This editorial is an edited version of a column that first appeared in the Nov. 5, 2004 edition of The Citizen:
The battle between George W. Bush and John Kerry for the presidency was closely followed here in Canada. Now that it's all over and the U.S. narrowly avoided the fiasco from 2000, I'm filled with doubt about the future of both countries.
The divisions in America seem to be deepening between rich and poor, urban and rural, city and suburbia, white and blue collar, those with higher education and those with the basics, those who embrace Christ as their saviour and those who don't.
I see those gaps only widening in the next four years as the fortunate few with access to wealth and power consolidate their control while those without become increasingly bitter and frustrated with a system that stifles their voice.
The distrust grows into paranoia.
Evangelical Christians see George Bush as a moral, God-fearing man steering America into the brisk wind of modern evils - abortion, homosexuality, other religions, other cultures and other peoples.
Fellow Americans who fail to see the light are portrayed as immoral traitors to the American Way.
Meanwhile, urban, educated liberals portray their Christian neighbours and their elected president as dangerous, fanatical zealots who are forcing their discriminatory views on the rest of the country.
Both sides view each other with an equal mixture of disdain and fear.
Once there was tolerance of these distinctions but now there is malice.
A majority of American voters just picked a chameleon.
Bush convinced nearly 60 million people he is just an ordinary, God-fearing man but he is far from ordinary.
He was born wealthy into one of America's most powerful families, received a Yale education and enjoyed a convenient military posting at home while his contemporaries were dying in Vietnam.
He is an intelligent man who surrounds himself with intelligent people but rejects his knowledge, ties the Stars and Stripes over his eyes when looking at the rest of the world and then patronizes his own people with baby talk about simple problems and simple solutions.
I fear America is slowly ripping itself apart on so many levels, over race, class, culture and gender.
In Canada, we're on the very same path of uncertainty.
Metropolitan residents are increasingly disconnected from rural populations who contribute the raw natural resources that fuel our economy.
In Prince George, we are geographically separated both regionally and nationally from the seats of power, where wealthy, urban sophisticates make decisions and set policy we must live with.
We seem to tolerate more cultures and accept different lifestyles better here in Canada, but suspicion lurks underneath about "those people."
Our leaders talk about English and French political and social concerns, with a token acknowledgment of our aboriginal residents, but it is increasingly out of sync with a growing influx of people from India, Africa and southeast Asia, not to mention the rest of the population who care less about bilingualism and more about jobs, education and health care.
We seem to be stumbling headfirst into an age of runaway individualism, where our personal needs, wants, desires and rights are paramount over everyone and everything else, where we don't see ourselves as part of a broader, cohesive collective.
Even when we do connect in groups, it's to wrap ourselves in the protection of an "us versus them" mentality.
Cynical leaders, relentless in their pursuit for the spoils of power, exploit these differences for their personal gain, further tearing the links holding our society together.
Our media and our popular culture heighten this conflict and the differences between us, even though they are far fewer, far less relevant, than our common bonds and beliefs - the quest for knowledge, justice, peace, the trust in the power of law and democracy, the love for our families, friends and communities, the hope for a better tomorrow.
We live in exciting but dangerous times.
