It is still ongoing as I write this, the US election. It has sucked the energy from the room for the last…4 years. As a white male, I used to find Trump rather amusing in a buffoonery way. Surely, people would see through him, eventually.

Yet, he got more votes this time around. It is not the lies that concern me, but the cognitive dissonance. People see through him, yet also still believe in him, as an avatar for their own (lost) dreams.

Colleagues in the US are breathing shallowly this week, the angst is clear. This week, the President of, I’m gonna say Cote d’Ivoire(?) – I’m too tired to look it up – asked for troops on the streets after losing his election; and the Western world released communiques demanding respect for the law.

Such is democracy.

Still, my main reflection this week is that we expend way too much energy on US politics here in Canada. People know more about the antiquated and ridiculous minutiae of the Electoral College than they do the political parties in their own municipal and provincial homes, maybe even Federal too.

The US sucks the energy. We have battles of our own here to fight, and to win. Climate change, housing, addiction, Indigenous rights, employment, transit, immigration, COVID(!), NIMBYism…we need to charged here. My kids rant on about Trump like he’s the local grouch shouting ‘get off my lawn.’ Meanwhile, TikTok News doesn’t cover much about our local conversations, so there is nothing to see here.

The COVID rates are up again, everywhere. We are doing well here in BC, but the shadow is lengthening. Maybe the political distraction was ok, after all.

This Much We Know.