Despite Canada’s deserved reputation for having a generally more sane public life than that I observe in the political culture of the U.S., the calibre of crazy on display by Toronto mayor Rob Ford rivals anything I’ve observed among American pols. This was especially evident during the weekly radio show yesterday with the mayor and his brother Doug, a City Councillor. Of course, the particular ideological flavor of their mania in distinct from that on display in the States (for instance, there’s no religious rhetoric in their routine), but like many here Ford exudes a faux populism that’s heavy on claims of martyrdom and chastisement by detractors and an unfair media. Again, like many here, Ford and his brother operate in a bubble of their own making, pandering to callers who agree with them, attacking straw figures they set up–ones they can easily knock down–and spewing outrage about supposed flaws in the city, like when a caller claimed he’d observed laggard city workers not working hard at their jobs.
One thing that the Ford situation has in common with dynamics here in the US is that Ford’s followers, or as they’re dubbed in Canadian media, “Ford Nation,” exert a powerful rationalization reflex that’s coupled with an unreasoning belief in their man that’s utterly resistant to plain facts and logic. They do backflips to explain away just about anything that critics point to as evidence of the mayor’s unfitness for office. One example is that last May Rob Ford asserted that no video of him smoking from a crack pipe existed, yet after Police Chief Blair revealed last week that law enforcement had recovered the tape, his fans said, in effect, “How can we even be sure what was in the pipe?” They neatly overlook the fact the mayor had said no tape existed.
Now, those same followers are willing to accept Ford’s vague apologies, even when accompanied by one of the weakest defenses ever uttered by a pol trying to squirm out of an embarrassing incident, spoken near the end of yesterday’s radio program: “I can assure people, hopefully, it won’t happen again.”
In future posts on this blog, I will examine other pols, including Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who’s borrowed many of the same policies and communications techniques that were used by George W. Bush and his administration, including the muzzling of scientists.
