erstwhile political base. Moreover, he does have a track record that is not exactly stellar - especially when it comes to mitigating the deadly coronavirus. He will also be leaving the U.S. economy in tatters, having failed to cobble together a desperately needed relief package and only added fuel to the fire when it came to dividing Americans against themselves. It seems to me, then, that the critical questions are: can Trump retain influence with his politi- cal base and the Republican Party? Can he still mobilize his followers to do what he tells them? And will he still be able to demand loyalty from Republican politicians by instilling fear in them? In the short term, the first real test for Trump won't come until the midterm congressional elec- tions in 2022. Will he be able to mobilize his base to back a slate of Trump-approved Republican candidates? Stated differently, will Trump still be in a position to swing the House of Representatives to the Republican side and retain control of the Senate? The electoral outcomes in 2022 will go some way toward demonstrating Trump's staying power - or his dwindling political clout. It will also be a key barometer of whether Trump still has the electoral heft to be competitive in 2024. One thing, though, is for certain: Trumpism will live on in some form or another. Simply put, the core policies of economic nationalism, anti- elite populism, isolationism and anti-immigrant sentiment will remain for some time. Remember, Trump garnered some 74 million votes in November. That is more votes than any other Republican presidential candidate in his- tory (and more minority votes as well). They will undoubtedly be looking for someone to channel their fears, frustrations and grievances in the 2024 presidential election. And who better than the cult leader himself? Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown. TRC anniversary marked by little progress IT shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that many of the recommendations of the Truth and Recon- ciliation Commission still remain on the shelf fi ve years after being released. This is after all a country slow to recognize its deeply embedded racism and the long-term impact of colonialism on Indigenous people. In Manitoba, Premier Brian Pallister's musings about the federal government's rollout of the CO- VID-19 vaccine and his outspoken stance on night hunting becoming a "race war" are two examples of how reconciliation at the provincial level may be a long way off. Earlier this month, Pallister complained openly about the federal government's plan to give vulner- able populations priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine, claiming it might shortchange Manitobans in favour of Indigenous folks. He was criticized heavily for creating an us-versus-them dichotomy in his remarks, but he would not back down. Three years ago, Pallister also came under fire for suggesting that Indigenous and non- Indigenous people hunting at night have become embroiled in a race war with "Young Indigenous guys going out and shooting a bunch of moose because they can. Because they say it's their right. It doesn't make any sense to me." Perhaps someone should have provided the premier of the province with the largest Indigenous population in Canada a tutorial on Indigenous fishing and hunting rights. The ongoing battles over these rights for In- digenous people are not confined to Manitoba. If there needs to be more proof that reconciliation hasn't been fully embraced, you only need to look at the current disputes in Nova Scotia. Pictou Landing Chief Andrea Paul called RCMP after reports that shots were fired this week in the area of that N.S. First Nations com- munity. The shots were fired at a lobster fisher- man, who was not injured. The lobster season in Nova Scotia has been violent, with attacks against the Mi'kmaq moderate-livelihood fisheries which have been decried by many commercial lobster fishers who think lobster fishing should only oc- cur within the federally regulated season. This is the first escalated incident in Pictou Landing, but in October, a dispute with lobster fishers with the Sipekne'katik First Nation saw a van set on fire and traps destroyed at a facility in Middle West Pubnico. In a statement following a meeting with the As- sembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw Chiefs to talk about the lobster dispute in September, Minister of the Department of Oceans and Fisheries Bernadette Jordan and Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Carolyn Bennett spoke about reconciliation. "Reconciliation is a Canadian imperative and we all have a role to play in it," the ministers' statement said. "What is occurring does not ad- vance this goal, nor does it support the implemen- tation of First Nation treaty rights, or a produc- tive and orderly fishery." But those are just words - reconciliation remains ephemeral. Finally, this week, we saw another glance at where we are in putting the TRC into action. In a Thunder Bay courtroom, a 21-year-old man was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter in the death of Barbara Kentner, a 34-year-old mother from Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation. Court heard that Brayden Bushby, 18 years old at the time, was the passenger in a vehicle in Janu- ary 2017 which passed by Kentner and her sister walking at the side of the road. Bushby decided to throw a trailer hitch out the window at her. It hit her in the stomach and Bushby was heard laughing by one of the occupants of the vehicle. Both Kentner and her sister heard him say that he "got one." Kentner was admitted into hospital, and eventually died from her injuries in July 2017. The decision to try Bushby on the lesser charge of manslaughter rather than second-degree mur- der was decried by many, including the MPP who represents the area in which Kentner lived. NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa, who represents the predominantly Indigenous riding of Kiiwetinoong in northwestern Ontario, says the justice system continues to fail Indigenous people. "The killing of Barbara Kentner is not a single incident, but part of a long-standing pattern of several cases in Thunder Bay, and throughout Ontario, involving the murders and disappear- ances of Indigenous people," Mamakwa said. "Thunder Bay continues to be an unsafe place for Indigenous people - especially women." Bushby will be sentenced in February. Mean- while, he's been released on bail. These incidents tell us that five years later, reconciliation hasn't happened. Those who have survived the legacy of residential schools are demanding that Canadians look in the mirror to recognize the role they've played in a country based on settler colonialism. This means being an ally and pushing back against the racist denial of Indigenous rights. And it means it's time for the elite to do more than pay lip-service to the tenets of the TRC, and to start living them. Shannon Sampert is a political scientist and media consultant: www. mediadiva.ca. shannon@mediadiva.ca Twitter: @CdnMediadiva Maybe Brexit isn't so bad after all WITH the end of the year approaching, I have been thinking about which of my views have changed over the last 12 months. Here's one: I no longer think Brexit is a bad idea. I'm not ready to endorse it, because I don't feel com- fortable with the nationalism and populism surrounding so much of the Leave movement, but I no longer wish the referendum had gone the other way. To be clear, I still believe the pro-Remain arguments I and many others made four years ago. Even two years ago, I would have argued that the U.K. is better off as part of the European Union, for all the well-known pro-trade, pro-migration and pro-co-operation reasons. The problem is that, especially in the last year, the EU has become a less workable political union, especially for the U.K. COVID-19 has helped to clarify my think- ing. Even though a pandemic is obviously an international issue, many of the most effective responses have been at the national level. It is noteworthy that the U.K. approved the Pfizer- BioNTech vaccine for distribution before the EU, and to the benefit of the British people. That national approval process was fully compatible with EU law, although the EU is seeking ever-greater regulatory powers and in- deed regulatory cartelization over time. When rapid, emergency responses become salient, the case for staying in the EU weakens. A second issue concerns fiscal policy. Projected EU budget deficits could run as high as nine per cent of GDP, due largely to the pandemic. These deficits are largely unavoidable, and the U.K. is doing the same. Still, patching together the euro zone with budget deficits of that size is going to absorb a great deal of the EU's energies in the coming years. What if it is necessary to forgive a lot of Italy's debt to hold the euro zone together? Can you imagine a messier and more conten- tious debate? To be clear, this isn't anybody's "fault"; a common currency can't work without fiscal rules of some kind, to preserve the integrity of the monetary union. But it's a safe bet the EU will be obsessed with matters relatively distant from British concerns for the foresee- able future. From the U.K.'s point of view, the EU's focus is going to seem increasingly irrel- evant. If you join a bridge club but everyone else there is arguing about chess, you might start to wonder if your attention is pointed in the right direction. Then there is the rise of illiberalism in Hungary, and to a lesser extent Poland, which is perhaps the EU's biggest problem right now. The EU is seeking to withhold aid from those nations for weakening their independent judi- ciaries, and they are in turn threatening to veto the union's US$2.2-trillion budget and recovery package, which requires unanimous support. In response, the EU is considering approving that package outside its normal procedures. More likely than not, a compromise will be found. But you have to wonder how long a well-functioning EU can tolerate a non-free nation such as Hungary. The EU certainly does not appear on the verge of kicking Hun- gary out (Germany, for one, would not wel- come such a move, given its strong interests in Eastern Europe). But the challenges to the EU model pre- sented by nations such as Hungary are much worse than they were in 2016, when the Brexit referendum was held. Even if the EU succeeds in pushing Hun- gary around - and I hope it does - it is not necessarily a good outcome for the U.K. Such a policy would require weakening the EU's unanimity requirements on many decisions, and that is something the U.K. should feel un- comfortable about. If Hungary can be pushed around, so can the U.K. Finally, southeast England is emerging as a global technology centre, especially in ar- tificial intelligence and biomedical research. That's great news for the U.K., but how does it square with the EU's long-term pursuit of tougher regulations on tech companies, higher privacy standards for platforms and apps, and more stringent regulations on AI algorithms? Will the U.K. find its interests represented by such a process? Will it be able to develop AI innovations and products without requir- ing prior permission from Brussels? Maybe so, but the mere existence of this uncertainty could hold back British efforts and delay investment decisions. Many Americans, especially conservatives, underrate the value of the European Union. It has helped to maintain peace, stability and relatively free trade for decades. But the events of the last year have prompted me to rethink its virtues. I still don't view Brexit as a great decision, but neither do I see it as a terrible one. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University and writes for the blog Marginal Revolution. His books include "Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero." - Bloomberg PETER MCKENNA SHANNON SAMPERT TYLER COWEN A_07_Dec-17-20_FP_01.indd A7 2020-12-16 5:37 PM ;