We are but a few weeks into the much-feared presidency of a convicted felon named Donald Trump, and, despite our fears, the world hasn’t come to an end. The applecart has been well upset but that is exactly what the United States voted for. The people spoke.

I was upset at the election result and most people I know were also upset but we aren’t Americans. We didn’t get to choose. ‘It wasn’t our farm, and it wasn’t our pig.” My first observations I dare not say aloud among people I know but I can whisper them to you if you don’t tell anyone.

First, getting as tough as the law will allow on immigration is something that immediately has the support of most Americans. It is hard to argue against it. President Trump has gone beyond the” building a wall” stage. It looks like there is a total commitment to the idea of tightening the southern border. On a philosophical level, left wing liberal people, like you and me, might have a problem with that concept but there is no question the idea has found favour in the American psyche. It can’t go as far as Trump promised with mass deportations and things like that, but you can see which way the wind is blowing. There is less tolerance not only in the United States but around the world for people showing up uninvited at the doorsteps of countries when they were not invited.

Another item which I can whisper to you quietly is Donald Trump’s announcement that in the Unted States there will be two genders only. One is male and the other is female. I know the issues and I know it is complicated, but I also know that you can hear the cheering from citizens south of the border following Trump’s stand. There is a waning appetite for the debate on gender. This is not me defending that move or even offering an opinion. It is just me saying that the “there is only male and female” notion will be well received by many. There are those who are just growing tired of what is a very recent debate.

On the issue of tariffs, I listen with interest to what is being said by the new high-flying president. The Trump message being articulated says that, if you want to sell goods in the United States you had best have a manufacturing or processing plant there or else. The threat implied is that tariffs will bring the world into line. That is a simplistic view. The world of tariffs is extremely complicated. I am always amazed by a world economy where we can export raw fish halfway around the world and have it processed abroad and then sold back to us. On the surface it sounds absurd but good luck finding a solution. You cannot process a fish in Newfoundland as cheaply as it can be processed elsewhere. The point is that you can’t artificially force people to buy at home under all circumstances.

These things I have mentioned are areas where I have some sympathy or at least understanding of what is going on in the United States as it attempts to change the world. Let me point out the downside to you. That which advances you to positions of power in the Trump administration seems not to be expertise and tireless energy but rather loyalty to the man named Donald Trump. Assembled around him hoping to touch “the hem of his garment” are assorted boot lickers seeking to curry favour with he who is the worlds most powerful man. Trump is in the process of assembling a crowd to help him govern and that crowd will NOT say no to him. His wildest ideas will find an audience.

Notions like shining lights in people to cure COVID will be all over the place. Himself is not the brightest light in the room, but this is only politics. It doesn’t matter! He is in power. He has surrounded himself with billionaires and sycophants. Pete Hegseth recently being promoted to be Secretary of National Defense is a notable example. I wouldn’t let him run a lemonade stand. Hegseth joins what a very strange assortment of those in Trumps orbit court that might be called “whistlers and jugglers”. They will do Donald’s bidding at least for a while. It is a near oligarchy in full flower. They will stand by and cheer even as a group of January 6th Capitol Hill rioters are given full pardons and are oozing back into free society.

A final thought and there are but poor comfort in this. It comes from an American president of all people. Thomas Jefferson said to the American people, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

You can contact Jim Furlong at [email protected]