The degeneracy of Christian nationalism and the demolition of culture

(RNS) — Trump's assault on art and culture is only outdone by his debasement of his fellow humans.

National Portrait Gallery houses Rigoberto Gonzalez’s “Refugees Crossing the Border Wall into South Texas.” Photo by Difference Engine/Wikimedia Commons

Phyllis Zagano
August 29, 2025

(RNS) — The United States exists in a new-old universe. After nearly 250 years of democracy, it seems infected with totalitarianism, racial superiority, anti-communism and all the petrified theories advanced by another populist politician, Adolph Hitler.

Donald Trump did say he would be a dictator on day one.

History will be the judge, but things look rather bleak right now for the democracy side of the equation.

Take art and culture.

During the 12 years of Hitler’s corruption of the concepts of law and order, he also attacked what we now call “creatives” and cultural institutions. The backlash against artistic Modernism had begun earlier in Germany’s Weimar era, but the Führer fully enforced his own ideas of what comprised art. He banned “degenerate art”: Bauhaus, Cubism, Dada, Expressionism, Fauvism, Impressionism and Surrealism. And the regime supported only official painters, sculptors, architects, writers and even actors.

Things are trending in the same direction in the 21st-century United States. Trump, having gotten himself elected chair of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has vowed to end “woke political programming” at Washington’s premier arts venue.

As an example of what this means, the Kennedy Center hosted a screening this week of “The Revival Generation,” a documentary about a “nationwide campus revival movement” drawing Gen Z Americans. Billed as a “call to faith and a message of hope” that “(c)aptures a spiritual awakening among today’s youth,” the program included a one-hour worship service with “a local worship collective.”

Next Trump ordered a review of exhibits at the Smithsonian Museums that has sent curators scrambling to “fix” exhibits Mr. Trump finds too woke. The list of things needing repair at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of the American Latino focuses on mentions of race, slavery, immigration and sexuality.

The artwork that offends the curator-in-chief is not Cubism or Dadaism or Impressionism. Unlike Hitler, Trump has not put Picasso, Duchamp and Monet on the banned lists. Rather, it is Rigoberto Gonzalez’s extraordinary “Refugees Crossing the Border Wall into South Texas.”

The list goes on. Some of it is, well, edgy. But it is not of the order of “Immersion (Piss Christ),” Andres Serrano’s 1987 photograph of a crucifix submerged in a container of his own urine. Despite an outcry from politicians who tried to defund its sponsors, the piece won an award in a competition partly sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. Ronald Reagan was president then.

If only Trump would confine his new strictures to art and culture, his populism would be an affront only to the pursuit of beauty. But they cross several lines, assaulting truth as well.

As several mainline faith leaders and the U.S. Catholic bishops have pointed out, the derisive oppression of poor immigrants by members of the current administration is sickening. That some administration officials continue to publicly espouse Christian ethics is mind-boggling.

Government spokespeople bend the truth and present an alternate reality. Then, there are the humorless bureaucrats who can change numbers to suit the master’s will. The administration is efficient and punctual, and its leader can do no wrong.

The American republic is aiming for a head-on collision with democracy, and not incidentally is becoming an enigma, if not a laughingstock, to the rest of the free world.

It has to stop.

Black faith leaders march on Wall Street to denounce anti-DEI campaign

(RNS) — Protesters led by the Rev. Al Sharpton descended on Manhattan’s financial district to decry efforts by the Trump administration and corporations to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Protesters join the March on Wall Street on Aug. 28, 2025.

 RNS Photo by Fiona André

Fiona André
August 28, 2025
RNS

NEW YORK (RNS) — On Thursday (Aug. 28), Black faith leaders, activists and protesters descended on Manhattan’s financial district to denounce efforts by the Trump administration and some private companies to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, known as DEI.

The demonstration, organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, also marked the 62nd anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington.

“DEI is the civil rights fight of our generation, and will make the difference in what the future of America looks like. … On August 28th, as we commemorate the March on Washington, we will continue the fight by taking it to Wall Street,” read an announcement for the event.

As Sharpton took to the stage on Whitehall Street, near the end of Broadway in Lower Manhattan, he addressed companies that have abandoned their long-standing DEI initiatives in the wake of White House pressure, urging Black Americans to fight back.

The Rev. Al Sharpton leads the March on Wall Street on Aug. 28, 2025, alongside Martin Luther King III; King’s wife, Arndrea Waters King; and New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. 

RNS Photo by Fiona André

“We marched for your offices because we know your address, and we will march and keep coming to you until we turn the economic inequality in this country around. We’re not going back,” said Sharpton.

The rally cemented a monthlong boycott campaign, promoted by Black church leaders across the country, to denounce private companies abandoning DEI policies.


RELATED: At King Day rally, Sharpton leads oath to support DEI as Trump opposes it

Thousands of protesters had flocked to Lower Manhattan early Thursday morning, many traveling from out of state by bus for the occasion. They gathered at the African Burial Ground National Monument on Foley Square, heading toward Wall Street shortly after 10 a.m.

As they walked downtown, protesters held signs reading “What Trump will erase, we will replace” and chanted: “No DEI, no dollars. No justice, no peace.” During the hourlong march, some protesters hummed the gospel anthem “We Shall Overcome.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks during the March on Wall Street on Aug. 28, 2025. 

RNS Photo by Fiona André

Halfway through the march, the procession halted in front of the Charging Bull, a bronze sculpture that symbolizes Manhattan’s financial power. During the procession, mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani joined the marchers at the head of the procession alongside Sharpton and members of Martin Luther King Jr.’s family.

Tying the day to their father’s legacy, Martin Luther King Jr. III opened the rally when it reached Whitehall Street, standing with his wife, Arndrea Waters King. “Something is wrong with this nation, all right? My father would say that something is wrong,” said the civil rights icon’s son. “We must create the climate where people can raise themselves by their own bootstraps. … We must create a climate where housing is affordable. Where health care is available.”

Though all the major candidates in New York’s November mayoral election were invited, noted Sharpton, only Mamdani attended the event. In his address, the 33-year-old democratic socialist candidate pledged to keep King’s legacy alive by fighting for an affordable New York for all.

“How is it that we have still yet to answer the question that Dr. King posed all those decades ago? ‘What good is it to have the right to sit at the lunch counter if you can’t afford a hamburger?’ Our freedom is only as good as our ability to exercise it. … I tell you that every day I will wake up with Dr. King’s dream at the forefront of my mind.”

The speakers who followed, who included the Rev. Samuel Tolbert Jr., president of the National Baptist Convention of America International, and the Rev. David Peoples, president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, encouraged protesters to stay firm in their boycott of companies that abandoned DEI initiatives after the Trump administration took office.

In February, Black faith leaders joined a boycott movement begun by the Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, prompted by discount chain Target abandoning its DEI initiatives. Bryant challenged his peers to lead their congregations in abstaining from buying from Target during Lent, the 40-day period that leads to Easter.

RELATED: Boycotts accompany prayer as faith leaders prepare for a Lent of protest

In recent months, the chain has experienced weak sales and declining stock levels. Last week, Target’s CEO, Brian Cornell, stepped down.

Marchers walked by the fenced-off bronze bull in front of the New York Film Academy on Aug. 28, 2025. RNS Photo by Fiona André

“We will take our dollars where we’re respected, and we will close down where we’re rejected. … We will shop with who does business with us. We will walk with who walks with us. We will stand with who stands with us. And we are not afraid of Trump. We’ve been beaten giants since David,” said Sharpton

Sharpton called on protesters to show resilience in the months to come, as he pointed out they stood on the very place where African slaves used to be sold. “We’ve come back, the children of our ancestors. We’ve come back ready. Ready to spend our dollars. We’re not slaves anymore. We’re not going back on the slave market. Donald Trump, get ready for the fight of your life,” he said.



The Rev. Michael Jordan spoke during the march on Aug. 28, 2025, on Wall Street.

 RNS Photo by Fiona André

Many speakers noted how the recent abandonment of DEI initiatives disproportionately affected Black women. Nearly 300,000 Black women have been pushed out of the workforce within three months, partly due to the policies, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We have been pushed out of the workforce, but we are strong people. We are faith people,” said Stacie NC Grant, president of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.

As the march ended, the Rev. Boise Kimber, president of the National Baptist Convention USA, prayed over the crowd. The administration’s first months, he said, though challenging, shouldn’t discourage attendees.

“Lord, we pray for the healing of the soul of our nation from the disease of human exploitation and its root cause, the love of money,” said Kimber, as attendees bowed their heads and closed their eyes. Americans, said Kimber, must repent for “making profits be more important than people, and for making the accumulation of wealth be more important than the well-being of those made in God’s image.”

The Rev. Michael Jordan of New Era Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, who attended the rally, said recent hits at DEI initiatives are setting Black Americans decades behind. “I’m a preacher of social justice, I preach against social injustice. The Trump administration has made them bamboozled, not just Black folks, but also poor white folks,” he said.

Supporting religious diversity on campus is a surprising consensus among faculty across the red-blue divide

(The Conversation) — Faculty members represent a university’s core identity and mission. But no one had systematically studied faculty opinions on matters related to spirituality and religion − until now.

University faculty are the most important people influencing student learning, development, persistence and degree attainment. (Maskot/Getty Images)

Matthew J. Mayhew
August 27, 2025

(The Conversation) — Universities, often perceived as bastions of progressive thought, are increasingly reflecting the broader political polarization gripping the nation.

Faculty members represent a university’s core identity and mission. They express the values of the institution in numerous ways, including teaching, mentoring, advising and researching.

In my research into the impact of college on student development and learning, I – and others – have found that faculty are the most important people influencing student learning, development, persistence and degree attainment.

However, no systematic efforts have ever been undertaken to find out how faculty’s work is influenced by their understanding of university life and religion – until now.

The Templeton Religion Trust, a charity focused on improving societal well-being through understanding individual well-being, funded a recent national survey my team and I administered to 1,000 faculty members. The survey asked faculty about their perceptions of university life, including free speech and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, often shortened to simply DEI.

The survey results reveal a striking divergence in perspectives on the often divisive issues of free speech and DEI among faculty. Those differences showed up particularly along the red state and blue state divide.

Yet, amid these deep disagreements, a surprising point of bipartisan consensus emerges: faculty members’ belief in the importance of religious, spiritual and secular inclusion in diversity efforts.

Faculty agreed on the importance of religious, spiritual and secular inclusion in diversity efforts. Here, a student graduating from Columbia University in New York on May 21, 2025, wears a graduation cap with a verse from the Quran written on it.
Jeenah Moon/POOL/AFP via Getty Images, CC BY

State political leaning is key

Survey responses represented national trends across various factors, including region, institutional control, institutional type and academic discipline.

In part of the analysis, we uncovered that the political leanings of a state – how a state voted in the presidential election of 2024 – play a significant role in what faculty perceive about free speech and DEI programming.

Even more compelling, significant differences reported by faculty from red versus blue states showed up consistently across gender, race, religion, academic discipline, faculty rank and whether the faculty member was employed at a private or public institution.

In other words, political leanings of a state were strongly associated with faculty perceptions regardless of these other factors.

Measuring the right to free speech

We asked faculty four questions related to their First Amendment rights, which we presented as: “The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition.”

Working closely with experts in legal epidemiology, we asked faculty the extent to which they agreed with the following statements: a) the First Amendment is relevant to my job as a faculty member; b) the First Amendment is relevant to my research engagement; c) my institution provides me with my constitutionally mandated First Amendment rights; and d) I am aware of my rights and responsibilities as they relate to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

While awareness of First Amendment rights appears consistent across the board, a notable difference arises in faculty members’ perception of institutional protection of those rights.

Faculty in blue states are significantly more likely than those in red states to report that their institutions uphold their constitutionally mandated First Amendment rights. This implies a potential disconnect in how freedoms are experienced and protected, depending on the political leanings of the state where an institution is located.

Measuring attitudes about DEI

The divide deepens when it comes to DEI, defined in the survey as “campus diversity programs” in some instances and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in others.

When compared with faculty in blue states, those in red states are far more inclined to view DEI efforts as “overreach,” agreeing with the statements that “diversity programs generally do more harm than good on college and university campuses” and “the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion on college and university campuses has gone too far.”

Conversely, blue state faculty largely disagree with these assertions. When compared with faculty in red states, those in blue states were more likely to agree that “campus diversity programs support student success,” demonstrating a stark ideological chasm on the value and impact of DEI.

This partisan disagreement extends to the very concept of banning DEI programs.

Red state faculty show moderate support for banning DEI, suggesting a belief that current efforts to curtail campus diversity initiatives are, according to survey response options, “well justified.”

Blue state faculty overwhelmingly support the continuation of these programs. They gave strong endorsement to the idea that “colleges and universities should continue to offer identity-specific organizations and programming.”

This schism reflects the ongoing national debate about the role and scope of DEI in higher education. Faculty perspectives mirror the political sentiments of their respective regions.

Amid this significant polarization, a crucial area of common ground emerges: what we call religious, spiritual and secular inclusion.

That’s the idea that DEI efforts should include programming and activities designed to help students from all religious, spiritual and secular backgrounds belong and succeed.
Religious, secular and spiritual diversity

Despite their sharp disagreements on other aspects of DEI, both red state and blue state faculty overwhelmingly agree that “colleges and universities should provide support for students of all religious, secular, and spiritual identities and backgrounds.”

And both groups similarly reject the notion that “campuses should not concern themselves with religious, secular and spiritual diversity.”

The findings from this survey highlight the complex landscape of faculty opinion in higher education. While significant difficulties remain in reconciling differing views on free speech and DEI, the shared commitment to religious, spiritual and secular inclusion offers a potential path to agreement.

By focusing on areas of consensus, institutions can begin to foster more inclusive environments to serve the needs of all students, regardless of their background or beliefs. Understanding these nuanced perspectives is the first step toward building more cohesive, pluralistic and intellectually vibrant academic communities across the nation’s varied political terrain.

(Matthew J. Mayhew, Professor of Higher Education, The Ohio State University. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)


The Conversation religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The Conversation is solely responsible for this content.

 

The Shifting Sands of Quebec Politics

By Bernard Rioux

August 26, 2025

Source: Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières

The Quebec political landscape is undergoing a major political recomposition. The illusion of CAQ [1] hegemony is collapsing under the weight of economic failures, the social degradation of public services and the sterility of its nationalist rhetoric. The Parti Québécois [2], reinvigorated by an assertive independence discourse, is benefiting from the electorate, but already carries its own contradictions. The Liberal Party [3], reduced to a federalist Montreal shell, attempts to rebuild under Pablo Rodriguez’s [4] leadership. The Conservative Party of Éric Duhaime [5] imposes the normalisation of the far right. Québec solidaire [6], trapped in its quest for parliamentary realism, sinks into a strategic and democratic crisis. Facing this picture, the central question is clear: how to build a genuine alternative of social, ecological and democratic rupture serving Quebec’s working classes?

The erosion of electoral support for the Legault government

François Legault’s [7] CAQ is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. According to QC125 [8], the CAQ continues to decline in voting intentions, falling from around 22–24% in 2024 to 17% in June 2025. In the 2018 elections, then in 2022, Legault presented himself as the leader of a pragmatic “nationalist” project, capable of ensuring Quebec’s prosperity. But behind this discourse lay a neoliberal policy: tax gifts to large corporations leading to industrial failures (Northvolt [9], Lion électrique [10]), cuts in education, greater opening of the health system to the private sector, management scandals like at SAAQclic [11], and attacks on union rights. The consequences of these policies are clear: deterioration of living conditions for the majority, housing crisis, crumbling of public services. His inability to take the climate crisis seriously, his desire for endless growth without considering the planet’s limits have also fuelled these setbacks. In the background, the chronic impotence of CAQ nationalism to wrest additional powers from Ottawa [12] finishes discrediting it. The CAQ now appears for what it is: a party of the Quebec bourgeoisie, tied to economic elites and incapable of responding to popular needs.

The PQ’s recovery and its contradictions

This erosion opens a political space that the Parti Québécois (PQ) occupies with renewed vigour. Long marginalised, it now captures discontent towards the CAQ and remobilises an independence base lacking a project since 1995 [13]. It has held first place for several months with voting intentions above 30%, reflecting a significant realignment of Quebec’s political field. Thus, in several regions and among young voters, the PQ manages to reactivate support for the sovereigntist option, marking a generational inflection in public opinion.

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s [14] discourse seduces through its coherence: refusal of the oath to the king [15], promise of a quick referendum, denunciation of federalist impotence. But behind this clear line hides an identity nationalism that links immigration, housing crisis and danger to the French language’s future, adopting the scapegoat logic already used by the CAQ. The PQ regains strength because on one hand, it embodies a rupture with the PLQ’s prostration before Ottawa and on the other hand, it stigmatises the Legault government’s inability to obtain significant gains from Ottawa.

The Quebec Liberal Party and the difficult path of reconstruction

The Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) is not simply in crisis: it is in a state of collapse. The results of the 3 October 2022 elections, a meager 14.17% of votes and 21 seats confined to Montreal are not a simple electoral defeat, but the logical outcome of a historical role: that of a party serving the Canadian bourgeoisie and Quebec federalist elites.

After the Charest years [16], Philippe Couillard [17] prolonged the austerity cure: massive cuts in social spending, privatisation of entire health sectors under Barrette [18], creeping commodification of education, attacks on school support professionals, weakening of the early childhood network. Each Liberal reform was a direct attack on the working classes, benefiting insurers, private clinics and multinationals. The PLQ did not “manage” the State: it put it at the service of the rich, transforming social rights into business opportunities for capital.

Within the framework of rising sovereignty/federalism polarisation, the PLQ attempts to rebuild. Its bet is clear: become the great federalist party again by profiting from both CAQ erosion and fear of a referendum. But its nationalist deficit among francophone voters, inherited from decades of neoliberalism and submission to Ottawa, remains gaping. This project moreover runs up against the profound rejection it still inspires among francophone working classes.

The role of the Conservative Party of Quebec or the desire to normalise far-right policies

In this landscape, the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) installs itself as the political vehicle of the far right. Under Éric Duhaime’s leadership, it combines economic ultraliberalism, health and education privatisation, public service commodification and reactionary demagoguery inspired by Trumpism with assumed climate scepticism, hydrocarbon revival, xenophobia and attacks on democratic institutions.

In the 2022 general elections, this strategy allowed the party to collect more than 12% of votes nationally, an unprecedented result for a previously marginal formation. In certain regions, the PCQ reaches significant scores: more than 15% in several Mauricie [19] constituencies and more than 35% in certain counties of Capitale-Nationale [20] and Chaudière-Appalaches [21].

This electoral breakthrough reflects the implantation of an authoritarian and antisocial political current, carried by a fraction of the petite bourgeoisie and popular layers seduced by its anti-elite and anti-State discourse. The danger is real: even without government prospects, the PCQ pulls all Quebec debate rightward and contributes to legitimising the most reactionary positions.

At the foundations of Québec solidaire’s current stagnation

After a decade of electoral progression, and the qualitative leap it experienced in 2018 by electing 10 MPs, Québec solidaire had disappointing results in 2022. These results were disappointing not because of the results (15.4% of votes and 11 MPs), but because the party’s discourse had dangled the possibility of becoming the official opposition and positioning itself to become a future government. The party is now going through a phase of stagnation, even decline, explained by a set of strategic and organisational choices.

Under Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois’s [22] impetus, QS sought to present itself as credible opposition and a future governing party. This orientation translated into pragmatic recentring, sidelining of rupture proposals, such as natural resource nationalisation and explicit abandonment of capitalism critique. If this strategy aimed to broaden the electorate, it diluted the party’s political specificity and weakened its image as a contestatory force.

This turn was accompanied by organisational centralisation. The parliamentary wing and communication teams took precedence over militant life and links with social movements. Base mobilisation reduced to support for electoral campaigns, without real valorisation of self-organisation. The statute congress crystallised this evolution by reinforcing leadership power, provoking a feeling of internal democracy loss.

This parliamentary recentring also weakened the party’s capacity to embody firm opposition on social and antiracist issues. The leadership’s prudent attitude in defending Haroun Bouazzi [23], after his denunciations of the xenophobic climate at the National Assembly [24], illustrates the tension between seeking institutional respectability and radical social engagement that had constituted QS’s DNA.

The electoral consequences of this impasse are clear. Nadeau-Dubois’s resignation appeared as the culmination of a strategy that failed to broaden the electoral base while demobilising part of the militants. The score collapse in the Arthabaska by-election [25] illustrates this double failure: QS lost both its militant momentum and the confidence of an electorate seeking a rupture alternative, while the Parti Québécois profited from the void left.

Thus, Québec solidaire’s crisis does not reduce to electoral vagaries, but stems from strategic and structural choices. By adapting to parliamentary logics and betting on an electoralist strategy centred on institutional credibility, the party compromised its social anchoring, its internal democracy and its critical specificity. It now finds itself at a crossroads: either it deepens its integration into parliamentarism at the risk of aligning with other parties, or it reconnects with militant dynamics and rupture projects that had nourished its initial rise.

For an ecosocialist and ecofeminist turn by Québec solidaire

After a lightning rise that made it the expression of a new militant and popular generation’s rupture hopes, Québec solidaire is declining in voting intentions and in the perception that generation had of it as a rupture force. If Québec solidaire wants to recover the possibility of genuine revival, it must operate a major turn – strategic, programmatic and organisational – that finally breaks with adaptation logics to the dominant system.

Québec solidaire needs a strategy that surpasses the simple ambition to “govern reasonably” to anchor itself in real struggles: those of workers, ecological, feminist, antiracist movements, youth in revolt and neighbourhoods in resistance. It involves building popular power, feeding the combativeness, unity and democracy of antisystemic social movements, instead of channelling them towards passive waiting for electoral deadlines.

This rupture line must rally a popular majority around a clear project: that of building an independent, ecosocialist and ecofeminist Quebec. This implies:

• the end of pillaging our natural resources and energy by multinationals;
• democratic planning of production and investments, turned towards energy and material degrowth and towards collective well-living;
• a sovereign Constituent Assembly to lay the foundations of a social and democratic republic;
• eradication of patriarchal domination and construction of an ecofeminist society;
• reinforced and self-managed public services;
• defence of migrant rights and struggle against systemic racism, notably towards Indigenous peoples and racialised communities;
• an audacious linguistic policy that makes French the common language without stigmatising immigrant persons;
• rejection of identity secularism used as a weapon against minorities;
• radical, anti-imperialist and antimilitarist internationalism.

But for these perspectives not to remain simple proclamations, Québec solidaire must transform its political practice. This means: prioritising intervention in social struggles; building a combative ecosocialist left within unions, ecological, feminist and youth mobilisations; elaborating an offensive and mobilising rupture programme; initiating militant campaigns capable of rekindling hope.

A decisive choice is imposed. Either QS pursues its drift towards electoral “realism” and it will marginalise itself, like so many other institutional left parties before it. Or it fully assumes its project of rallying a majority ready to struggle for an independent, just, ecosocialist, feminist and internationalist Quebec.

The original article is in https://www.pressegauche.org/Les-partis-politiques-quebecois-a-l-heure-de-la-recompositiion-du-champ. Translated for Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières by Adam Novak.

Footnotes

[1] Coalition Avenir Québec, the centre-right nationalist party that has governed Quebec since 2018

[2] Quebec’s main pro-independence party, founded in 1968

[3] Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ), Quebec’s main federalist party

[4] Former federal Liberal MP who became PLQ leader in 2024

[5] Leader of the Parti conservateur du Québec (PCQ), founded in 2009

[6] Left-wing, pro-independence party formed in 2006 from the merger of several progressive groups

[7] Premier of Quebec since 2018, leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec

[8] Quebec polling aggregation website

[9] Swedish battery manufacturer that received significant Quebec government subsidies

[10] Quebec-based electric vehicle manufacturer

[11] Quebec’s automobile insurance corporation’s online platform

[12] The federal government

[13] Year of Quebec’s second independence referendum, which failed by a narrow margin

[14] PQ leader since 2020

[15] Quebec MNAs must swear oath to the British Crown

[16] Jean Charest was Liberal Premier from 2003-2012

[17] Liberal Premier from 2014-2018

[18] Gaétan Barrette, Health Minister 2014-2018

[19] Region of Quebec

[20] Quebec City region

[21] Region south of Quebec City

[22] Former student leader who became QS co-spokesperson, resigned in 2024

[23] QS MNA who faced criticism for anti-racist statements

[24] Quebec’s provincial parliament

[25] Rural Quebec constituency

[26] Parti de la démocratie socialiste

[27] Union des Forces progressistes

[28] Progressive Quebec publication meaning “Press yourself to the left”Email

Bernard Rioux

Bernard Rioux has been a socialist militant since the early 1970s and was involved in the left political unification process. He participated in founding the Socialist Democracy Party and the Progressive Forces Union. A Québec solidaire militant, he participates in the Socialist Left collective where he was long responsible for its website, lagauche.com (now lagauche.ca). He is a founding member of Presse-toi à gauche.