Sympathy for the Doug

On where we draw the line on pity, and a recap of a pretty weird week

Code 47 readers, welcome to your weekend. It's great to have you here.

I was planning today to write a column on the value of finding new things to love in something you've long taken for granted. I had the column all sketched out in my head and everything. But I've actually written two extra columns than normal this week, and my brain is just fried. Besides, after a weird cold snap in Toronto that brought a ton of snow, it's finally nice again. And I'm going to go outside.

So no big column atop the recap this week. You'll have to suffice with this note on sympathy, even for those we really don’t like. 

As you'll see in the recap, a big, big theme for me this week was the astonishing political meltdown we saw in the Ontario government. It began a week ago today, continued through the weekend and only seems to have begun settling down in the last few days. It was an incredibly destructive few days for the Ford government, both to their political fortunes — we have our first polls confirming that — and also to public confidence in the government's handling of the pandemic. As the political crisis grew, Premier Doug Ford vanished from view, and when he finally emerged again a few days later, well, he didn't look good. This has led some to speculate as to his state of emotional health.

On a gossipy level, I'm as interested in that as the next person. As a professional, my interest remains, but is more narrow — the only thing that matters to my analysis is whether he's capable of discharging his duties as chief executive in the province of Ontario. Right now, honestly, I don't think we can say with confidence one way or the other. This bears scrutiny, to put it mildly, but I'm not sure we'll ever really know his state of mind. This is not, to be clear, whether he’s any good at it. I’m wondering something more fundamental: in his current state, can he do any job, even a bad one? I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that some of the absolutely wild reversals of late are a sign that the stress of the crisis has simply overwhelmed his ability to effectively lead at all, even if you think where he’d be leading us was a bad place. This is a subtle distinction, I grant, but it’s an important one.

I don’t have the answer. But it’s something I’ll be thinking about.

But a related issue that cropped up was simply the issue of whether Ford deserves any sympathy. There were definitely expressions of support for Ford after his recent apology and crying jag. These positive expressions were then attacked by those insisting that Ford was either faking it, or simply hadn't earned any sympathy. Some of the attacks seemed, to me, to be a wildly disproportionate reaction to the “provocation” that brought them, and I write a lot of it off as frustrated and angry people punching down at someone who made an inelegant but well-intended tweet.

(And yes, I’m subtweeting the living shit out of some people here.)

But on the core issue, I’m pretty laid back. I honestly don't care if you feel bad for Ford or not. If you are moved to feel human sympathy for Ford, that's fine. If you can't stand the guy and want him to suffer for his sins, well, that's fine, too. It's a free province, as we were reminded on Saturday. I'm not going to tell anyone how to feel, beyond a very generic statement that I think erring on the side of kindness and generosity is usually better than doing the opposite.

"This person hasn't earned my sympathy" is something we hear a lot, which is fair, I guess, if sympathy is something you think needs to be earned. It always makes me wonder how much sympathy these people would muster up for a total stranger, who's never had a chance to earn any. 

Then again, that checks out. Given how often we turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, whether right in front of us or around the world, those who say sympathy and pity must be earned are probably actually just very honestly channeling a shitty part of human nature we sometimes gloss over to so we can feel better about ourselves. 

Anyway, hey, you do you, people of Earth. My only real interest in the premier's emotional state lies in his ability to do the job he's been elected to do. But if you're one of the people who can't muster up any sympathy for a guy operating under what is objectively unbelievable pressure, despite being obviously manifestly unequipped to handle it (I mean, it’s Doug fucking Ford), that's fine. Honestly. It is. Just try to remember that the next time you find yourselves shocked that some outrage on the news is met with shrugs by people who can't muster any sympathy that hasn't been personally earned.

Because here’s the thing, folks. Even shitty people have bad things happen to them. Sometimes I can’t muster up any pity, but other times, I still find a way. Where you draw the line on sympathy is your call. But I tend to think we harden our hearts to our own misfortune. The objects of your scorn don't feel it a bit. Only you do.

OK, I wanted to get that off my chest. Onto the recap.

As stated, this was a busy, busy week for me.

At the Post, I had the two usual videos, plus a double-bill of columns. 

The first video was on Ford's absolute train wreck of a weekend.

My first Post column of the week was, too. It went up on Monday. I noted that Ford's bungling was doing an awful lot of favours for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is also screwing up the pandemic, but in a less publicly humiliating way than Ford. "The cruellest and most politically devastating thing Doug Ford could do to Justin Trudeau would simply be doing a passably decent job as premier of Ontario. Alas, that seems beyond him. And we’re all worse off for it." Read that here.

My first TVO.org column of the week, also published on Monday, was an attempt to recap the insane 72 hours that had just expired, and put them into some kind of context. "If there is any meta-theme to be pulled from all of this weekend’s complete bonkers insanity, it’s that Premier Doug Ford and his government can no longer even pretend to be in control," I wrote. "The curtain fell sometime between Friday and Saturday afternoons. ... This is a government that has been completely overtaken by events and has lost control — not only of the crisis, but of itself. It is flailing helplessly, and in such dramatic fashion that no one who’s paying even the slightest attention can have any doubt that this is so. It is pathetic and pitiable, and, because of the current danger, it is frightening." Read that here.

As the week wore on, the debacle in Ontario remained very much top of mind. My second Post column was again on that issue. As Ford remained out of sight, members of his government announced yet another reversal: "Wednesday featured a Ford-less eye-popping announcement that Ontario will indeed look at some form of paid sick leave, after an entire pandemic of steadfastly refusing to do exactly that. Members of the Ford government say their hand has been forced by a lack of enhanced federal aid in this week’s federal budget. As fig leaves go, it’s a pretty small and shrivelled one. The real explanation, of course, is that the government simply no longer has the political capital or credibility to resist many demands. That’s the danger in retreats, after all. Sometimes they turn into routs." Read that here.

The next day, Ford emerged from (literal) isolation, having been exposed to COVID-19 via a staffer, and had a press conference. It didn't go well. Afterward, for TVO.org, I tried to pull together some kind of coherent explanation for just how enormous the week had been for Ford, and what it means for his immediate future."In the current moment, there’s damn little Ford can do," I said. "All that can be done is being done by others. Ford, having delayed so long on taking any number of actions, now finds himself with little more he can do. His ability to alter the course of this nightmare has, at least for the moment, evaporated. It didn’t have to be this way, on so many levels. But Ford’s decisions brought him here, and the rest of us along with him. And now we wait for the vaccines — and hope the hospitals can hold on." Read that here.

Also on Thursday, I wondered why the federal government was yet again dragging its feet on closing the border to a possible frightening new COVID-19 variant causing huge trouble in India. I guess someone was listening; Canada closed its airspace to direct flights just hours after this video went online.

My last article of the week, a long read for The Line, took a step back from all of .... this ... and tried to take a big-picture view. Whether it's Trudeau dithering yet again to harden the airports or Ford apparently cracking under pressure, I began thinking about moments in history where other leaders have confronted disasters. Not all have performed well. Some buckled. But others were able to at least stay on top of the immediate crisis, something we simply haven't been able to do in Canada, with the obvious exception of the sparsely populated northern territories and Atlantic provinces. (I don't think the small populations are the sole explanation for their success, by the way ... but I think it's probably more of a contributor than some of the locals like admitting.) 

What I ended up coming up with was this: "A pandemic is a low-probability, high-impact event, but it's certainly one of the more likely planning scenarios that Canadian officials should train and prepare for. There should have been checklists and protocols, and people trained in their application, that should have been referred to in January, at the latest. Should we close airports? If not, what should we do there to make things safer? Do we have enough PPE? Do we have all our communication protocols worked out for different departments and jurisdictions? Even if the crisis had fizzled, this still would have been a worthy exercise. But when it finally hit Canada, it seemed like no one in authority, with a few very possible rare exceptions that largely prove the rule, had the slightest idea what they were supposed to be doing, the critical first steps that should have been taken immediately, or even what their ministries and agencies were (and were not!) capable of."

Check that out here, and subscribe! 

Alright, readers. That's all for this week. I'm going to go walk the dog and enjoy some air before Ford accidentally outlaws that, even if only for a few hours. Be well, be safe, have a wonderful weekend. And I'll talk to you all soon.

mgurney.responses@gmail.com
Twitter.com/MattGurney