Kevin Gosine, Brock Associate Professor of Sociology, wrote a piece recently published in the Hamilton Spectator about the danger of the polarized political climate in the U.S. and the potential for it to migrate north.

Gosine writes:

How did the “alt-right” manage to permeate mainstream American consciousness?

People around the world were aghast this summer at the horrors of Charlottesville, Va. — brutal violence between white nationalists and counterprotesters; a white supremacist using a car as a weapon; Donald Trump reluctant to condemn white nationalists, blaming the violence on “many sides” and saying “some very fine people” can be found on the far right. (When he finally did denounce racists and bigotry, Trump sounded, at best, perfunctory.)

Charlottesville prompted Canadians to wonder if a white nationalist event of comparable magnitude could happen here. The U.S.A. suffers from a degree of political polarization that is not present in Canada, at least not to the same extent. America’s white supremacist movement — or the “alt(ernative) right” as it has rebranded itself — has managed to gain mainstream traction that it has not achieved in our country.

Continue reading the full article here.