With the Democratic and Republican primaries in full swing, the spectacle on American TV screens could not be more entertaining, even outrageous. This is particularly true on the Republican side where the level at which candidates are hurling insults at each other has reached unprecedented heights, masking the complete absence of any form of substantive discussion.

This newest edition of the American Presidential race is a true disgrace. It also illustrates how different the political culture is South of the Canadian border.

Democrats have a choice between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. She is the incarnation of the inevitable Clinton Dynasty, but comes with a lot of baggage that casts doubt over her trustworthiness. He is an independent socialist dinosaur who just recently found it expedient to re-join the Donkey Party to even remotely have a shot at the White House and start his new American revolution. 

Republicans will most likely have to choose between Trump, Cruz and Rubio, now all front runners while former princeling Jeb Bush completely missed his launch. What is most remarkable in this contest is that the clear early front runner (Trump) has no support from the party brass and the GOP leadership would love nothing more than if he simply went away!

Trump is a populist who will do and say anything, without filter, that might get him his next trophy. He is also a self-centered narcissist that believes he can buy the Presidency because he is “really, really rich” and comes up with completely outrageous ideas that will never see the light of day. Ted Cruz is a true conservative and evangelical with lots of appeal in the American bible belt, but probably not beyond. Marco Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants with an air of youthfulness not unlike Justin Trudeau and a political sense that should make him attractive to moderates.

What is different this time is how many angry voters have decided to participate in the early stages of the U.S. election. And they gravitate to both extremes: to Sanders in the democratic, and to Trump in the republican camp. However, as long as neither of the two candidates explain how they will bring about their views of cleaning up the mess in Washington, their rhetoric may not turn into more than an echo into the void of the shattered American Dream.

In Canada, we just went through a General Election last year where the choices were much less drastic and while the campaign was somewhat exciting for Canadian standards, it would put Americans to sleep. To sum it up, Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party got the nod from Canadian voters, probably not so much because Canadians wanted something radically new, but because Mr. Harper failed to realize that he had passed his good-before date as Conservative leader and the country’s Prime Minister.

The key difference between Canadian and U.S. style general elections not only lies in the lack of braggadocio North of the 49th, but in how campaigns are run and financed.

Canada has rules that limit a General Election campaign to a couple of months with the result that there is only so much money that parties can spend in convincing voters that they are the better choice than the competition. The party that gets the most votes in the election will be asked by the Governor General to form government. The leader of that party will become Prime Minister, and that’s all she wrote.

In the U.S., the run for the White House is a two-year affair, with candidates jockeying for a spot in the primaries 24-18 months before the election, the primaries circus starting in January of the election year, party nomination conventions in the summer and then the election in November. This not only forces politicians to take a lot of time off from doing their day jobs, it also costs lots of money. And it has created a competitive culture that leads to a level of nastiness that is unique in the world. Listen to ten minutes of Trump or Rubio in the current primaries and you will understand what I mean.

Canadians can thank their former Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, for bringing in new political finance rules that set strict limits for voter donations and basically eliminated Corporate Canada as large donors to election campaigns. Mr. Chretien saw large corporate donations as a risk to the political process as it allowed big corporations to exert undue influence on parties and politicians alike. Kudos to him for having the audacity to change the rules, and to Mr. Harper, actually, for resisting the temptation to change them back and make them more “American” when his Conservatives took office just a few years later.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court took another direction and, in a landmark First Amendment decision, opened the doors for limitless contributions to candidates by so-called “SuperPACs” that are not directly connected to a particular candidate. The result of this decision is that money spent in federal election campaigns has skyrocketed to billions and has more or less spun out of control as SuperPACs avoid scrutiny under transparency rules for “normal” campaign financing.

Corporate America can actually buy candidates; the Koch Brothers’ empire for example does so unapologetically. Bernie Sanders makes a point of the problem in stating publicly that he will not, under any circumstances, take any money from any SuperPAC. The Koch Brothers will look over the snub as they were probably never interested in funding his socialist agenda anyways. On the other side of the spectrum, The Donald touts the virtues of his campaign being self-funded. That is a small consolation to those who understand that Mr. Trump spending a billion of his own money still means he might be trying to buy his way to the White House.

American politics, and the race to the White House are fascinating and entertaining to be sure. But something needs to change in the United States’ political system to return it to the notion of Government “By the People, For the People, Of the People”. It won’t happen this time around, but maybe the participation of the silent but angry minority has started a process.