A Canadian steps in to write a smart, candid letter to Americans.
And I’m here to tell them, based on my own memories of the Trudeau years, that hope might just be enough, as long as you’re willing to fill in the blanks and work for it. I remember that irrational but incredibly powerful feeling that Canada was capable of being a “Just Society.”
I still think that, even after the Harper years, and Canada’s social politics still command respect from any American who actually knows anything about our proud history of liberal social policy.
I tell my American friends that they can have their own Trudeau, his name is Obama, and that they have to fight for what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now” in the face of what I call “the false potency of No.”