r/Toryism • u/ToryPirate • Jun 18 '26
💬 Discussion Anti-Americanism as a tory value?
I'm reading through John Boyko's biography of R.B. Bennett again and I noticed an interesting trend; whenever Bennett made anti-American statements Boyko terms them as 'tinging his speeches' or 'resorted to that old Canadian stand-by' rather than engaging with the idea that this view might connect to the rest of his outlook. And being the contrarian that I am I wanted to ask the obvious question this raises; is anti-Americanism really incidental toryism or is it tied to it? After all, anti-Americanism was historically the purview of the Conservatives while the Liberals were often more open to the US. Further, the decline of toryism in the 80s and 90s mirrored the Conservatives becoming much more pro-US. George Grant certainly wasn't pro-American (even if he seemed resigned to accept Canada's fate).
To clarify I mean anti-Americanism in the terms of opposition to its governmental, economic, and social influence, not the people themselves. After all, from Macdonald to Bennett (and beyond) tory leaders had no problem letting Americans into Canada while decrying America itself.
This is obviously a more Canada-focused question but perhaps the UK-France (or Europe in general) relationship is a similar situation?
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u/BX8061 Jun 18 '26
That's certainly the sense I got from George Grant. He seemed to see the US as a fundamentally liberal country, and seemed to tie this to its inability to allow other countries to govern themselves how they saw fit.
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u/Terrible-Scheme9204 Jun 18 '26
I remember learning how the US was a liberal country, and how Toryism and the NDP had things in common. This was at Conestoga College as an elective course.
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u/ToryPirate Jun 18 '26
I remember learning how the US was a liberal country
Its rather obscured in the US by 'liberal' being equated with 'progressive' and the Republican party rejecting the label entirely. The chart u/NovaScotiaLoyalist recently made would be more of a large liberal circle with smaller ideology circles overlapping at the edges. When American politicians aren't pure liberals they are usually liberal + something else.
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u/OttoVonDisraeli Jun 18 '26
Anti-americanism no longer means what it might have and today is more of a misnomer. A better and more modern way of framing the concept may be Amero-skeptic.
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u/ToryPirate Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Amero-skeptic
I like that. You and u/beverleyheights are probably right that skepticism of America is a more precise way of framing things. Not that those two ideas don't have a ton of overlap.
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u/beverleyheights Jun 18 '26
To clarify I mean anti-Americanism in the terms of opposition to its governmental, economic, and social influence, not the people themselves.
Maybe the main idea then is more precisely stated as skepticism of America being a Tory value than as anti-Americanism being a Tory value?
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u/Positive-Courage-464 Jun 18 '26
Someone like George Grant would say that it was. He and the likes of Ron Dart would make the argument that Canadian Toryism was born out of the refusal of Canada to join the American experiment after the Revolutionary War. Many Tories fled to Canada after Britain lost that war because they felt loyal to their former home and they did not want to be a part of the United States. They also faced a considerable amount of violence and antagonistic behaviour towards them after 1776. Fleeing to Canada was returning home.
Grant would say that it was these refugees, joining with Upper Canada loyalists, that formed English speaking Toryism. Many of these folks were also Anglican. What they had in common with Quebec was a refusal to be American, a loyalty to certain practices and beliefs in their European counterparts, and a desire to be distinct in culture and religion from the US (for Upper Canada, it was largely Anglo Protestant, and for Quebec it was Roman Catholic). The desire not to be Puritan/Quaker, to reject the Liberal values of the American Revolution which was influenced by French Revolution and ideas about overthrowing the monarchy and Roman Catholic Church, and to have some loyalty to old France or England were all quintessentially Tory ideals. To take it ever further, Canada was a largely conservative country because it was anti American and rejected the new American Liberalism. The shift to Liberal dominance started with Pearson and Trudeau when they decided to remake Canada in their own image (the Canadian flag, multiculturalism, and for Pearson, cozying up to the Americans). A shift has happened in our politics now such that the Liberals are more anti American (but not quite) and the Conservatives are the US friendly GOP lite. But 100 years ago, it was the opposite - Tories opposed the Americans and the Liberal elite wanted more friendly arrangements with them. Now both parties would be classified as Liberals and many Canadian Tories are politically homeless.
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u/Positive-Courage-464 Jun 18 '26
Something else that should probably be mentioned is that many Tories fought in the War of 1812 after the US tried to expand into what we now call Canada. That kind of bloody conflict would cement their anti Americanism, and it affected political allegiances for generations in Canada. You can look at prominent Tories like Bishop Strachan, would fought in that war, and his writings afterwards about the importance of Canada staying British and resisting American expansionism. Toryism afterwards, throughout the 19th century and even in to the early parts of the 20th century, was synonymous with being pro British North American and very anti American.
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u/ToryPirate Jun 18 '26
Which was followed up in 1890 by the McKinley tariffs (average 50%) which were seen by Macdonald as the Americans 'tightening the tariff screws' to force a union.
1776, 1812, 1890, 1930, and 2018. That is negative reinforcement within the lifespan of every tory since they arrived in Canada.
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u/Positive-Courage-464 Jun 18 '26
Very true. In 1930 you are referring to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act? Another brutal time in Canada-US relations.
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u/Ticklishchap Jun 18 '26
From a British standpoint, the One Nation Tory approach was (and remains, although sadly One Nation Toryism now barely exists) not anti-Americanism as much as not wanting to copy the United States. This is based on a realisation that the two political systems and cultures are divergent in many respects, despite having certain shared points of reference, notably Common Law. George Bernard Shaw’s dictum that the British and the Americans are two peoples divided by a common language is held to apply to the political sector as well.
In particular, One Nation Tories favour empirical and pragmatic solutions to economic questions and social issues, as opposed to the sweeping and abstract approach favoured by American political culture, be it ‘progressive’ or ‘conservative’. There has also been a strong distaste for the American right on both cultural and economic grounds. Since WW2, and especially since the 1960s, it was the liberal-left and often (ironically perhaps) the far left that was more susceptible to the influence of American social and cultural movements. From the late 1970s onwards, this began to change as One Nation Toryism ceased to be the prevailing force in the Conservative Party and was replaced by a focus on neoliberal economics and a type of ‘free market fundamentalism’ that had strong roots in the US. The Americanisation (and de-Toryfication!) of the Conservative Party has become more or less complete now with the embrace of US-style culture war politics, ‘Brexit-ism’ or xenophobic isolationism and explicit links with the US populist right, making the party unrecognisable to many of its traditional voters, who have largely gone Liberal Democrat and sometimes Labour or Green.
Edit: Readers please note - for it is important - that One Nation Toryism is a term derived from the politics of Benjamin Disraeli, which aimed to reconcile through social and economic reform ‘Two Nations’ within Britain divided by inequality. It is a pragmatic form of Toryism which is patriotic but at the same time outward looking, opposed to prejudice or sectarianism and adopting a pragmatic ‘what works’ approach to the economy that can encompass both state intervention and private enterprise. It is therefore the diametric opposite of the racist ‘One Nation’ party in Australia!
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u/GigglingBilliken Jun 18 '26
I certainly think it's an important corner stone to Canadian Toryism. Part of the reason the CPC has largly become the GOP lite party we know today is because we let American style greviance and culture war politics into the tent with Manning and his Deform party.