[AltaGuy]

In the US, decades of efforts to enrich the rich at the expense of the middle class has massively increased inequality. As ever, inequality leads to populism, tribalism, protectionism, and extremism. Inequality is breeding similar things in Canada and elsewhere in the world too. The ability of a government to effectively redistribute money and tax the rich has reduced dramatically because of both globalization and flighted capital, and overt policies favouring the wealthy.

I remain of the opinion that there is no true dialectic in the US between extreme right and left. The extreme right is enabled, abetted, funded, and championed by many wealthy interests: a perverted betrayal of many poor citizens’ best interests, but a thrust that continues to exacerbate inequality and social ills.

However, the extreme left has no powerful or moneyed backers. On social policy - yes - there are some wealthy interests. But the Democrats and “left” or “centrist” interests in the US are backed by pretty conservative forces as well. The biggest donors to the Democrats - the ones that pay for political campaigns, get policies changed, and sway public opinion on a large scale - are decidedly centrist. Of course they are: wealth distribution rarely finds common ground with the wealthy. Is CNBC - the “left” news station - really extreme? A company owned by juggernaut Comcast? But Fox News sure is.

So yeah - social issues get some play - and make it seem as if the discourse is a dialectic. It’s not: the extreme right is backed by money, while the extreme left is part of a party that is firmly centrist and will never go far left because it would hurt its own moneyed interests too much.