Kevin O’Leary is running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. Whether or not he wins the nomination remains to be seen, but should he become the candidate, his fate, and that of the country, rests largely with how the Left behaves itself in the coming months. From the political left (the NDP and, to an extent, the Liberals) to the media (especially the CBC) to anyone and everyone associated to the mainstream center-left, the future of the country is in our hands.

Donald Trump became president of the United States because the Left failed in its most basic message, that of inclusion. Taking the path of least resistance, it narrowed its gaze to the most easily-championed causes, like LGBTQ rights, refugees, First Nations and the environment. While these are all very worthy causes, and ones whose time seems to at long last be at hand, the most pressing issue, the one on whose success, or failure, all the other struggles depend, is convincing those who see the Left as the enemy. In dismissing those who disagree, the Left has contradicted its own ethos and brought itself to the brink of destruction.

It’s easy to help those who want to be helped, especially when they agree with the same fundamental principles as those helping them. It is a far greater challenge to accomplish one’s goals when the way to do that is to convince those who disagree. The Left has not done that; they haven’t convinced anyone, they haven’t changed a single mind. Retreating further into their own worldview, they have pushed anyone who disagrees with them to the sidelines, labeling them racists, homophobes, and xenophobes, treating them in the exact same way the people the Left has been trying to help have been treated for so long.

It’s a classic case of history repeating itself, of becoming the monster in order to destroy it. The divisions plaguing America which are now slowly creeping into Canada will require a movement vastly different from how the Left has been pursuing its goals in the recent past. Increasingly exclusionary rhetoric and a disproportionate emphasis on minority groups, whose very real struggles must be addressed, has also had the effect of alienating people who feel they have nothing in common with those groups, and who, as result, feel left out of the discourse at best, insulted and condemned at worst.

The bottom line, and the most difficult point, is that the dangers presented by the Right and people like Leitch and O’Leary in Canada and Trump and his ilk in the US are only to be avoided if we get to their current and potential supporters and simply hear them before they do. And when we listen to them, we will hear things we don’t like, and in spite of that, it will be our duty as progressive citizens to swallow our discomfort and continue to engage in frank and open dialogue with our political and social opposites. Insults and disparaging comments will accomplish nothing except satisfy some petty revenge fantasies, and only serve to further the growing rift between Left and Right. Disagreeing with same-sex marriage does not automatically make someone a homophobe; summarily labeling and dismissing anyone who disagrees with us is ultimately detrimental to all Canadians. Thus far, we have failed miserably at convincing our opponents through reasoned debate, while we have largely succeeded at shaming them into silence. Their retribution was swift and brutal in America, as it will be in Canada if we don’t seize this moment to change the course we are on.

We hear on an almost daily basis about the shrinking middle-class, the continuing squeeze on working people to make ends meet, but one question we rarely ask is who are the middle-class? It may be shrinking, but the people who make it up are not going away. And few of them are moving in an upward direction, economically. And this type of economic oppression affects people of every colour and creed, every orientation and gender. No one is immune. And the Left is doing it’s best to fight for an end to this type of oppression; they are valiantly stepping up to big business and the banking sector and demanding a more equitable world; champions like Bernie Sanders are galvanizing the people to fight for economic justice. But therein lies a paradox, one that continues to confound the Left: of the people affected by the shrinking middle-class, huge numbers of them are on the Right; they are the ones who put Trump in power, they are the ones pushing back against what they see as media-savvy, big-city, socialist elites; they are the very people the Left has dismissed for so long as beneath contempt for failing to agree and go along with their views. They have been classified as unworthy of being fought for; because their economic oppression, their dwindling incomes, failing school systems and lack of prospects for a better future do not merit fighting for because their views, often, disagree with ours. They may oppose same-sex marriage, or be against abortion, or favour the death penalty. They may be religious, even maybe evangelical; they may not like immigration or they may fear what they think it could lead to. But by being so exclusionary, by leaving them out of the struggle, the Left has doomed itself to a narrow, circular existence, chasing its own tail and congratulating itself on preaching to the converted.

That failure to engage in discussion and debate with our neighbours has left them vulnerable to the cynical machinations of the Right, who excel at exploiting weakness and ignorance to their advantage. In the end, the Left’s biggest failure has been the fear of the other; the very thing we’ve been fighting against all this time will be undone by our own refusal to truly accept and welcome the other. Human interaction, debate, discussion, argument; these are all necessary to a progressive society, but they are never neat and tidy. They are messy, frequently ugly things; arguments arise, disagreements happen, compromise – that most precious and valuable tool – is used far too rarely. Trump-style politics is coming to Canada, but we still have a chance to avoid disaster, if only we would learnt to listen more and judge less.