Life after Trump
Your extensive coverage of the US presidential election result conveys the painful reality that the Trump phenomenon is symptomatic of a dangerous dysfunction in global society (18 November).
The trouble is that US and global capitalism are going one way while the American people and the world population want to go another. And all the while the political right is doing what it always does – exploiting the masses for its own selfish gain.
In the meantime, the left still hasn’t worked out in a clear and actionable way what is happening to our society and so remains unable to secure a mass following at the very time the opportunity is there and its leadership is sorely needed.
The pity of this is that empty-headed bigots and demagogues like President-elect Trump, and One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson here in Australia, are stepping into the vacuum, deluding desperate voters that their stupid solutions to problems are the way forward.
It’s a right old mess – and unless the voices of reason and humanity can assert themselves in a politically effective way, it will end in tears.
We must brace ourselves for the dystopian nightmare.
Terry Hewton
Adelaide, South Australia
• With reference to your incisive editorial on the election of Donald Trump (18 November), I find one glaring omission. You observe that Trump “won most of the battleground states en route to a decisive Republican electoral college total exceeding 300”. This is an insult to democracy. As the last votes are counted, Hillary Clinton continues to increase her lead. How can the candidate who amasses a plurality be declared the loser?
The electoral college was devised late in the process of writing the constitution in 1787, and reflected the hopes and fears of a body who did not believe in one person, one vote. The same situation obtained in the 2000 election, when Al Gore lost the electoral college while winning over 500,000 more votes than George Bush.
This extreme example of iniquity in the electoral process may, however, yet accelerate the search for a solution. Under the increased Republican hegemony we face, the prospect of abolishing the electoral college through a constitutional amendment seems vanishingly small.
However, if individual states direct their electors to vote in accordance with the national popular vote, which is the states’ prerogative, the peculiar impact of the electoral college will be neutralised.
John L Geffroy
Las Vegas, New Mexico, US
• In my US professional society we do not elect the president. Instead, we elect a vice-president with the tacit understanding that he or she will become president in the following term. However, if the vice-president underperforms, there is always the opportunity to elect a different person as president. It has never happened but the opportunity is there. The system also gives the vice-president a greater role, and visibility and responsibility.
Perhaps that system would work for the United States. It might be a good safeguard and give the vice-president a more challenging post.
John Graham
Palo Alto, California, US
• So the Americans want to be great again. But they have eaten all the bison and deer. Bumping off all competition, they have mined all the gold, pumped out all the oil, drunk all the water and sucked out the fertility of the earth, asset stripping an entire continent and bloating themselves with unreserved greed.
Now they are looking to pig out again. Sadly, North America is now merely the remnants of the carcass of a verdant country. If, God forbid, there were to be a world war, it behooves us to fight it on this ravaged continent rather than someplace with food potential and respect for the magnificence of creation.
Jane Swann
Trelech, UK
• And I thought the US believed in democracy! The gentleman winner had millions fewer votes than the woman who lost. So, as the winner had forecast beforehand, the election was bent, but not in the lady’s favour, as he had claimed, but in his.
Derek Murphy
Bad Pyrmont, Germany
• I read the story China is going to the polls, but you’d barely notice it (18 November) while your page one piece reports that the definitely noticeable US election was won by Trump with fewer votes than Clinton. Meanwhile in the UK, it has taken the high court to require the prime minister to refer an important decision to the parliament dominated by her own party, which won only 37% of the votes.
Adrian Betham
London, UK
Trudeau’s long honeymoon
At the end of her story (Trudeau’s year-long honeymoon, 11 November), Ashifa Kassam makes a welcome point that the Canadian prime minister’s rhetoric needs to be backed by concrete action. Yet most media coverage, the Guardian included, can’t seem to shake the fascination with the youthful emperor’s shiny cloak.
Shorn of the rhetoric, Trudeau’s actions faithfully follow Stephen Harper’s blueprint of fossil-fuel expansion. Trudeau’s approval of a massive liquid natural gas project in western Canada will give a huge boost to fracking.
He is also pushing ahead with a massive hydroelectric project, Site C, which will displace First Nations and endanger the integrity of Wood Buffalo National Park, a World Heritage Site.
In the wake of the US election, it is more important than ever not to lower the bar on what we expect of our leaders. For significant change to happen on the ground, Canada needs more “tough love” from media and the global community.
Ana Simeon
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
These treaties are terrible
I was unable to decode the logic behind Natalie Nougayrède’s support for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (11 November), a logic which seemed to resort to a number of comparisons that did not hold water. For example, why had people protested against Ceta but not against a treaty with Vietnam? It sounded like anti-free-traders were somehow against democratic Canada and for the autocrats in Vietnam. Bizarre!
The whole point of being against these treaties is the idea that the goal of unfettered global trade is, in these times of climate change and dwindling resources, completely inappropriate. Whether this be Canada or Vietnam or anywhere else, surely it is only right that governments retain the power to manage their economies, to offer some protection to local and regional structures, and to keep big business from gaining excessive dominance.
Some of these treaties are more than toxic: take for example the Economic Partnership Agreements, intended for Africa and the Caribbean, which hold poor countries to ransom, obliging them to open up their fledgling economies if they want to continue exporting to Europe. These countries, made defenceless by treaties, then often become the dumping grounds for excess production caused by subsidies from Brussels.
So please take another look: these treaties stink ... however you try to dress them up!
Alan Mitcham
Cologne, Germany
Lack of hygiene is troubling
The dental hygienist contributing to What I’m really thinking, (4 November), decried the unbrushed teeth of the clientele, posing the question as to whether people would leave other body areas unkempt when visiting the gynaecologist or urologist. Those working in the general medical field are very familiar with such lack of care, ranging from weird tatoos and intimate piercings to forgotten tampons, lost vibrators and pencils (use your imagination). And then there are the noisome individuals portrayed by Maggie Smith in the film The Lady in the Van; prior to examination apply a drop of oil of cloves to one’s upper lip and dodge the fleas. Alan Bennett, who had her in his driveway for years (Books Interview, 11 November), must be a saint.
Anthony Walter
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Briefly
• As someone who swears by the Guardian Weekly and its excellent reporting of international affairs, I was very disappointed by the piece on Myanmar in World roundup (18 November). That report came straight from the state-owned press. Declared stateless by the government, the Rohingya are one of the most persecuted peoples in the world. Their lives are under constant threat from the military. Reputable sources have claimed that they face genocide. Some good reporting of the tragic situation of these people would be welcome indeed.
Ann Game
Sydney, Australia
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