[Inside Chodong] "Don't Move to Canada" What the U.S. Presidential Election Left Behind

EPA Yonhap News

The U.S. presidential election left a new record in the search bar of Google, the world's largest search engine. As the victory of the Republican candidate, President-elect Donald Trump, became clear, online searches related to 'immigrating to Canada' surged by a staggering 5000% starting from election night. Eventually, The New York Times (NYT) even published a column with the headline: "Don’t Move to Canada."

The situation has not changed much even after a week. The progressive media outlet The Washington Post (WP) features an article titled "Dreaming of Moving Abroad? What You Need to Immigrate to 5 Countries," which is ranking high in views. This highlights one aspect of the division and conflict surrounding the election results.

This division was predicted early on when Trump, the first former or sitting U.S. president to be convicted, announced his bid for re-election. It stems from Trump’s political strategy of defining enemies and inciting hatred and anger toward them to build his support base. Trump won the 2016 election using the same strategy. The explicit message that "immigrants will kill you, and it’s all the Democrats’ fault" was repeated even more extremely in this election.

During this fall’s holiday period, Republican supporters I met locally repeated President-elect Trump’s claim that Haitian immigrants settled in Ohio were eating neighbors’ pets, and even alleged that they were poisoning neighbors. The extreme reactions were not much different among Democratic supporters. Ultimately, even Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s rival, likened his New York rally to a "Nazi gathering" in the final stages of the campaign, launching a fascist offensive that fueled "hatred." The Brookings Institution summarized this year’s election atmosphere by stating, "Violent rhetoric is pouring out, and opponents are being demonized. These inflammatory remarks are spreading rapidly through social media," and warned that "extremism is expanding."

Regardless of political leanings, one undeniable fact confirmed by this election result is that "Americans wanted change." And democracy begins with respecting such choices of the people. However, what must be guarded against at this point is the aftermath left by the extreme hate politics that dominated this election.

Amartya Sen, an Indian economist and the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, introduced the concept of "identity violence" in his past writings. He warned that defining people with different identities as enemies in the pursuit of group rights can ultimately lead to social destruction. This brings to mind the U.S. presidential election this year, which was rife with inflammatory hate speech. Now that the winner is confirmed, it is time to reflect on what the social division and loss of trust revealed during the process mean. And this is certainly not a story unique to the United States.

Therefore, the "manifesto" left by an NYT columnist who supported the Democrats in this election draws attention. It calls to accept the election results, to become watchdogs of power, to support organizations and groups that seek to uphold human dignity, and to make efforts to accept those with differing opinions. This is a manifesto that is also much needed in Korea, where hate politics is intensifying.