{"id":59623,"date":"2021-03-16T09:45:35","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T15:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=59623"},"modified":"2021-03-16T09:45:35","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T15:45:35","slug":"calgarians-share-thoughts-on-americas-new-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2021\/03\/16\/calgarians-share-thoughts-on-americas-new-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Calgarians share thoughts on America’s new leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New Neighbour<\/strong>: Amanda Stanford poses for a photo \u00a0in Calgary on Jan. 20. Standford started paying attention to American politics during the Obama administration. (Photo by Dami Fadipe-Olatunde\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

T<\/span>he events preceding Joe Biden\u2019s inauguration speech<\/a> as the 46th President of the United States have been rife with political and societal discord.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>hey culminated in an attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters who believed that the election had been stolen, a declaration that had been made by Trump himself, but was refuted by key figures at every level of the election process.<\/p>\n

Dustin Ruttle has been mindful of American politics since George W. Bush\u2019s administration, and remembered what the energy was like during the transition of power from Bush to Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very split. A lot of people said yeah, this is a good change. There were people not for that because he was so different from Bush was,\u201d Ruttle says. \u201cThey were being louder, even though they had less of a voice, if that makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Capitol attack is believed to have been spurred by Trump himself, and the U.S House of Representatives charged Trump with \u201cincitement of insurrection\u201d on January 13. They had moved to impeach Trump shortly after the attack, and with a vote of 232 to 197, Trump became the first U.S. President in American history to be impeached twice.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder Trump\u2019s leadership the racial gap became so huge, because when things start to die, they thrash,\u201d says Ruttle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Canada has it\u2019s own issues, but we\u2019ve always kind of known that Americans do have a lot of racism in their society to this day, “says Amanda Stanford, a freelance writer for an entertainment magazine.<\/p>\n

Stanford started paying attention to American politics during the Obama administration. \u201cIn 2015, when Trump announced his presidential run, I genuinely thought it was a joke,\u201d says Stanford.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really broke my heart because I ignorantly believed that the narrative and rhetoric that he was pushing only a small percentage of people would agree with and identify with, and finding out that\u2019s not the case was really heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been so removed about actually witnessing what happens when radicalization comes into power, and what happens when a politician comes in and picks out the vulnerable and the less educated and radicalizes them,\u201d said Stanford.<\/p>\n

Under Trump\u2019s leadership the racial gap became so huge, because when things start to die, they thrash. – Dustin Ruttle<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI really think that we are sort of witnessing the fall of the last great empire,\u201d says Radford. \u201cIt\u2019s such a sign of weakness that you couldn\u2019t even protect the people that run the country. That should be the easiest to protect, there\u2019s literally special forces there specifically to look after each person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlie Radford, an artist and collector, believes the divide was noticeable before Trump reached office, due to the evolution of technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s done a lot of great things, but it\u2019s also made it much easier to say whatever you want, and anybody who might agree with it can spread that like crazy,\u201d says Radford. \u201cHis presidency was really run by people who knew how to manipulate those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Radford also brought up some parallels between America\u2019s and Canada’s \u00a0political mentality. \u201cAs a country, and politically speaking we don\u2019t tend to be quite as knee jerk [as America], but I do worry about the division that is happening in Canada, and how much of that is influenced from the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Calgarians discuss the events preceding Joe Biden\u2019s inauguration speech as the 46th President of the United States. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":637,"featured_media":59632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S1 Joe Biden Inauguration ","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-59623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59623"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61158,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59623\/revisions\/61158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}