Editorial on American election

 

A Nation That Has Lost Its Moral Compass

The past two years of Donald Trump’s presidency have exposed an astonishing catalogue of corruption, cruelty and abuse of power. We have witnessed a president whose family profits from cryptocurrency ventures while he occupies the highest office in the land; pardons for individuals convicted in the January 6 assault on democracy; the use of the Justice Department to pursue political enemies; attacks on the free press, universities and independent watchdogs; and the erosion of basic legal protections for immigrants.

People have died in immigration detention, individuals have been deported without proper due process, law firms have been threatened for representing those Trump dislikes, and government institutions have increasingly been pressured to demonstrate political loyalty rather than uphold the public interest.

These are not simply controversial political decisions. They represent a disturbing erosion of the principles upon which American democracy was built: accountability, equality before the law, freedom of expression and respect for human dignity.

Yet, as a Canadian observer looking south of the border, perhaps the most revealing development is what appears to be the tipping point for public frustration: gasoline prices. After this extraordinary catalogue of ethical failures, abuses of authority and human suffering, it seems the cost of filling the family car is what finally commands the greatest public attention.

That contrast is profoundly disturbing. When corruption, cruelty and attacks on democratic institutions become background noise, while a few extra dollars at the gas pump provoke outrage, we must ask what has happened to a nation’s collective sense of responsibility.

The problem is no longer simply a president's moral bankruptcy. It is the ethical and moral bankruptcy that such indifference reveals across a nation. A democracy cannot survive when its citizens become more concerned about the price of gasoline than the integrity of their country.