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The race has provided a glimpse of dystopia in a country where guns and private militias are constitutionally protected. Trump’s unwillingness to commit to accepting the outcome of Tuesday’s vote coupled with the interference of the FBI’s director in the final days has led more than a few people to believe that the system is “rigged.”

It’s riveting spectacle, which as a Canadian cartoonist brilliantly depicted, is a race between farce and tragedy.

It’s tempting to be smug, especially with the imprimatur of The Economist which last week described Canada as “uniquely fortunate” and providing “lessons for other Western nations.”

(It also described Canada as “irredeemably dull by reputation.” I’ll take that any day over the fear and loathing on the American campaign trail.)

Yet, as different as we may be, seeds of America’s discontent exist here despite last year’s election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals that bucked fearful, insular, anti-immigrant, anti-intellectual waves sweeping both Europe and the United States.

But peer a little deeper into our body politic. Canada may not be immune to an autocrat like Trump or from citizens willing to torch democracy.

Inequality has been rising along with homelessness and child poverty. Our heavily resource-dependent economy is stagnant because of the downturn in world prices coupled with growing opposition to more development.

Many of those once high-paid workers for the oil and gas patches are unable to find work and some are now lined up at food banks.