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Ford’s Trumpish Tendencies

As published in the Guardian: Weekly letters - 6 July 2018

According to Ian Lee, a professor at Carleton University, Doug Ford’s political victory in Ontario (15 June) is unrelated to rightwing populist trends in the US and Europe. However, the new Conservative premier’s background and public behaviour is quite Trumpish, including Ford’s record of publicly belittling gay pride activists and the developmentally handicapped.

Lee also credits Ford’s victory to the province’s rejection of defeated Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne, “who had steered the province to the left”. Such simplistic analysis imagines sharp ideological borders that encourage exclusion rather than compromise. Lee’s quoted remarks may well reflect his quantitative perspective rather than the messy complexity of reality.

Morgan Duchesney
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada