There are a lot of things wrong with American culture—a complete disregard for other people, the miraculous ability to politicize every aspect of life, and ridiculous disbelief in science all come to mind—but the worst has got to be relentless fear-mongering.

 Joe Biden won the 2020 US election, turning Donald Trump into a one-term president. I repeat, Biden won—there’s no doubt about it. But even after news outlets and officials have called the election in Biden’s favour, Trump has refused to concede, preferring to spew baseless rumours about voter fraud and fake news instead.

 Trump’s refusal to concede the election is unfoundedand embarrassing. If there was ever any doubt that his Twitter account is home to nothing but damaging propaganda, these last couple weeks have proved it—his tweets are covered in Twitter warnings like “official sources called this election differently” and “this claim about election fraud is disputed.”

Trump’s relentless fear-mongering—about mail-in voting, about the media, and about the electoral system itself—hurts democracy. He used fear to encourage voter suppression and give himself a better chance at winning the presidency.

He even used a global pandemic to his advantage, attacking the Post Office to discourage people—mostly Democrats—from voting. Again, the media sources which rightly called the election for Biden are not spewing baseless propaganda—Trump is.

Trump is a symptom of a larger sickness in the US: an incredibly divided nation. The American identity has become so closely tied to which party you vote for—Republican or Democrat—that people are politically divided on every issue, even on something as simple as wearing a mask.

Trump tapped into this division, exploited it, and used it to get more votes. He was a president for the people who voted for him, and no one else.

As a dual Canadian-American citizen, I’m proud to have voted for Biden. His rhetoric largely supports the important message of reuniting the country. Biden is by no means perfect, but he will at least be a president for all Americans, not just the people who voted for him.

In Canada, we need to learn from the mistakes of our downstairs neighbours. Please, let’s not poke fun at the US to fan our egos and instead look at it as a warning of what happens when we start hating each other for no reason.

So, the Right needs to relax—we’re not living in 1984 yet. If we’re making steps toward it, it’s because of a divided populace, not a corrupt media.

Julia is a second-year English student and one of The Journal’s Assistant News Editors.