At 12:00 p.m. on Monday, January 20, Donald Trump will take an oath of leadership and become the 47th president of the United States. Trump has made one outlandish claim after another during his presidential campaign. The world has become enthralled in the spectacle and fascinated by the joke that is American politics. But as another Trump presidency becomes reality, no one is laughing anymore. The implications of Trump’s second term and the blind faith that hundreds of millions of Americans are willing to put into a man who embodies hate and prejudice is indicative of something much more sinister than superficial threats, and it extends far beyond the United States.
The Trump administration has plans to finish what it started in 2016, a threat it makes very seriously. Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric is loaded with harmful claims about migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, as he plans to dramatically reduce the number of refugees entering the country, end automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, and enact the largest deportation event in U.S. history. He continuously brushes aside the issue of climate change; experts speculate a withdrawal from the Paris Agreement within his first days in office, in the wake of mass destruction from California wildfires.
Trump’s foreign policy is an issue of its own. His isolationist American ideology outlines a plan to potentially break off connections with long-term allied nations, disrupting a key system in international politics. The sheer absurdity of his plan to buy Canada and the 25 per cent tariffs he has threatened to impose on Canadian goods has distracted us from the pure aggression behind his threats. The nation is already feeling the implications of Trump’s presidency, as the Canadian federal government continues to tighten border security and prepares retaliation measures against his proposed tariffs.
Perhaps the most unsettling is the Trump administration’s Project 2025, co-written by The Heritage Foundation, one of America’s largest right-wing organizations. Among a long list of other concerning propositions, the plan will reorganize the federal government to support a conservative agenda. This includes limiting reproductive care and autonomy: ending diversity, equity, and inclusion plans in schools; and eliminating terms like “sexual orientation,” “gender equality,” “abortion,” and “reproductive rights” from all laws and federal regulations. This social vision is harmful and exclusionary, thinly veiled as a return to American traditionalism, and threatens the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, women, and all minorities.
Another Trump presidency will rewrite American culture, and the pervasion of conservative nationalism will strengthen throughout the sphere of global politics. America is not unique in witnessing this rise of right-wing ideology. Trump is a figurehead, however ridiculous, who is representative of the threat of the far-right felt across the globe. Right-wing populist parties gained ground internationally in 2024, from victories in parliamentary elections across Europe to a historical win in Australia’s national election. Canada too is feeling the threat of radical conservative politics: Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre continues to gain support in his populist campaign. This new wave of ideology – what has been called “national conservatism” – is quickly becoming the right-wing paradigm in the contemporary “post-globalization and post-liberal era.”
Why has the West embraced social conservatism? What is it that people are truly seeking from these leaders?
Across the world, politics are polarizing: people are more ideologically divided than ever when it comes to the issue of tradition and social change. The current state of the Western world, both politically and socio-culturally, has only fed into this divide: a sluggish economy, political uncertainty, mass dissemination of misinformation, and the increasingly apparent effects of late-stage capitalism. Our affect has waned; we are jaded to social issues and trapped in a world of digital networks and internet escapism. People are looking for hope, the promise that things will get better, wherever they can find it – and they’ve turned towards billionaire conservative leaders at the expense of those who need our support the most. This normalization of right-wing rhetoric has had clear implications in the lives of marginalized people. Through the internet’s immediate transmission of ideas to their impressionable minds, young people have been conditioned to prioritize empty political promises over protection for minority rights. We are moving backwards, creating historical parallels that we cannot ignore. Overt bigotry is masked by policies that claim to restore liberty and freedom, which Vox call “democratic-sounding justification[s] for [right-wing leaders’] actions.”
The balance of our political landscape is teetering on the edge of a slippery slope. The past year has been one of change and uncertainty, but we cannot ignore the implications of Trump’s rhetoric and continue to treat conservative politics as a joke. We must acknowledge what is happening to our neighbors to the south, just as we must recognize the harmful nuances of national conservatism and right-wing populism in Canadian politics. These are not just political issues: they are social issues stunting us as a culture and leaving us incredibly susceptible to authoritarian control.
Politics affect everything we do, and we can no longer afford to pretend that they don’t. In a time when faith in democracy is dwindling, we must continue to make our voices heard, show up for our local governments to make change, and give a voice to those who don’t have one. Now is more important than ever for us to remain unified against hatred and bigotry, to stand together as a community, and speak out against injustice.