A View From Canada: US Democrats Should Worry Us All

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks during a news conference introducing the College For All Act in Washington on June 24, 2019. Co-sponsored by three senators including Sen. Bernie Sanders, the bill proposes cancelling the country’s outstanding $1.6 trillion in student debt. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Over the last 100 years, America’s progressive elites have made their home in the Democratic Party. Progressive leaders like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama, along with legions of supporters in academia, journalism, public service, education, entertainment and the arts have been moving that country’s vital centre further and further away from its early origins in classical liberalism, constitutional government, and moral custom.

From time to time the international left’s will to dominance has been slowed by the appearance of countervailing conservative intellectual movements and larger-than-life figures like John F. Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump. But as the free world prepares to enter the third decade of the 21st century, the United States—once Canada’s strongest and most reliable ally in defence of liberty—may be on the way to becoming a shadow of its former self.

Suicide of the West

In his recent book “Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy,” Jonah Goldberg points out that the development of constitutional democracy and “the miracle” of democratic capitalism had an enormously positive effect on the West, which eventually spread throughout the world. “The results were inescapable: nearly everywhere on the planet men and women lived longer, ate better, enjoyed more leisure, and had access to resources and delights that previously had been reserved for the very rich and powerful, or more commonly, had been utterly unknown,” Goldberg wrote.