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It was a fluke victory in an antique Electoral College system that allowed a vulgar strain of lowbrow populism to prevail in the American presidential election two weeks ago, and not the popular vote, that vomited up Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America. The deep cultural dysfunction that produced Trumpism wasn’t conjured from the ether overnight by the waving of some evil wizard’s wand.

That is just one useful thing for Canadians to bear in mind as we’re all being summoned to the ritual divinations, the readings of entrails, the casting of lots and the gazing at crystals involved in the suddenly obsessive national preoccupation with the question: Could it happen here?

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Not to play down the significance of the dreadful Nov. 8 poll results, but the question itself could use some questioning. What is “it,” anyway?

Like Trump, Trudeau is less a leader than a mascot.

If “it” means the successful populist mobilization of redneck grievances to serve national political agendas built around genuine questions of alienation, we’ve already been there, already done that. It was called the Reform Party, and despite the sleepless efforts of the Western Canada movement’s archdruid, Preston Manning, its early goings were enlivened by Trump activism, Canadian style: retrograde anti-bilingualism yobs, immigrant-loathing yahoos and even a handful of white-supremacist Heritage Front goons who had to be unceremoniously evicted from the party.