Talking to Americans: A brief radio interview paints a picture of a nation in a swirling drain of disinformation
CBC host's chat with shop owner in Washington turns from talk of decreased border traffic to ridiculous conclusions drawn by a confused American
Living in Canada we have just enough separation and perspective to look somewhat honestly at the Trump-Musk orchestrated self-destruction of the economy in the United States, and with it the nation's respect on the world stage.
But what do actual Americans think as they navigate their internal politics relayed to them often by so much disinformation and misinformation? Many Americans clearly spend a significant amount of time as information mushrooms: living in the dark and fed bullshit.
One morning this week, CBC radio host Stephen Quinn was talking to a café owner in Blaine, Washington, about a reduction in Canadian visitors in the wake of the president's verbal attacks on Canada.
It was your basic cross-border economic conversation, the businessman saying that Canadian customer visits were down 75 per cent.
But then the café owner leaned in towards talking more directly about Trump. He brought up the debacle regarding his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and suggested the rest of the world had taken that conversation out of context.
“Most of the conversation was good,” he suggested, adding that what made the news worldwide “was just the last two minutes.”
“Wasn’t that the salient part?" Quinn asked.
It was clear that despite what he was seeing in his café in Washington State, despite what the majority of experts and regular Americans are worried about regarding this trade war, was that Donald Trump is doing the right thing. Dumbfounding.
What followed was a brief and unplanned exchanged between Stephen Quinn and this American. Quinn gently probed the way he usually does with a regular citizen rather than his more pointed questions of a politician or a pundit, not intentionally trying to make this man look stupid.
But this American's answers to a few simple questions, the conclusions he drew, the logical inconsistency of it all was telling and tragic.
“You think the tariffs are worth it?” Quinn asked.
“For the fentanyl problem, yes," the café owner responded.
“Do you think the tariffs will help stop the fentanyl?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you come to that conclusion?” Quinn followed up.
“Just read the sources," the the café owner said. "There are daily news reports of people coming over the border. Backpacks found."
It was here that he illustrated that for some people, one plus one equals three.
"Not fentanyl but cocaine," the café owner switched gears slightly. "There were two backpacks of cocaine found near the border.”
“U.S. border agents found it?” Quinn asked.
“Yes.”
“It was on the U.S. side then?”
“Yes.”
This American heard a news report that U.S. law enforcement found backpacks of cocaine in the U.S. From that he concluded that Trump's trade war started, at least in part to reduce the supposed flow of fentanyl from Canada was a good policy decision.
There's not much you can say to a person thinking this way.
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Paul J. Henderson
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