The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Now that America seems to have a "monarchy", what name should the "king" use?

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

I swore I wouldn't watch the US Senate trial because we all know how it will turn out. I was wrong. Not about the outcome, but about watching it. Why? It's complicated.And how about this for a podcast series idea: So you want to be a Prime Minister?

and hello there Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the bridge and dropping this as I always do on a Friday evening around you know six o'clock my time, wherever I happen to be, I find that this design of the weekly podcast, since we went from daily during the election campaign to weekly, that the weekends is a good time for a laid-back listen on whatever my thoughts might be on the issues of the week or issues that pop up because of something that happened during the week that I think I want to talk about. It's interesting when I look at the statistics on the listenership for the podcast because

there seems to be, there's a group of you who seem to leap on it as soon as it comes out. So there's a kind of you who seem to leap on it as soon as it comes out. So there's kind of a Friday night audience. There's a Saturday morning audience. Those of you who get up early and you're in the workout room or whatever it may be. There's another group that seems to listen Saturday night. There's a Sunday morning audience, a Sunday night audience. It's interesting because they're

kind of equal. The percentages kind of rough out along that schedule. So that's why I do it on a Friday night. And it seems to have worked out well. Now, the problem is sometimes you can get trapped. You know, it can be in the middle of a story. Things could change. It could suddenly become out of date. And this week's is kind of like that. All I'll say if the story, the main story that I'm going to talk about does become out of date or changes in some significant way, I'll probably update it with a new podcast. But let's talk.

Let's talk Turkey. You know, when the Senate trial in the United States on the impeachment of Donald J. Trump started, what, almost two weeks ago now, my idea was I wasn't going to watch it. It was kind of y'all knew what was going to happen, what was the point. Nevertheless, I watched an awful lot of it. Last week when I was down south golfing,

kind of worked the golf in between watching some of the impeachment trial. This week, back in Canada, and have watched considerably more than I might be willing to admit, even though you kind of knew what was going to happen. I wanted to watch it. So let me give you a couple of thoughts. I thought a lot about my father this week, especially watching this. My father died 15 years ago. But he was a wonderful guy.

You know, he was my hero. I looked up to him a lot. Mentor, hero, all of those things. I don't think I ever told him that he was my hero. I wish I had. But he was my hero for a lot of different reasons. And one of them was the fact that in the Second World War he was one of those who Tom Brokaw called the greatest generation. He was British. I'm British.

We were all born in Britain. At least my mom and dad, my sister and I, my sister and I. My younger brother was born here in Canada. But he served in the Royal Air Force, flew in Lancaster's, had a significant war record, was decorated by the King distinguished flying cross did two tours in Lancaster's which if you know anything about the Second World War and the history of those who flew in that war when you did two complete tours you were really bucking the odds.

The likelihood of completing all those missions was very small. Nevertheless, he did. And then he went on to a distinguished career in public service, both initially in Britain and then a considerable amount of his life here in Canada. One of the things he always talked about, and it used to amaze me, was how much he loved America and that he loved Americans. And it was based on that whole Second World War experience. As part of that group of young British men and women who went to war, in the first couple of years it was really tough slogging.

And it was touch and go, how they were going to come out of a situation against Nazi Germany and against Hitler. But things started to change considerably after Pearl Harbor. Up to that point, there had been Commonwealth members, including some incredible Canadians, who were there to help the British. But starting in early 1942, the Americans arrived. Young guys who kind of tore up the British countryside, so did the Canadians.

While they were getting ready to fight, those were the Army guys. But the U.S. Air Force got into it very quickly. And while there was a certain amount of, you know, we're the Americans, we're going to win it all, sit back, relax, we've got it. There was also a good deal of camaraderie, and that's what I learned from my father. And camaraderie that was based on a large degree of respect and admiration for what they were witnessing. On the Air Force side, the RAF, my dad was in bomber command. They bombed at night.

Took some protection from the darkness. The Americans got there and said, if this is going to be successful, you've got to bomb during the day as well as at night. And so off they went and started daylight bombing and took tremendous losses in the initial stage of their U.S. Air Force's

fight against Nazi Germany. And that's where that respect and admiration started, the bravery that was showed by U.S. pilots. Well, that respect and admiration carried on through the conflict, and there's no doubt, at least in my father's mind, that that war ended when it did because the Americans were there. They didn't win it on their own, but the Brits couldn't have won it on their own. They did because of the help they received from around the world and especially from the Americans.

Anyway, the respect and admiration continued after that, through the Eisenhower years, the Kennedy years, Nixon. My father used to say, I'm not a Democrat or a Republican, but I'll respect a leader who has a sense of what it means to have been at war, because this is the person that can send the world to war again. And I want somebody who understands what that actually means. And so he obviously saw that in Eisenhower.

He saw it in Kennedy, who'd served in the U.S. Navy. And the others. He always had that up at the forefront of his concern about leaders. Anyway, he carried on through. He was, I've got to tell you, he was a huge Reagan guy in the 80s, and he loved Ronald Reagan, even though his service in the war was as an actor. But nevertheless, he loved Reagan. So I thought a lot about this week. What would he have felt about this guy,

about Donald Trump? And what would he have felt in these last couple of weeks watching the Senate trial? And I'm not sure. He never expressed any feelings about Trump before he passed away in 2005. Trump wasn't a known political figure. He was a known business figure and flamboyant and playboy and a variety of different reasons.

He was kind of in the news often, but I don't remember us ever talking about him. And I'm not sure he would have been very impressed by Trump for a lot of different reasons. But I imagine him having been sitting there for the last couple of weeks watching it while I've been watching it, and I think he would have been talking about

this is not the America I knew. He wouldn't have been saying that from a partisan point of view, I don't think. I don't think he would have been impressed by anyone on the way this has unfolded. But he would also have been deeply concerned, as I think I am, about what this says about America and the America of the future,

because I think we're witnessing it changing it. The country is changing. Its feelings about its constitution, what it stands for, seem to be different than what we grew up learning. We're looking at a president who, you know, give this to him, he's always said it. He's always said, I'm the president.

I'll do what I want. Nobody can touch me. I can break the law. I can shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue, was his big statement. And, you know, we all took that as when he said it back in the 2016 campaign as bizarre as it was, he was actually joking. Well, he wasn't joking.

He means that. His belief of the president is the president is the president and can do whatever he wants and can't be found in the wrong on anything he decides to do. You know, and there have been times in this Senate trial where that's basically been the argument. And as it's shaping up as this podcast has dropped, it looks like that's going to be the situation.

In spite of everything that keeps dribbling out. There can be no witnesses called at the trial. You know, there were witnesses in the House proceedings, but none of the key players, they weren't allowed to talk. And even if subpoenaed for a Senate trial, one wonders how long that would take to get them there. But that's not going to happen from everything that seems to indicate. The Republicans, when you get into the partisan part of all this,

are going to be supportive of their president, and there does not appear to be a vote for witnesses. So I thought, you know, I thought, man, if this had been the Senate and the House of Representatives back in 1974, Richard Nixon, who also believed if the president says it or does it, it's okay. No matter what that it is. But if these people sitting in those Senate seats, the Republicans anyway, had been sitting in the Senate of 1974, would Richard Nixon have resigned? I don't think so. I mean, keep in mind why Richard Nixon resigned. He was never impeached. The House of Representatives, the Judiciary Committee,

did vote to impeach Nixon. Then the process would be it would go to the full House of Representatives for a vote there, and then go to the Senate for a trial. But before any of that could happen, the Watergate tapes were released. Court ordered them to be made public. And when they were, it was pretty obvious that, in fact, Nixon had been a part of the cover-up, was running the cover-up. And it was obvious that he'd been lying about his role in all this. So key Republican senators,

led by Barryry goldwater who'd been the republican nominee in 1964 the election previous to 68 the one nixon won he went to the white house in fact legend says he drove himself to the white house if you've been to washington in the last 10 or 20 years you know you can't even drive on that street Pennsylvania Avenue right in front of the White House anymore that has long since been closed off for security reasons but in those days you could drive right up to it I remember I used to drive up in front of the White House to do my stand up for the end of my items that I was doing out of Washington and you just drive up and leave the car, you know, leave the car, but kind of park the car at the side of the road

while you did the stand-up. But in those days, so the legend goes, Barry Goldwater drove to the White House, went in there with a couple of his Senate colleagues, sat down with Nixon and said, you've got to go. You're going to have to resign because you will never win a vote at trial in the Senate. And Nixon decided, okay, I'm out of here.

And he resigned back in August of 1974. That's the way that happened. Those were pretty courageous moves made by Goldwater and his buddies. Here, you can't even get the courage on the part of enough Republicans to listen to witnesses. So I don't know so that's where we are as we near the end of this trial could go for a few more days

but it appears that's the way it will unfold no witnesses and a vote on guilt or innocence. Not innocence, really, but acquittal. Already you're hearing Republicans saying it's just not an impeachable offense what he did. So what if Trump's saying it was perfect, my phone call, I did nothing wrong, it was perfect, everything was perfect. You're now hearing more and more Republicans suggesting, you could make the argument, even some of his lawyers are making the suggestion,

that he did a bad thing, but it's not impeachable. Anyway, so that leaves me to put a, Anyway, so that leaves me to wrap this issue up in these discussions. It leaves me with one question. If America has changed to the point where the president can get away with anything, can do anything he wants, he or she, then in fact have we, as some are suggesting, gone from a republic to a monarchy? There's really no or worse dictatorship

well it's not a dictatorship not yet but you may make the comparisons to a monarchy and if you're going to do that then the next big decision what's he going to call himself because you know what I don't think King Donald what's he going to call himself? Because you know what?

I don't think King Donald has a ring to it. It doesn't sound right. He loves being called the Donald, but really? King Donald? Maybe he uses his second name. You know, maybe... Maybe he uses his second name. You know, maybe he uses King John. That's regal. Lots of precedent for that, right? Maybe that's what he'll call himself. And you can, of course, you can switch names already talk about charles what's charles

going to do what's he going to call himself when and if he becomes king apparently he doesn't like king charles and the word is oh he's going to call him he's going to use his grandfather's name it's going to be George the 7th I think George is one of his many names that he already has middle name or third name named after his grandfather who knows who cares you're saying

that's a topic for another discussion well some things never change. And one of those things that isn't changing is that America keeps kind of slowly chugging along through its political process. And that's why you'll see on Monday night, while this thing is still probably going on, you'll see the Iowa caucuses and this kind of bizarre nature of American politics. I don't know, maybe it's not bizarre.

It's just different. But the first state that they go to in the U.S. each election year to kind of set the table for the presidential race to come is Iowa. Its population is one-one-hundredth of the United States. Great farm state.

I think it's the third. It's in the top three of the agricultural states in the U.S. Great people. They don't go and vote, you know, in primaries like in most of the other states. They actually vote in caucuses. They have meetings. They have little meetings. It can be in a small, it can be in somebody's living room,

it can be in a restaurant, it could be in an auditorium. Some of them are really small. And it's kind of a long, lengthy process, which I won't explain here, but it is the first night in the U.S. election cycle where you get a sense of the way things may be going. But I've always found it fascinating that they start in Iowa, and it does, in fact, set the table. You can lose in Iowa, and you could be out of it

before you ever get to a big state. So that's kind of nice in some ways, kind of odd in other ways. But Monday night, everybody will be there. All the news anchors will be there, not just the American news anchors. There will be Canadians there. There will be Brits there. French will be there. Germans will be there.

Japanese will be there. There'll be people from everywhere there. There'll probably be more media there than there are people in Iowa. Everybody will be glued to this, watching. What are they saying? Why are they saying it? What do they think? So that'll deflect some attention on Monday night at least, and by Tuesday morning, some people could be really wounded in their bid to become the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. So you've got this one thing going on on one side, the impeachment process,

and you've got the election process on the other. One happening in Washington with all the attention that gets, and one happening in a small rural state that you basically never hear of again for the next four years until the next set of caucuses are held. Is that what you call them, caucuses or caucus? I think it's caucuses are held. Is that what you call them, caucuses or caucus? I think it's caucuses. Anyway, enough on U.S. politics. Wasn't in the mailbag last week,

going to be in the mailbag this week, right after this. Okay, so mailbag this week, it comes from Blaine Gates. It's an interesting letter. It's kind of an idea about, to refocus on Canadian politics, it's kind of an idea of what we could do as a potential future podcast or series of podcasts. It might be interesting. Here it is. Let me know what you think of this. Remember, you can always write me at themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Here's Blaine's letter. in Saudi Arabia. After all that, I started listening to podcasts like yours and YouTube

channels to try to make sense of Canadian politics. Good luck with that. Of course, at the age of 40, your voice is the most familiar when listening to this type of content. Thanks, Blaine. That's kind of you. I'm thinking about moving back to Canada, but not right away. I naively think about what I'd need to know to serve the Canadian people in a leadership role. The problem is I don't know enough answers to the debate questions. What do you think about a bi-weekly podcast called Who Wants to Be a Prime Minister? A masterclass where you spend a day discussing, say, conservative history, current affairs, and future trends on an issue-by-issue basis, and the other day discussing the same topics from a liberal perspective.

This type of series could be interesting to all Canadians that have this secret desire to understand the issues that are most important during a leadership race. A step-by-step guide to what it takes to become the prime minister could influence a group of young people to feel inspired by our country's past and help them establish a basis for understanding how to guide us into the future. Regards, Blaine Gates. Listen, Blaine, I think that's a great idea and I'm going to give it some serious thought

because I'd want to do that carefully and sort of make it something special for our listeners and I wouldn't just stop at conservatives and liberals. I'd want to do the NDP as well, for sure, at least the three of them.

And take a good look and a good listen to somebody who's familiar with the thoughts on each of those parties. But I think it's a, I like the tease too, you know, who wants to be a prime minister and here's your kind of understanding of what you need to do, what you need to be thinking. And also, where you might want to consider being slotted in terms of if you don't already know which party you're –

I hate to say – I don't think it's good or healthy to be slotted as I'm a conservative and I'm always going to be a conservative. People should have the flexibility to change, and obviously some people do, or we'd always have the same government. But I think keeping an open mind about these things, and one of the ways to keep an open mind is to listen to the kind of discussion that you're suggesting that we have. So let me give that some thought,

and I'll see what we can do about that. I've been thinking of a number of ways to try and go beyond just my ramblings as much as I like to do this. But one of the ways of doing that is to more frequently bring in guests who have a particular expertise in a certain area that I know that many of you are interested in. So that's what we'll consider. So, Brian, thanks again. Great letter. There have been a number of good letters this week.

And I know you enjoy, or at least I think you enjoy, the mailbag section, so I'm going to keep doing it, so keep the letters coming. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. So all the best to you, Blaine, in Saudi Arabia, and to all other listeners of the podcast, no matter where you may be. This is Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge. Thanks for listening. Talk to you again in seven days.