These being sparse times for hope, you take it where you find it. I’m keying on Tuesday’s win by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a New York Democratic party race for a Congressional nomination. She beat one of the most entrenched U.S. Dems. He spent $3.4 million. She spent $200,000. She annihilated him. She’s 28, a former waitress, worked for Bernie Sanders, calls herself a socialist, like him.

How unexpected was it? Sanders almost beat Clinton and would’ve beaten Trump. He was the real breakthrough story of the 2016 campaign. But he was literally screened out. A study of network coverage examined 1,000 minutes of election news, Trump got 327, Clinton 121 and Sanders 20. A major news show had 81 minutes on Trump and 20 seconds of Sanders. Seconds! I’d found the Bernie moment one of the most intriguing of my lifetime but began wondering if I’d hallucinated it after the sources of “real news” basically denied its existence.

Her language was entirely populist. “This race is about people vs. money. We’ve got people, they’ve got money … working class Americans are ready and eager to hear a message about economic, social and racial justice … it’s time for one of us.” You won’t hear that line from a billionaire right wing populist.

It wasn’t even her idea to run. She was approached by one of many groups led by young (often) volunteers that sprang from the Sanders campaign. They weren’t immobilized by his defeat. They aren’t obsessed with strategy or ideology, as my generation was. They don’t agonize over starting new parties or getting co-opted in superficial elections. They just want to change things.

You could see the mainstream media struggle with her victory the next day. They debated whether this was about progressives vs. moderates, age vs. youth, men vs. women. They didn’t mention populism, likely because it’s associated entirely with right wing politics now.

But it wasn’t about age because people like Ocasio-Cortez have no problem with the venerable Sanders. It wasn’t about gender since there are women — Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi — at the reactionary heart of the Democratic party. This is a grim time in U.S. history. The “people” stand to lose not just hard-won civil rights but gender rights, such as choice — and soon.

What’s encouraging is that Sanders isn’t alone standing as a left populist against this tide. There’s a generation of the young, like her, a racialized woman ensconced in her identity, who share his social vision of health care for all, etc.

Will anyone provide this left populist option in Canada, now that right wing populism has surfaced in Doug Ford’s Ontario? The Trudeau government has a clue about the stakes but they’re hopelessly mired in their elitism: infatuated with trade deals and gimmicks like “Deliverology.”

Definitely not Jagmeet Singh’s NDP. (Oh wait, there’s my newly elected NDP MPP, Jessica Bell. I ran into her the day after Ontario’s election and congratulated her. Her response: “It’s going to be awful for people here.” How refreshing compared to the self-absorbed glee of Jack Layton’s NDP, after they became the official opposition in 2011.)

And with Canada Day around the bend, let me add a word on nationalism, a populist staple. Nationalism can be for good or bad, and notoriously so. Good when it was raised in defence of the French Revolution. Bad when it was used by all sides to generate The First World War. OK following that war, for recognizing suppressed national groups. Badbadbad with fascism in the 1930s. Good with national liberation movements in the 1960s. It’s currently in a very bad phase, due to its manipulation by self-promoters, such as Trump or Hungary’s Viktor Orban.

But there are inherent contradictions in their invocations of it. Trump, for instance, is so immersed in ego that it’s inconceivable he cares about anything beyond himself, like his country or its history. For such reasons, it’s a cause waiting to be snatched away from him.

I’m a longtime Canadian nationalist myself but when villains like Trump run with it, the only acceptable version for the rest of us becomes left populist. As Yeats wrote, in the voice of an Irish airman foreseeing his death: “My country is Kiltartan Cross/My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor.”

Happy Canada Day anyway.

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Rick Salutin is a freelance writer and columnist for the Star about all things current affairs and politics. He is based in Toronto. Reach him on email: ricksalutin@ca.inter.net is a freelance writer and columnist for the Star about all things current affairs and politics. He is based in Toronto. Reach him on email:

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