Yellowknife man checks out Donald Trump
David Connelly attends Republican National Convention in Cleveland; says he now gets the anger the controversial presidential nominee has tapped into
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
David Connelly said he went to the Republican National Convention last week in Cleveland, Ohio thinking that Donald Trump was a buffoon.
David Connelly, a self-described political junkie, was at last week's Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. Connelly said he went there thinking Donald Trump was a buffoon but now says he has a better understanding of the anger many Americans are feeling and why they think Trump would make a good president. - photo courtesy of David Connelly |
Now, he said, after hearing him speak, he does not know what to make of him. Connelly, a Yellowknifer resident and self-described political junkie, was inside the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland as Trump accepted the Republican nomination to run for president.
He said he was there as a member of the International Democratic Union as well as regional vice-president of the Conservative Party of Canada.
The International Democratic Union is an international alliance of centre-right leaning political parties that works to promote centre-right policies across the globe.
He said he now realizes Trump's assessment of the state of the U.S. and the uncertain times ahead has really tapped into a part of the American population that is angry, disenchanted and uncertain about their future. Connelly said that he has never seen anything quite like what he saw in Cleveland.
"Part circus, part Disneyland," Connelly said. "I am not a Trumpite. Trump (if he wins) is going to significantly renegotiate trade agreements and first among those is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It's not clear yet what that would mean."
On the flip side, Connelly said if Trump wins, the Keystone XL Pipeline from Alberta's oil fields to the southern U.S. would be back on the table. It would then remain to be seen whether the Liberals would support the project, he said.
Connelly, who admittedly leans to the right when it comes to politics, said Trump's approach to trade is the most tangible factor for Canadians should he become president. He said he did not actually get to meet the Republican candidate but he did listen to other high profile U.S. conservatives including Senate Speaker Paul Ryan, former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove and conservative political pundit Ann Coulter.
Connelly said he went to the convention because he thought it would be an historic turning point.
"It was not in the sense of the Arab Spring which I saw firsthand, or the civil unrest and blood in the streets of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago which I watched on a black and white TV," Connelly stated in an e-mail to Yellowknifer. "In fact it was the complete opposite. The police smiled and high-fived children ... The citizens made a point of welcoming and greeting all visitors everywhere they went and even the protesters were friendly and let you pass through. Several times I walked through protest groups and across police lines with both sides greeting me as if it was a Sunday picnic."
Connelly said because he was inside the arena most of the time, he did not see people wearing holsters and pistols or openly carrying rifles and shotguns as was shown by media outlets. Ohio has an open-carry policy that allows its residents to carry unconcealed weapons. Connelly said he mostly felt safe but was concerned for his safety when the crowd turned hostile on Calgary-born Ted Cruz, the runner-up to Trump in the nomination process. Connelly said the Trump supporters turned ugly, particularly when Cruz did not endorse him.
"I have a pretty good sense of when crowds are starting to become emotional to the point of unpredictable violence," Connelly said. "That's when the crowd came closest to - I think things are going to be thrown, I think if someone could have stabbed someone here they would. If there was a loose gun in the audience it would happen. I was eyeing the nearest exit."
Connelly said that as far as he knows he was one of only about a half dozen Canadians at the event. They included Ontario Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Tony Clement.
Another real eye-opener for the foreign observer was when he drove the 30 minutes or so every day to and from his hotel. He said he saw abandoned factories that he said looked like they had been bombed. Connelly said scenes like that made him glad to be Canadian and forced him to realize that we have it pretty good in Canada, particularly in the North.
Connelly said he does not know who will win the election in November. But he added he feels a vast number of Americans are going to vote not for a candidate they like, but for the candidate they hate less - Trump or Hillary Clinton.
