One things that’s easily forgotten in a media (social and otherwise) landscape that celebrates the extreme viewpoint is that Canadians are not sorting themselves into fascist and communist camps. The vast majority of conservatives are neither white supremacists not anarcho-capitalists, and the vast majority of progressives are not neo-Stalinist SJWs. If we’re settling into opposing camps, it is those who believe private enterprise is a necessary evil versus those who see government as a necessary evil. The key word in both cases is “necessary”. We are still arguing over the ratio of a mixed economy within a democratic society, and debating the amount of state intervention that should be utilized in trying to create a fair society and soften the sometimes sharp edges of a market economy. The majority of us have more in common with each other than with the fringes on either side.

Populist Bernier is just a Ford/Trump clone that’s taken an etiquette class.

Populist Bernier is just a Ford/Trump clone that’s taken an etiquette class.

I honestly believe Sanders, an honest to goodness social democrat, could have beaten Trump in the land that produced McCarthy. Hillary was the worst possible candidate to put against Trump. Because she’s Shooter McGavin (“Let’s get one thing straight, this is Shooter’s tour. I’ve worked hard my whole life, paid my dues, and now it’s Shooter’s turn.“), which allowed Trump to be Happy Gilmore (someone who wanders into golf/politics from a completely different sport). And who did people cheer for in that movie? The US presidential election was neither a victory for the right nor a loss for the left. It was the dysfunction of a cronyistic and out of touch US political system coming to a head. And when the Canadian public stop finding Trudeau’s identity politics obsession and high school cool kid act endearing, we may well end up at a similar crossroads here.