Wither Ford Nation?

It is safe to say that municipal politicians do not get bigger than Rob Ford (no pun intended). It is hard to pick up a newspaper or switch on a news broadcast in Canada and beyond and not be made privy to the comings and goings from Nathan Phillips Square. The City that the late actor Peter Ustinov once described as ‘New York run by the Swiss’ is now coping with reining in the power of a Mayor whose exploits have given the gag writers at Saturday Night Live a vein of comedic gold.

And yet…

Yet, there are a significant number of Torontonians who still consider themselves part of ‘Ford Nation’, and who would vote to re-elect the Mayor if a suitable alternative did not present itself. This, of course, causes people in certain quarters to risk an embolism at the very notion that Ford could survive this current situation. They are outraged that there are people who they feel are less than mentally capable for not seeing what they would argue is obvious.

Yours truly has spent three decades working the political circuit – dozens of campaigns and contests at all levels. Candidates and movements rise and fall, and each cycle brings with it a new generation of champions and causes.

There are very few ‘unifying theories’ in politics. What works in one election cycle will blow up horribly in the next, and vice versa. If you try to plot an election or a politician based on the issues, you will become lost very quickly. Brian Mulroney won a majority mandate on the issue of free trade with the US – something that his predecessor as party leader, Sir Robert Borden, won power by opposing. The same Liberal Party that ran on free trade with the US in 1911 vehemently opposed it in 1988, only to work to expand it to include Mexico in the 1990’s. Plus ca change…

Circumstances change, and positions change with them. The real answer is not found in policy, but philosophy, or – dare I say – attitude?

Let me paint a scenario.

Meet John Smith. John is a second-generation Torontonian who was able to achieve the upward mobility his parents desired for him and worked assiduously to attain. He has a decent income as a skilled professional, and lives with his spouse and kids in the eponymous 905 belt. They have a nice house, not fancy, but comfortable and with a small mortgage. He floats some modest debt, mostly to help put the kids through post-secondary studies. His car is a few years old, and he takes care of it to make it last. There’s possibly one night out for a private dinner and some alone time, but the Smiths are generally homebodies.

You would think that John Smith is a happy and contented fellow. To some extent, he is, but there is a great deal of displeasure and dissatisfaction lurking about.

John feels as though he has been taken advantage of. He has seen his property taxes rise faster than his income, cutting into his retirement savings and what he uses to help his kids. He also sees that his local government – and governments of all levels – increasingly passing rules and regulations that impact his behavior. For the good of the environment, he accepts that recycling and garbage sorting is the right thing, but it’s the dozens of other little things, ranging from the number of cars in his driveway, to the way he decorates his house for the holidays. He feels like he’s being treated like a child and being charged a great deal of precious income for the privilege.

He complains, but people infer that he’s not being a good citizen, that he hates the environment, or hates healthcare, or hates children, or the elderly, or the poor. There is an implication that if he argues to keep a larger share of his earnings, he is being anti-social, that he is selfish and self-absorbed.

He watches as municipal councilors and mayors earn generous stipends, seem to be invited to the best parties by the ‘best’ people. The Star and the Globe and Mail may mention how they had attended some downtown gala and were feted along with the megacity’s intelligentsia over fine wine at the Four Seasons.

John Smith quickly understands that he is subsidizing the ability of others to attend events and happenings that he would never be invited to, all the while wondering whether he and his spouse will have to delay their retirement and re-amortize their mortgage to get the kids through their studies.

John Smith is not a happy person. John Smith knows what he wants and is willing to give his backing to the person who not only represents his views, but is willing to fight for them. John Smith will back the man or woman who says ‘you’re being taken advantage of, and I’m going to work hard to stop it.’

John Smith is Richard M. Nixon’s ‘silent majority’. John Smith helped elect Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney, and Mike Harris. John Smith is America’s Tea Party movement. John Smith is Ford Nation.

It is movement politics in the guise of a personality. People are loyal to the individual not because they believe them to be some perfect savior, but because they carry the hopes and aspirations of the group. So long as they continue to be the means to the end, support is assured.

Critics are discounted because they represent the vested interest under threat, and are merely protecting their privilege. They don’t believe the downtown wine-tasting crowd respects them, and the feeling is mutual. They expect name-calling and questioning of their intelligence. They’ve heard it before, and they wear it as a badge of honour. Every ad hominem insult tells them that they got under the skin of an elitist and lowered them to playground name calling. When people with advanced degrees and prodigious vocabularies resort to using pejoratives not often heard outside a local tavern near closing time, the recipient of the vitriol feels nothing but the satisfaction of having found an Achilles heel.

Movements always hold against outside pressure. Whether it be left or right, people close ranks and fight shoulder to shoulder. They expect the external challenge, and gird for it. The only thing that can really destroy the movement is the threat from within – often from the person at the top.

The biggest threats to Rob Ford do not come from Toronto City Council or from the editorial pages of the various dailies. It won’t come from pundit panels or protest groups. The two biggest threats to Rob Ford lie within his own erratic and reckless behavior, and in the emergence of another standard-bearer who could offer the same policies, but without all the baggage and the drama.

Despite the theatre of the absurd, those who voted for Ford generally feel that he delivered on his promises. Personal behavior aside, he gave his supporters what they wanted, and that is why they have held as firmly as they have. Critics of Ford Nation who wonder how people can overlook the personal peccadillos of a politician just because they ‘did their job’ need only ask themselves what their view of impeaching President Bill Clinton was. Clinton’s defenders argued that his performance as President was distinct from his personal affairs. In that respect, true believers on both sides of the fence are not that different.

In the past couple of months, admissions of illegal drug use have come from both Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. A true political agnostic may say that an elected public official using narcotics is an elected public official using narcotics. That view would be hard to find – squeezed into obscurity by people on both sides arguing why one is so dramatically different than the other. To put it bluntly, people on the left will forgive Justin Trudeau almost everything and Rob Ford virtually nothing. People on the right will do the same thing, but only in reverse.

Political scientists call it ‘confirmation bias’.  It means that if someone tells you something bad about the person you like, you declare that the fix is in. If they say something bad about the person you dislike, you puff out your chest and smugly declare ‘See, I told you so.’ At no point in time do you actually change your mind. You simply act like a patient who didn’t like their doctor’s prognosis and went out looking for a second (or third, or fourth) opinion to back up what you thought all along.

Again – it is not about the person. They may very well be nice, and all that, but that is not why they get elected. They win because they tap into a ‘zeitgeist’ in the public arena. They channel hope, fear, anger, passion and everything else that the voter brings to the polling station.

Rob Ford, the man, is a sad figure whose personal affairs have subjected the City of Toronto to a great deal of controversy. Rob Ford, the political idea, however, is still intact. Ford’s admissions and behavior have not caused his supporters to embrace higher property taxes and increased bureaucracy. John Smith still dislikes what he disliked before Ford took office.

In the end, even the most die-hard supporters of a politician will wake up one day and declare that they cannot tolerate any more. Even John Smith will one day turn off his television with a mixture of regret and disgust. Quite possibly he will not vote for Rob Ford, but that does not mean that he is going to vote for someone who wants the opposite of what Ford attempted to do.

If Ford Nation is defeated in next year’s municipal elections, it will not be because it has disappeared. It will either have found another champion, or it will have decided to stay home and wait until 2018.