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"Go to any of these places, whether here in Canada or globally, and have honest conversations with those voters about abortion, race, and homosexuality, and their answers won’t be much indistinguishable from that of the average religious zealot."

Based on this and other pieces you've written, I'm highly sceptical you've done this.

Rural Canadians aren't American Republicans. Having lived my first thirty years as a card carrying Liberal in the GTA and the last 15 in Rural Ontario, I used to think Rural Canadians were ignorant, racist and homophobic for the most part.

Now, I realise they're mostly good, tolerant people out here and ironically I was the one who was ignorant and intolerant.

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You hit the nail on the head. It has bothered me why I couldn't figure the NDP out. I grew up in NOnt and have family there but have lived in the southeast for decades. Over the years I have occasionally voted NDP but just couldn't do it anymore even as a one off. They seem disorganized and incohesive. Your explanation makes sense. I get truly angry with Toronto people who get self righteous about their need for bigger and better transportation. I get it but don't try and sell that as being so good for everyone. The people in NOnt, many of whom hardly ever leave the north, don't care and resent the focus and tax money that goes to that issue and many other issues like that. These are people who can't get out of the north without a car because every other means of transportation is basically non existent. We worry about going to ER or clinics bc we don't have a dr, they have towns with no doctors and no ER. They have to find rides to Sudbury or Timmins for fairly basic medical care. I know these issues cross into provincial oversight but urbanites do not understand the disconnect between the regions. They come across as self righteous PRs.

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PP has gives people a message with explanatory power: this is why things are happening (to you), and this is who you should blame. It’s put in a form that people will feel comfortable arguing their side of in a bar or coffee shop. Lowering the cost of dental health does none of those things. The NDP wants to back away from class struggle as the narrative by which to understand what is happening, and this is why they are going to lose to the CPC coalition of religious conservatives and conspiracy thinkers.

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I was a young girl at the time but I remember when my father - an old-line CCF Saskatchewan farmer - came home from one of the CCF conventions in the early 60s and said they would ultimately rue the day they adopted the NDP name. He saw this as a sign they had lost their rural roots and their connections to people who most needed their help.

I'm afraid Singh isn't the folk hero he seems to believe himself to be.

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Well said

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On the nose, as usual.

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