Archive

Renowned historian ‘Talks Trump’ at Dufferin County Museum

March 2, 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Marni Walsh

Author Gwynne Dyer was at Dufferin County Museum and Archives this week speaking to Dufferin high school students from the Digital Historian Project (DHP) about the “why now?” behind Donald Trump’s election.

At the request of Centre Dufferin District High School teacher Neil Orford, Gwynne Dyer has been engaging students with his political history talks for more than 25 years.  Born in Newfoundland, Mr. Dyer is an independent journalist, a military historian, author of many books, and a syndicated columnist for newspapers in 175 countries, including the Orangeville Citizen. In 2010, Mr. Dyer was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for his work.

“The most powerful country in the world governs by tweeting,” the historian told the students, referencing U.S. President Donald Trump’s penchant for talking to “his people” via Twitter.

Gwynne Dyer called Trump the “highest profile example so far to represent a greater phenomena – the populism movement.”  Currently, the movement combines the concept with overt nationalism and xenophobia rejecting any different views.

“Trump is not an isolated accident,” said the historian. “The first example was Brexit” – the  British vote to pull out of a 40 year union with Europe  designed to provide both economic and military security.

Mr. Dyer said the “British rhetoric” (that secured that vote) “sounded like Trump.” And like Trump, the rhetoric “was not focused on the truth.”

The historian told the students, if they looked at “who pushed Trump into the White House” they would see that it was the “rust belt” areas – the “once industrial heartland” south of the Great Lakes.

“These were once rich states with beautiful architecture and museums,” he said. “But their industries are gone, living conditions are poor and whole areas abandoned.”  These people “feel cheated from the life they expected,” he said – not un-similar to “the 1930’s” when the populist movement in Europe led to the acceptance of fascism and WWII.

Mr. Dyer said Donald Trump won support by “blaming immigrants for the problem.” But, he said, “the problem is not going away” because the truth is that 9/10 jobs lost in the United States last year alone were “automated out of existence.”

“Robots took the jobs – not immigrants,” said the historian.

He said the idea that new jobs will be created through automation is misleading. “Perhaps a few,” he said, but there will continue to be “big net losses” in any jobs that can be automated. He used the examples of the auto industry assembly lines; the loss of one million bank teller positions in the U.S.; cashiers disappearing; and he predicts, with the coming of automated vehicles, transit and transport workers will be next.

The journalist said jobs will continue to vanish – because it makes economic sense for corporations. “Trump will not be able to fix it,” he said.

“There is a rough passage ahead,” he told the students. “The capitalist structure collapses when people have no money to spend.”

However, Mr. Dyer said he was encouraged by corporate leaders who have recently begun to “think outside the box” and discuss solutions such as Universal Basic Income” (UBI) in order to turn, “what feels like a disaster, into an opportunity.”

Readers Comments (0)