Left v. Right

Why can’t we just get along?

Curtis stone, a stranger from Kelowna, British Columbia, is sitting on the couch in my Mile End apartment. It’s a cold March evening, and we’re drinking local beer, eating Saint-André cheese, and talking music preferences. Stone — a Barr Brothers fan — is wearing designer glasses and has a hipster haircut. He mentions that, while he now works out west as an organic urban farmer, he used to live in this Montreal neighbourhood — in fact, he played in a band here. 

 in with my group of friends. He seems like a nice enough guy — he’s spent hundreds of hours volunteering at community gardens, and he once invited a Syrian refugee to tour his farm. He’s even a staunch environmentalist who refuses to use disposable diapers on his newborn daughter. Still, there is a tension between us. At one point in our conversation, he yells out, defensively, “I’m a good person!” I wonder if he’s as sure about that as he insists.

Unlike anyone else who has ever stepped foot in my apartment, Stone is glad that Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Though he refuses to identify as alt-right (he says that he rejects white supremacy), he does share many positions with the far right. Stone loves the same thought leaders — Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, and, his favourite, Jordan Peterson — who are popular with that camp. He doesn’t like the Black Lives Matter movement, rages against “white, upper-class feminists,” and argues that politically correct lefties are nothing more than authoritarians.