There’s just one culprit here, guys.

That somehow the conversation deviated from that this, and finger-pointing elsewhere prevailed, suggests that we’ve allowed the bad guys, the political thugs, to dictate our political reality here in Toronto.

Doug Ford, once more, tried to manhandle a situation and tilt it in his favour. As we should all know by now, that’s what the Fords do. There is no rule they won’t ignore. No sense of decorum they won’t take a dump on. They are The Entitled who walk amongst us. The dudes don’t abide.

So when Doug Ford decided to lean on Friday night’s Inner City Union debate organizers and force them to dis-invite another candidate because, well, Doug didn’t want to be on stage with him that was the only bullshit move that needed to be called out. The rest of it? The who should’ve done what and when in reaction, and by not doing what when, yaddie, yaddie, was nothing more than pure partisan, reactive opportunism.

It simply validated Ford’s political game-playing. That it’s all just game-playing. There are no rules to adhere to. It’s a free-for-all. Tit-for-bloody-tat. A blood sport, just like Doug Ford had predicted months ago.

Once again, Doug Ford tried to kick the shit out of democracy and, once more, too many of us joined in, taking our boots to the battered and bruised body.

The Fords and their dwindling number of fervent supporters are thugs. Straight up. They have no regard for process, little inclination to pay any attention to simple courtesy. Respect? Respect this.

I may be naïve but I’m not naïve enough to believe the other mayoral camps didn’t weigh their reactions to the Ford foot stomping on a political scale. Neither John Tory nor Olivia Chow are served particularly well by having a second nothing-to-lose candidate up on stage, debating them, especially one as articulate and pointed as Ari Goldkind. It’s not hard to imagine either one figuring out how to massage the situation to their best advantage.

But frankly that doesn’t matter and is utterly beside the point.

Doug Ford, the Fords, are the Cody Jarretts of our local politics. They’ve climbed to the top of the world and they’ll blow the fucker up before they’d contemplate gracefully stepping down. It does not matter to them, the mess they leave behind. In fact, the messier, the better. It only proves their point. Government, right? No good can come of it.

Doug Ford is the bad guy in this situation.

Let’s stop forgetting that.

And let’s stop being afraid of the Fords, afraid of calling them out, so afraid of them that we’ll even think about voting against our best interests in order to be rid of them. The best way to get rid of the Fords and everyone still in their corner? Continue to stand up to them.

— sick and tiredly submitted by Cityslikr