It’s Not Your Imagination – Our Politics Are Bananas

By Brent H. Cameron

For those who feel that the state of western democratic politics has gone bananas, you are probably right – both literally and figuratively.

Consider that there are about 1000 species of banana in the world, growing in 135 countries. Of those, 500 are edible. Yet one of those species – the Cavendish – accounts for 47 percent of all bananas consumed and, more importantly, about 95 percent of what you see in your grocery store. That means that virtually all of you will only have eaten 1/500th of the edible types of banana available on earth – even if you have eaten a banana a day for years on end.

But the dominance of this one type above all others has certain trade-offs:

They are unable to reproduce sexually, instead being propagated via identical clones. Due to this, the genetic diversity of the Cavendish banana is very low. This, combined with the fact the Cavendish is planted in dense chunks in a monoculture without other natural species to serve as a buffer, makes the Cavendish extremely vulnerable to disease, fungal outbreaks, and genetic mutation, possibly leading to eventual commercial extinction.

Some of you will be getting hungry while others will be asking why am I talking about bananas?

‘American conservatism’ is but one species of conservatism, just like what I call ‘Westminster Conservatism’ (which is indigenous to CANZUK countries like Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand). But the rise of American power – hard and soft –created a push to standardize the marketplace. Hollywood and Washington spent 80 years convincing themselves and whole swaths of the English-speaking world to ditch their own local variant of conservative for the shinier and tastier American one.

It happens subtly at first because one accentuates the similarities: the commitment to liberty and personal freedoms. You may not necessarily love the imported version over what you grew up with, but it is cheaper, more accessible and the taste is only marginally different – that and the big marketing push.

But, at some point, the new brand takes over more and more shelf space while the old brand steadily disappears. This was the crux of what George Grant was saying in his 1965 book Lament for a Nation. Combine that with the work of another great Canadian, Marshall McLuhan, and you cover both means and motive.

There is some predictability to it all. In every imperial age, the habits and customs of the metropole get transmitted outward. But we are not talking about Orientalism design aesthetics in Victorian London. We are talking about a political influence that causes the great-great-great grandchildren of United Empire Loyalists to express solidarity with the descendants of the Sons of Liberty who had made their ancestors refugees.

The sad reality is that despite the trend to displace local variants of conservatism with the US version, American conservatism was never actually meant for export. Consider that portion Washington’s Farewell Address published in 1796:

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

We forget that America’s foray into these aforementioned ‘political connexions’ began in earnest in the aftermath of World War II, 149 years after Washington’s address. Liberal democratic powers continue to grapple with a United States that is becoming more isolationist and transactional, but this was essentially the default position for 60 percent of its existence.

Regardless of the back and forth of Washington politics, both Republicans and Democrats do take the concept of ‘American exceptionalism’ as a given. At its core is the belief that the truest expression of liberal democracy in human history is found in the origin story of the United States. By definition, this means that all other forms of governance external to the United States are, at best, imperfect and corrupted, and at worst, sinister and soulless.

Politically, in the context of Canada, our homegrown variants of liberalism and conservatism are viewed as being either quaint or an act of apostasy.

But here is the conundrum: if American exceptionalism says Canadian conservatives are following an illegitimate form of conservatism, and it holds that America is the only truly legitimate democracy in the world, then the only way you gain legitimacy is through conversion to the true path.

But American exceptionalism is a story meant for Americans to tell themselves, just as every nation on earth has their own histories and stories to interpret who and what they are. To devotees of the MAGA movement, Canadians may appear to be “lousy at being American.” This is true, but it is also true that they also make lousy Canadians. Neither take is morally superior to the other.

Canada was founded by peoples who, when presented with the choice in the late 1770s, rejected the American Revolution. They were not anti-democratic, but they did not believe democracy’s highest ideal was expressed by an organized mob who threatened to burn your house or string you up from the nearest tree. The Crown represented a stability that defied the vagaries of changing fashions, emotions and factionalism. The fact that the leaders of the American Revolution scrambled to draft a Constitution to restrain those vigilantism tendencies is of little surprise.

Like the Cavendish banana, the American variants of liberalism and conservatism have dominated the global marketplace. History and geopolitics made it better capitalized and gave it a better distribution network, to say nothing of the highly effective marketing campaign throughout the 20th century. But American conservatism, in particular, is not a monopoly, nor is it necessarily the best product for the tastes of the Canadian market.

Whether or not one wishes to apply the “Red Tory” moniker to what is needed is a point of worthy debate, but what should be of interest to all is the rehabilitation of organic forms of liberalism and conservatism that speak to the Canadian experience and are not simply ill-fitting hand-me-downs from south of the border.