A tribe called Ford
Could ‘Ford Nation’ make the jump to bona fide political party?
In the whole history of electoral politics, has the abrupt replacement of one political candidate with another ever gone as seamlessly as the Rob-to-Doug Ford-family baton toss that Toronto witnessed last month?
Rob’s “Ford” -branded banners, Tshirts, bumper stickers and podium signs — those were all easily co-opted by Doug. And last week, more than 10,000 people showed up at “Ford Fest” — they didn’t have to change that name either — where they pledged their generic support for “Ford Nation” in the Oct. 27 vote. No fewer than three Fords are up for election — Doug for mayor, Rob for city councillor and “Mikey” for school trustee.
They make their announcements in tandem, and support similar positions, as if they were part of their own little political party. In this election, Ford is more than a surname. Ford Nation is a brand.
Like, oh, say, Liberal or NDP. You see where I’m going with this.
Unlike, say, Montreal or New York City, Toronto doesn’t have a party system at city hall — even if factions inevitably form on a traditional left-right basis. When you vote for a Toronto councillor, you vote for a person, not a tribe.
And yet Ford Nation is a tribe of sorts — which is the essence of why Toronto’s
Parties can create a brand that survives from one leader to the next
elites find Ford Nation to be so cultish and incomprehensible. There never was any Lastman Legion, no Miller Masses, no Smither-Men, no Tory Tide. The idea of creating one’s own political tribe — a political party in embryo — is downright un-Torontonian.
But political parties have many organizational advantages over politics at the atomized individual level. The biggest is that parties can create a brand that survives from one leader to the next — a trick that Ford Nation already has managed, as last month’s two-step proved.
Politicians who run under a wellknown brand don’t always have to articulate clear policies: The positive brand association is enough to convince voters that you’re on “their side.” Thus does Ford Nation go to bed at night happily imagining that Rob/Doug/Mikey/AFord-to-be-named-later will simultaneously lower taxes and build subway stations in every neighbour- hood. Fervent belief in a political tribe is a form of magical thinking: Get your tribe in power, and any miracle becomes possible.
On Oct. 27, Ford Nation likely won’t be big enough to lift the mayor’s sash onto Doug’s shoulder. But could it live on as a real, registered political party — perhaps even outliving the political careers of the Ford brothers themselves, and forcing other politicians at Toronto City Hall to organize themselves in like fashion?
Remember that just about every new political party starts off as an assembly of people who feel otherwise excluded and unrepresented by existing arrangements — think of Social Credit after the Great Depression or the Reform Party in the late 1980s. Such parties often form in the outlying regions of larger political agglomerations, typically on a platform that emphasizes all the ways in which they have been marginalized or cheated by central elites. What is the Fords’ Etobicoke but not Toronto’s angry prairie?
Political parties have other advantages, as well: They create a culture of discipline and accountability, because party functionaries usually will defend their brand vigorously. And every lapse by the leader — former Alberta premier Alison Redford provides a recent example — creates a sense of agitation among both party grandees and ambitious subordinates. Mikey Ford doesn’t want to be a mere school board trustee forever, you know.
I’m getting ahead of myself here, I realize, but it’s interesting to think of how a Ford Nation political party that takes root in Toronto might spread to other cities, or even to other levels of government, and thereby inject some fresh energy into Canadian politics. Currently, the laboratory of small-c conservative politics in this country is confined to parties running under the big-C conservative label. A more adult, institutionally disciplined version of Ford Nation could change that.
Because let’s face it, Rob Ford rose to prominence in large part by striking postures seen as far too risky for Stephen Harper or Tim Hudak or anyone else running under a Conservative label — but which resonate with ordinary people. As with subways, some of it is just populist fiscal flim-flam: having your cake and then eating five more. But a lot of the messaging hits home. Not every Torontonian likes gay Pride taking over the city during the heart of the summer. Or wants a bunch of cyclists clogging up their giant suburban highways. Or thinks it’s the job of Toronto council to tell the world how awesome Nelson Mandela was. At its best, Ford Nation is the kind of local brass-tacks conservatism that focuses on fixing potholes instead of building prisons and photo-opping in Jerusalem.
You can’t put all of Ford Nation’s trashy lightning in a party-branded bottle: Much of it lives and dies with Rob Ford. But as Doug Ford’s surprisingly decent poll numbers show, the appetite for populist civic conservatism goes beyond one man. No matter who wins or loses on Oct. 27 in Toronto, we may not have heard the last of Ford Nation.
‘In this election, Ford is more than a surname. Ford Nation is a brand.’ — Jonathan Kay