I spent 41 years in Canada, a 15-minute drive from the American border.
I routinely crossed into the States in Buffalo, New York, several times a month.
The area is cautiously considered, and Buffalo, in particular, is not considered an ideal tourist destination.
I have been in New York, San Francisco, Houston, Miami, and Seattle countless times for work or vacation.
In 41 years of visiting the States, I have never had a problem with the people or the authorities, and I have never had a bad impression of people.
Americans are Westerners, like Canadians, who follow the same rhythms of life typical of modern Western nations.
They are, for me, very far from being odd or incomprehensible.
In short, Americans are not weird!
That’s why I am puzzled when I listen to politicians like Donald Trump and his VP candidate companion, JD Vance.
I still can’t figure out how the tired old charlatan and his VP bigot could grow so much politically in a dynamic, aggressively motivated, innovative country like the United States.
Those two individuals are really weird and have patched up an organization where sometimes they seem unable to maintain a straightforward distinction between facts and pure fabrications cynically concocted for electoral purposes.
Either MAGA assumes that American voters are a bunch of suckers that can be fooled by insisting on a series of childish inventions, like the countlessly debunked tale of the stolen election or the doubts about the place of birth and citizenship of Trump’s opponent.
However, an average voter may feel offended more frequently than Trump’s team expects.
Maga’s managers should ask themselves if Trump’s insulting and demeaning tone, his opportunistic switch from a negative to a favourable opinion of people, and his habit of routinely using derogatory adjectives when mentioning his adversaries are accepted by American voters as an oddity of the person.
Not to mention the recent incoherent mumbling of this tired and old man on child care.
A few Trumpists I know keep telling me that people don’t mind all that.
“They look to the substance,” they say.
What substance? Look at one of the Republicans’ prominent cases of incoherence: they succeeded in tearing down ROE, to discover at the subsequent elections that they lost the support of many women, resulting in the loss of the Senate and a disarticulated Congress where confusion and inefficiency reign sovereign. Support for women’s rights boils all over the country!
JD Vance gives a second example: this man lives in his world, dreaming of sending women back home to take care of procreating children for the country’s greatness.
Does DJ Vance know how much the world has changed since WWII? Does he have the slightest idea of today’s women’s aspirations?
He says the abysmal problem of the planned defunding of daycare will be solved by grandparents staying home to watch the grandchildren!
I suspect the massive section of the tourism, apparel supply chain, and entertainment industries that cater to seniors in the country is not worried about JD Vance. They know American seniors!
I also suspect that Republicans will regret for a very long time having submitted their party to the whims of an old and now visibly exhausted charlatan.
Emilio De Luigi 