Columnist Mitchell Anderson writes that along with Rob Ford, Canada’s political leadership has hit rock bottom while ‘dumbing down democracy’
Fresh from the reality TV spectacle of the Senate scandals, Canadians have been offered a new series, the Rob Ford crack cocaine video saga. But there haven’t been resignations in shame or hasty retreats to “spend more time” with one’s family. The response seems to be ‘nothing to see here…move on.’ Rob Ford, for example, has said, “I have no reason to resign.” His popularity, meanwhile, seems to actually have increased.
In an article at The Tyee, Mitchell Anderson writes that “Mayor Ford’s puzzling popularity in the face of one salacious scandal after another seems propelled by his cheapening of values that appeals to a morally lazy electorate. Like a pair of drunks egging each other on, Ford and his die-hard supporters are enabling each other’s bad behaviour that goes far beyond mere substance abuse.”
Anderson says that Rob Ford’s ‘everyman appeal’ stems in part from him making it respectable to indulge ugly instincts:
Don’t care about the poor? Neither does he. Are you a racist and a homophobe? So apparently is the mayor. Drive when drunk? Who doesn’t? And while you might not smoke crack or have been charged with assaulting your wife, in case you do, the Chief Magistrate of North America’s fourth largest city has got that covered.
Rob Ford isn’t the only politician to indulge in what Anderson refers to as “co-dependent denial” between politicians and the electorate:
Many Canadians now have politicians that share their unchallenged values. Harper is spending billions on prisons unencumbered by evidence that crime rates are falling or that incarceration exacerbates criminality. Scientists somewhere are making depressing proclamations about climate change, but who honestly has the energy to think about such things?
The most affluent generation in human history feels justified in being outraged at having to pay taxes for services, and many leaders are getting elected and re-elected indulging such co-dependent denial.
We all need a period of self-reflection, Anderson concludes: “As Rob Ford careens towards catastrophe or redemption, we should all reflect as voters (or people too lazy to vote) on our role in contributing to this debacle.”
We speak with Mitchell Anderson.
Image: The front page of The Toronto Star on November 6, 2013.
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