Michael Adams is a Canadian public opinion researcher who contributed an opinion piece to the Globe and Mail on Jan. 1, 2022. Entitled The Great Divide, it purported to explain the cultural/political differences between contemporary Canada and the U.S.. Every sentence of his lengthy article is cancerous with biased Leftist assumptions submitted to no critical analysis whatsoever!
The 75 million who voted for Trump, we are asked to believe, were motivated by that litany of vile attributes consistently applied to all “conservatives.” The hatred that is dividing America, therefore, is a result of their “far-right” fanaticism and has nothing to do with the radical shift to the Left of a Biden regime manipulated by the likes of Kamala Harris, A.O.C., etc., etc.. Canada, Adams proudly declares, is riven by no such rancor because: “Canadian Conservatives look more like American Democrats than American Republicans.” So his compliment to Canada is that it really doesn’t have a “conservative” opposition. That he considers this laudable, of course, is rooted in the same arrogance that informed Molly Ball’s Time Magazine article which simply assumed any point of view other than her own to be deplorable. But Adams grossly misdiagnosed the mind-set of Canadian “conservatives” who seem quite happy with the recent removal of Erin O’Toole as their leader precisely because he refused to represent truly “conservative” values. Moreover the Freedom Convoy presently occupying Ottawa implies he also grossly underestimated the rebellious spirit of Canadians unwilling to accept the abrogation of their freedoms before their authoritarian, Leftist government.
I do not use words like “absurd” or “demented” lightly. But behold Adams’ “analysis” of the difference between the values of those on either side of the political spectrum. Those on the Left, he says, tend to be devoted “to diversity and social inclusion” while “conservatives” tend to defer to “authority-oriented values” which ultimately include “concepts like duty.” While he in no way confronts the implications of this distinction, it clearly implies the disdain for merit and achievement that informs the Leftist narrative. That young person bound to the traditional Western notion of “duty” will work and study hard, be self-disciplined and in most cases prosper to one extent or another. Those who refuse to bow before the “oppressive” demands of “duty,” ignoring their education, doing drugs and perhaps attempting to fornicate with everything that moves, are very likely to end up on skid row. It is a reality Black “conservatives” such as Larry Elder never cease to invoke in explaining the squalor and crime within many inner city American communities. But while clearly impugning the very concept of “duty,” while in fact inviting the inclusion crowd to dismiss it as just a White Western thing, Adams absurdly insists those who have prospered because of their values and work ethic are somehow responsible for the failures of those who lived lives of utter self-indulgence.
The Meritocracy, those on the Left say, is a Capitalist fiction. But 90% of what they find inequitable in Western Democracies is the result not of our economic system but of the corruptibility of the species coupled with the inevitable randomness of life itself. I might have been born in a South American rain forest and starved to death before my first birthday, but I was not. No one is to blame for such disparities and the implicitly deprecatory notion that my lower middle-class Canadian upbringing was somehow “privileged” is utterly devoid of moral integrity. Most “conservatives” fully support programs designed to help the less fortunate, but egalitarian simpletons such as Adams continue to insist disparities of “outcome” are always the result of oppression, even as he stupidly denounces the very human qualities that might lead to the eradication of those disparities.
Adams laments America’s status as “a furious, dysfunctional political culture where opponents are enemies.” Yet he is utterly impervious to the fact that his disdain for anyone who does not share his views may be the very cause of that rift. Locked in denial on every issue, he makes repeated references to the deadly Jan. 6 “insurrection” in which thousands of “radicalized, ill-informed Americans stormed the Capitol building.” But “thousands” did not breach the Capitol that day and none of those who did was directly responsible for any death while the notion that they were ignorant and uninformed simply ignores the mountain of evidence of voter irregularities on Nov. 3. Moreover the behavior of those who did breach the Capitol in no way suggests they were trying to overthrow the elected American government, while the tens of thousands in the streets had no idea of what was happening inside its precincts. Indeed several security guards willingly opened their doors to what appeared to be peaceful protesters because they also were unaware that violence had broken out elsewhere in the massive building. Adam’s article is biased to its very core, his unwillingness to rationally discuss any of the incidents to which he alludes or the character of those he so glibly demonizes, being precisely the Reason there is no chance of meaningful discourse between the Left and that host of decent, regular Americans he and those like him habitually dismisses as a bunch of racist idiots.