A Canadian can learn a lot about America from Nathan Giede's column Right of Centre about Trump's win. First, Hillary and Obama aren't Americans because they learned to speak from elocution coaches, whereas Trump yells and cusses. Second, Hilary and Obama don't "share the American dream" or have "basic American goals and values" as Trump does, because he is a successful businessman and they are, as FDR, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and the Bushes must necessarily have been, and most senators must be, members of the "political class." (Carter ran a successful peanut business.)
Also, people like Martin Luther King, though he claimed to have a dream, didn't have the right one. Other people lacking American goals and values are the "chattering classes," which he describes as "editors in big cities," "state media" and "those comfortably sequestered behind news desks" (Giede, presumably, runs a successful business and writes editorials on the side and purely out of a sense of civic duty).
Third, Hillary's donors, like Warren Buffet, are "dithering." Fourth, the "coastal states" are stuffed with "redundant management," whereas other states are, presumably, lean and efficient.
The question has to be, is Giede's column stuffed with new wisdom about America, things we need to know when we go there or start renegotiating NAFTA? Or is it stuffed with cliches?
John Harris, Prince George
