Quote:
Originally Posted by rousseau
Yeah, I know. But why couldn't he be a stylish rogue like Berlusconi or a charming Tory buffoon like Boris? Why does he have to be a football-coaching 300-pound behemoth of a hick that even Alabama would consider too over-the-top?
I vehemently disagree with his politics and his policies, but what I find really galling is his wilfully non-Glenn Gouldian persona. I'm probably in denial about the true face of southern Ontario culture, which these days some might say is less Robertson Davies than Dukes of Hazzard.
On one of my bike rides through the countryside the other day I saw a pickup truck with a Confederate flag in the back windshield. At first I wished I had a gun so I could shoot the motherfucker, but immediately realized that that would only have played into his hand. So I resorted to seething at him inwardly in true 19th century Presbyterian fashion. After all, we have a culture to preserve and protect against vulgar American-wannabees like Ford.
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Interesting analysis. Southern Ontario was "born in that water", so to speak. The original culture at least was very much about a right way and a wrong way of being, and was not necessarily very tolerant of people who stepped across the line. (All of which was part of the reason for not joining the American adventure in the first place way back when, the new United States being more of a no-holds-barred, freewheeling enterprise.)
Of course, today southern Ontario has morphed into one of the most tolerant, diverse and live-and-let-live places in the world. This dramatic transformation is nothing short of astonishing when you think about it.
Of course, the old my-way-or-the-highway and do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do mentality displayed by people like Rob Ford and other right-wingers rears its head every so often and is still there under the surface.
But I don't think they'll be running the show down there any more than on a very occasional basis for short periods of time.
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