{"id":20410,"date":"2013-05-24T11:05:49","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T15:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=20410"},"modified":"2021-05-27T09:19:21","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T13:19:21","slug":"ford-nation-was-a-reaction-to-the-elites-of-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/05\/24\/ford-nation-was-a-reaction-to-the-elites-of-toronto\/","title":{"rendered":"“Ford Nation” was a reaction to the elites of Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Toronto Star<\/em>, Rick Salutin<\/a> writes a column that might get him drummed out of the corps d’elite<\/em> of Toronto society:<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s any truism I cling to, it\u2019s that: people don\u2019t get the leaders they deserve. Why not? Because of all the haughty intervenors between the citizens and those who govern \u2014 they generally get the leaders they select, either sooner or later. Here I come to urban guru and U of T prof Richard Florida, who I do find embarrassing in this context, but also instructive. He wrote this week in the Globe and Mail<\/em>: \u201cIt is time to convene a blue-ribbon commission on Toronto\u2019s future … the top leaders of all of our key institutions must step up \u2014 our banks and corporations, schools and universities, labour unions, the city, the province, and more. No one can stand on the sidelines if we are going to forge the model of private-public partnership that is needed … \u201d<\/p>\n

Does he really not get it \u2014 that this is exactly the mentality that led to the Ford mayoralty, out of widespread popular disgust for an unelected elect who think they have the right to gather in blue ribbon bodies and decide on behalf of everyone else? The goal, Florida says, is that Toronto\u2019s \u201cfuture mayors will look less like Rob Ford and more like New York\u2019s Mike Bloomberg, Chicago\u2019s Rahm Emanuel\u201d \u2014 leaders who\u2019ve aimed to decimate the core of their communities: their public school systems; and have met huge popular resistance. Besides, the sole concrete thing Mayor Ford has done is to public-privatize garbage collection here, if that\u2019s your cuppa. Talk about confusing the problem with the solution.<\/p>\n

So, at the moment, the city is divided between anti-Forders who often view Ford Nation as irredeemably \u201cstupid\u201d (and I quote), versus stubborn Forders who resent that contempt and are desperately hoping Rob finds a way not to be starring in that crack video. But it\u2019s been ever thus, if in less stark terms: Mel Lastman followed by David Miller. Rob Ford against Olivia Chow or John Tory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to the Phantom Observer<\/a> for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Toronto Star, Rick Salutin writes a column that might get him drummed out of the corps d’elite of Toronto society: If there\u2019s any truism I cling to, it\u2019s that: people don\u2019t get the leaders they deserve. Why not? Because of all the haughty intervenors between the citizens and those who govern \u2014 they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,28,53],"tags":[1420,636,413,907,207],"class_list":["post-20410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-media","category-politics","tag-classism","tag-robford","tag-scandal","tag-snobbery","tag-toronto"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5jc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66012,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20410\/revisions\/66012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}