I have always been surprised at the lack of interest from many Quebeckers in what is happening in the United States, except when they go there as tourists.
Yet there is not a country that has so much influence over everything that happens in our region.
In our pages, the posts of Pierre Martin and Luc Laliberté are doing useful work to try to counter this indifference.
Left
In the United States, as in most Western societies, large cities are ruled by the left.
Why ? Because in the metropolises a relatively young electorate is concentrated and who consider themselves “connected”.
The municipal arena is also conducive to grassroots activists, overwhelmingly on the left.
I barely caricature by summarizing their current mental universe in this way: police brutality, racial profiling, “systemic” racism, debunking of statues, bicycles, hostility to the car, never enough social housing, never enough rent control, etc.
I’ll say it again, it’s a caricature, but you basically see what I’m referring to.
These very determined people often end up taking power at City Hall.
Small businesses, attracting investment, economic prosperity, often associated with capitalism viewed with hostility, are very low on their scale of priorities, to put it politely. See the Plante administration.
We watch these people go and we sometimes wonder where the voice of ordinary people has gone, not ideologues for two cents.
In medium-sized or small cities, leadership is often more pragmatic, as in Quebec, where Régis Labeaume extended the renaissance started under Jean-Paul L’Allier.
This is why I am coming back here to the United States. What is happening in New York is interesting.
In the next municipal election, the Democratic candidate will be Eric Adams.
He is guaranteed to be the next mayor since this city is as democratic as Westmount is liberal.
Admittedly, Mr. Adams is vegan, rides his bike and says he’ll go to work on the subway. And why not ?
But Mr. Adams is also a former police captain.
He does not want to “define” the police, but on the contrary give them the means to do their job: law and order.
He says he wants to govern for everyone and not just for those who think like him.
He built a coalition including people of all colors, unions, religious leaders and business people.
He wants to balance public finances.
Ordinary
I almost forgot: this former policeman is black.
But he presents himself as an ordinary man who happens to be black.
He does not present himself as someone who is first defined by his color, which makes it the basis of his identity and whose entire political program revolves around issues linked to the racial question.
These days, it feels good, doesn’t it?
We’ll see what happens next, but every time we wonder where common sense has gone, he looks up.
