Canada’s Princess of Pot Jodie Emery in front of Toronto coffee shop she opened this past summer.

First, the bad news.

Our text here is Neil Macdonald’s October 16 piece on the CBC News site :  “Lose your illusions. It’s an ugly, dystopian world … People my age grew up believing the world, led by the West, was becoming more progressive. It wasn’t and isn’t.”

Macdonald offers a “few thoughts on the Republic of Dystopia [USA]… and the Kingdom of Draconia [Saudi Arabia], Canada’s most violent and temperamental weapons customer.”

Along the way, he alludes to “a NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll taken late last month,” which “received far too little attention.” It involved a “survey of 997 adults … conducted September 22nd through September 24th, 2018 …”

The poll does suggest that Democrats will not finally do as well in the coming crucial November 6 US midterm elections as many of us up here in We the North would like. (Canadians usually “vote Democratic in American elections,” etc.)

In a store window, Mill Valley, California, September 2018.

When asked, eg,  “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president?”, 49% of US “National Adults” disapprove. But a healthy enough 42% do approve (while 9% are “Unsure”).

Similarly, among the youngest 18 to 29 age group (with the lowest propensity to vote) 60% disapprove of Donald Trump, and only 29% approve. But among the 45 to 59 group 47% approve of Trump while only 42% disapprove.

In big cities 60% disapprove of Trump while only 31% approve. But in rural areas only 29% disapprove while 57% approve. And similarly on and on …

Ultimate Hollywood liberal (and Democrat) Bill Maher, who believes what America wants most right now is to get back to normal – whatever that may really be, or not.

To us these numbers alone do not quite seem to warrant Neil Macdonald’s especially gloomy conclusion : “It’s increasingly apparent Trump represents Americans better than any of his predecessors. I’m willing to bet his fellow Dystopians will elect him to a second term.”

At the same time, if your future mental health currently depends a great deal on the thought that some enormous Big Blue Wave on November 6 is finally going to put Donald Trump in the collapsing balloon where he belongs, it probably would be prudent to reduce your expectations.

(And for at least some compensating good news click on “Read the rest of this page” and/or scroll below.)

The New Age of Legal Cannabis in Canada … and California

“Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton hands Ian Power and Nikki Rose the first legal recreational marijuana purchases after midnight at a store in St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada (REUTERS).”

Meanwhile, it does remain the case that even in the September 22—24  NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll more “National Adults” disapprove rather than approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as president.

(And except for one poll from Rasmussen Reports/Pulse Opinion Research, this is also true in all the “Latest Polls” on the Five Thirty Eight site as of October 17, 2018 at 9:55 AM, ET.)

Meanwhile again, up here in We the North the good news is that today, October 17, 2018, is also the day marijuana finally becomes legal across Canada.

(And on this front see “First legal weed sold in Canada at Newfoundland shops … St. John’s residents Ian Power and Nikki Rose became first Canadians to purchase legal recreational cannabis.”)

In a broader North American context, recreational cannabis has already been legal in the most populous US state of California since the start of this year.

Street view of new Transbay Transit Center which opened in downtown San Francisco this past summer.

California has more people than all of Canada at the moment. And this past Monday the New York Times helpfully published “What Canada Can Learn from California on Marijuana Legalization.”

California is as well the centre of the Resistance to Donald Trump in the USA today. And see Natalie Sherman’s recent article on the BBC News site : “How California is changing the US.”

The article asks : “California is embracing progressive policies. Does it preview the future of America?”

Recurrently spending time in the Golden State over the past number of years (while otherwise living quite close to the US Northeast, where feeling against the current Trump administration in Washington is almost as strong) has convinced us that the aging Jerry Brown and not the aging Donald Trump is in fact the ultimate future of America.

President Obama walks with then California Attorney General and now Senator Kamala Harris after his arrival at San Francisco airport in February 2012. Photo: Paul Chinn, San Francisco Chronicle.

Or Barack Obama offered one vision of what lies ahead for eight prescient years. Donald Trump is now offering another. And we here are still prepared to bet that, whatever happens on November 6, Donald Trump will not last for two full terms.

The Trump Republican administration is the crazy plaintive last gasp of an American era that is dying – demographically, economically, morally, and spiritually.

There no doubt is an ongoing hard political struggle ahead, and (despite various antecedents) it has only just begun. But the great cause of a progressive free and democratic society, around a rising global village that liked President Obama so much better than President Trump, is far from dead yet … from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli …