The shifts in the democratic world order over the last decade have increasingly prompted social scientists to discard the left-right political spectrum in favour of an “open-ordered axis,” or what The Economist calls drawbridge-down vs drawbridge-up thinking. In fact, our populist explosion has already had its first bangs and is likely to have a major impact on next year’s federal election. It is an institutional blind spot, largely denied or ridiculed by the media, and by the more comfortable and educated portions of society. It is the product of economic despair, inequality, and yes, racism and xenophobia. It is the biggest force reshaping democracy, our economies and public institutions. We’ve learned more and more about the populism that has fuelled this complicated moment as the fracture in America races like wildfire throughout Western democracies. There are two Americas, incommensurably separated on the fundamental issues of the day: climate change, the economy, social issues like health and education, employment, the media, immigration in particular, and globalization and free trade. It has become easy to just be appalled as America becomes riven, with social media and antagonistic rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum erasing the middle ground. Frank Graves is president of Ottawa-based EKOS Research Associates and a fellow of University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. Michael Valpy is a senior fellow of Massey College and a senior fellow in public policy at University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.Īs Canadians, we sit atop the continent, watching as our neighbours slide into cultural civil war.
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