Tuesday night’s election results in the United States sparked mixed reactions in Saskatchewan.

Former President Donald Trump will become the 47th President of the United States when he is inaugurated on January 20, 2025.

The Republican politician defeated Democratic candidate Kalmala Harris in a huge political comeback, winning in key states including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

During an interview with CBC Blue sky On Wednesday, Cheryl Camillo, an American citizen living in Canada and associate professor at the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Regina, said she was “very concerned” about the future of the United States and the effects potential on Canada. could cope.

“I believe that President Trump will be further emboldened to erode the democratic institutions of the United States, including the federal executive branches and the judiciary, as well as democratic processes generally,” Camillo said. “I also fear that it will create more divisions and an even more divided nation.”

People saw flashes of that message in Trump’s victory speech when he didn’t thank President Joe Biden or Harris, his vice president, she said.

A Trump presidency could affect Saskatchewan in many ways, Camillo said, including economically if tariffs are imposed, but also with an increase in Trump-style rhetoric, which she said is already being seen in Canadian politics.

“I believe they (Canadian Conservatives) have already adopted many of the tactics used by the Trump campaign, and so I anticipate that as we drive past the (legislative building) on ​​Albert Street, there will be more protesters with ‘F Trudeau. “signs and other vulgar signs, and the rhetoric will flow from that,” Camillo said.

Trump Speechwriter from Saskatchewan. reacts to presidential victory with a Democratic expat

Frank Buckley, a Trump speechwriter who grew up in Saskatoon, and Cheryl Camillo, an American expat who teaches at the University of Regina, discuss the U.S. election results on CBC Radio’s Blue Sky.

Another Blue sky the guest disagreed.

“You know, just listen to people like that (Camillo) and you won’t be informed at all about what’s going on in America,” said Frank Buckley, born and raised in Saskatchewan and now a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia. . He has previously written speeches for Donald J. Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Americans are not at the point where pronouns and climate change are driving them to vote, he said. People voted for Trump for economic reasons and for inflation reasons. Camillo had argued that Harris had the best plan for the economy.

“Americans aren’t just too stupid to understand that Democrats are good for them,” Buckley said. “I think they also understand that there have been structural problems in our economy, and particularly around the loss of the American dream.”

Buckley compared Trump’s “reinvented” Republican Party to Saskatchewan’s Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a democratic socialist party succeeded by the NDP in the 1960s.

Expatriates speak out

Two US expats currently living in Saskatoon reflected on the election with the CBC show Saskatoon Morning host Stéphanie Massicotte.

Ben Dunning, a native of Wisconsin – a key battleground state – watched Trump claim victory for the second time in three elections.

Dunning said most of his family are Trump supporters, but he chose not to vote in this election because he has no plans to return to the United States.

Additionally, as a teacher at the University of Saskatchewan, he said he didn’t want his students to think he was biased.

Dunning said he watched the results come in with his brother.

“I got the 2016 vibe,” he said. “I saw this weird start of Trump, and then he never went away, and I was like, ‘Uh oh, I think we’re heading toward Trump 2.0 here.'”

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Now that Trump has been re-elected, Dunning said he wonders what will happen with some of the promises made regarding immigration, tariffs and crime.

“I don’t know whether or not he plans to follow through on this idea of ​​the largest mass expulsion in American history. I don’t know how we could even afford to do something like that, and let alone realize it,” Dunning said.

“So, yes, I’m very nervous about what’s going to happen in the United States in the future.”

Beau Sutton, a New York native, said he voted Democratic this election because he felt it came down to one simple reason: Harris was more qualified than Trump, who did a “terrible job.”

“They (the Harris campaign) underestimated how people felt about the economy – just the general dissatisfaction with the way government was working right now. I think they overestimated how much the people would be against Trump…and it cost them everywhere,” Sutton responded. when asked about mistakes the Harris campaign made.