Responding to Sol Chrom and How to Use the Word 'Elitist'

My friends call me out for being pedantic sometimes when talking about politics and policies. Frankly, it’s a fair assessment. I’m OK with it for the most part because words and nuance matter when it comes to politics. In fact, I’d say that’s where the real meaning is found-- that by forming arguments with detail, clarity and honesty we can more ably discuss solutions to the complicated and layered problems we encounter.

While words are powerful tools to illuminate the best and worst thoughts and ideas of our discourse, they can also obfuscate. Successful politicians have long been masters of this technique. Forming arguments, terms and divisions that appeal to our emotional thinking has long been an easier and more effective manner of winning broad support.

The Power of Words

Professional Evil Word Alchemist Frank Luntz opined that 80% of political arguments are emotional, 20% intellectual. It’s from this grounding that he coined the phrase ‘Death Tax’ as opposed to ‘Estate Tax’ and ‘Government takeover of healthcare’ for Obama’s healthcare plan. Luntz has made a career on condensing more accurate, official terms into popular, official and not-quite-as-accurate terms.

The same rhetorical techniques propelled Rob Ford into office. Like Luntz, he and his team captured the zeitgeist with some simple, emotional language that crafted a powerful if inaccurate portrait of Toronto (for more, read this excellent piece on storytelling and persuasion from the Toronto Star).

By creating the most powerful story and the touchstone terms of the campaign (gravy train, respect for taxpayers, downtown elites etc…) Team Ford defined the debate. They moved the intellectual and emotional goalposts to their comfort zone by winning the most important turf- the words that define our discourse.

Words Used to Sow Discord 

This political win by Team Ford was largely enabled through sowing emotional class war divisions between the ‘everyman’ and ‘intellectuals’. I bring this up due to an excellent piece by Sol Chrom on his blog from yesterday. In it, he argues that the anti-intellectual discourse which dismisses well-reasoned, expert ‘elite’ arguments is contrived backlash to feed manufactured narratives as a way to pose as the ally of the little guy. Thus the Fords, become the everyman through their love of football and BBQs despite their inherited wealth and the accompanying ideology which privileges fellow travelers.   

This stance is enabled and furthered by the likes of the Toronto Sun, a ‘populist’ newspaper. In it, columnists regularly deride alternative opinions and experts groups through epithets that are similar to what political and cultural critic Thomas Frank termed ‘latte libel’. In defining individuals and groups by right wing terms, such as ‘helmethead’ cyclists, ‘Poverty Pimp’ social justice programs and ‘La Poodle’ Margaret Atwood, the likes of Sue-Ann Levy dismiss and insubstantiate their opponents through reductive rhetoric.

This emotionally evocative and shallow language creates what Frank calls a “mutant strain of class war” where cyclists, the underprivileged and library users are coupled with ‘elitists’. This dismisses their goals and aims as outside of the mainstream, as mere social engineering experiments from which to test bizarre intellectual theories or ‘suck from the public teat’ financially.  

These are not accurate descriptions of the people who oppose Rob Ford and his enablers on council. There has been a concerted attempt by the likes of The Brothers Ford, Giorgio Mammoliti, and Doug Holyday to assert that the individuals at the Citizen’s Filibuster were organized labour or the unemployed, somehow an inauthentic and inaccurate voice for Toronto. But that stretches credulity when you look at the video of 14-year-old Anika Tabovaradanby, the articulate and impassioned animal rescue volunteer Laura Heslin Piper or senior citizens highlighting the importance of their crossing guard jobs for which they are paid $12 an hour.

Chrom's Solutions

Chrom’s solution to the inaccurate framing of the issues is twofold. One, don’t be ashamed about making intelligent, well-reasoned arguments. I agree with him here. Sophisticated and nuanced ideas should be celebrated; they shape the political terrain for the better and guard against being drowned out by the emotionally-charged and juvenile nonsense that flows from Levy and others.

Chrom also suggests a need to reclaim terms and own them. I partially agree here. Some terms should rightly be reclaimed. An activist is someone who engages the political sphere with community concerns motivated by a sense of civic virtue, not an ideologically lecherous sponge. Liberalism promotes liberty, opportunity, equal rights and inclusion and is not an ideology designed to dispossess individuals or groups of those rights.

Chrom concludes by looking at the word ‘elitist’, that term favoured by people such as Levy, Christie Blatchford, Don Cherry and the Fords. Chrom suggests that this word be reclaimed to in an effort to promote the idea that ‘the elite’- educated, informed and intelligent people- make important decisions that balance interests and deal with complexities.

Elitist!

Reclamation Not The Only Strategy

I would caution against this by putting on my Frank Luntz hat (ew, gross). The term ‘elitist’ conjures up a separation from the mainstream and is not so easy to reclaim. Even if the arguments are sophisticated or ‘elite’ the people they’re supporting are mostly marginalized or underrepresented. Instead, the people who Chrom cites in his post (@cityslikr, myself!, Matt Elliott, Mike Smith, Dave Meslin, Tim Falconer, Ivor Tossell, Hamutal Dotan, Andrea Houston, Jonathan Goldsbie, R. Jeanette Martin, Justin Stayshn, Justin Beach, Ed Keenan, Tabatha Southey, John Lorinc), are far from elitist. To the contrary, these individuals are driven by a concern with promoting the quality of life for the average citizen and the city as a whole.

Instead of reclaiming the word ‘elitist’, it’s more effective to turn it around to highlight the false consciousness sowed by Fordian rhetoric. What’s more elitist: supporting public libraries or suggesting they close down? People can buy their own books, damnit. What’s more elitist: wanting a bridge to connect communities or wanting to throw the land over to developers? What’s more elitist: connecting with a vibrant and diverse LGBTQ community or avoiding it to spend time at the cottage? What’s more elitist: fostering community growth through small and energetic organizations, or opposing all grant funding and suggesting they can find private donors? What’s more elitist: opposing cuts to bus routes or supporting tax break entitlements for drivers?

Chrom rightly argues for language’s significance and importance in politics. After all, to move the discourse, terms must be co-opted and shaped. But to change the discourse beyond City Hall’s bubble requires connecting sophisticated arguments to mainstream audiences and highlighting the substantive vacuity of Ford's language. This is a challenging task, and using a word like ‘elitist’ makes it more difficult (other words make more sense to co-opt). But through a detournement (elitist word!) of words such as elitist, the inadequate parallel of rhetoric and reality in Ford’s universe can be highlighted. Ford’s policies can be subverted by the very thing that brought him popular support-- language.     

Learning from Rob Ford to Defeat Rob Ford

In his first eight months as mayor, Rob Ford has had a relatively easy time passing the motions he has prioritized with a handful of minor setbacks. While people theorized during the campaign that there might be enough opposition to Ford to effectively run a shadow mayoralty, that has not materialized. Team Ford has run a tight ship, whipping councillors to get in line and swaying just enough of the mushy middle to get more controversial items passed such as turning down provincial funding for two public nurses.  It's worth looking at how Team Ford has accomplished this, and what this in turn means for the right response to counteract the policies put into place.

Ford has been able to pass motions for three principal reasons:

1) Strict Messaging

2) Whipping Councillors when needed

3) Capitalizing on Perceived Popularity

Ford on election night, Ian Kelso for Inside Toronto

 1) One of the most remarkable aspects of the mayoral campaign was how disciplined Ford was at staying on message. Repeating the 'gravy train' and 'respect for taxpayers' mantra ad nauseam was effective in framing the debate and instilling quick, memorable ideas in voters' minds. This strict messaging from the campaign is maintained in the administration in the face of easily falsifiable claims, as The Grid's Edward Keenan has pointed out lately. But most observers don't follow politics closely enough to know they're being sold a bill of goods. Hey, even Stephen LeDrew doesn't call him on it!

2) As is oft-repeated, councillors have the vast majority of power at city hall while the mayor only has one vote. Things haven't worked out this way during Ford's brief time, with most moderate councillors being resistant to the idea of standing up proposed policies. Part of this is out of the fear of reprisal, as with Josh Colle voting for the removal of the Jarvis Bike Lanes perhaps due to an extortive hold put on a development project in his ward by Mayor Ford. Others may want to keep their committee assignments or don't want to be made targets like Mike Layton and Kristyn Wong-Tam were for the Fort York Bridge and Jarvis Bike Lanes. The administration has so far demonstrated a vindictive and spiteful side to it that is perfect for whipping councillors against standing up for their principles.

Mushy. 

3) Moderate councillors are not only looking for their cues from the Ford Team due to point number two above, but also because of Ford's perceived popularity. Not only did Ford receive a healthy pluarlity for his mandate, but he has framed himself as a straight-shooter who is in touch with the common man and woman. When he speaks, he speaks as though he knows what all taxpayers want, claiming that the silent majority connects to him through his magic divining rod of a cell phone that no one can dispute. Other councillors want to deliver 'what the people want' regardless of the fact that their constituents also voted for them to follow their principles. But the moral suasion of the mayor's office carries public significance and it's tough for many of the moderate councillors (a number of whom are rookies) to feel comfortable challenging that.

Where Team Ford has been successful in crafting a message and image that allows quick and successful passage of their goals, opponents can use what they do well against them. This is a much more difficult task in the absence of formal parties or co-ordinating tools for the opposition in Toronto's city hall structure. But it's still possible to make a lot of headway.

1)    Consistent Messaging Alternatives

2)    Pressuring the Mushy Middle both positively and negatively

3A) Connecting with communities

3B) Raising Ford's negatives

1) Ford's amazing consistency with phrases and terms has had an impact on the language that is used in Toronto's political discourse. As Downtown Pinko Elitist as this sounds, those terms matter, such as the difference between a taxpayer and citizen. Heck, even Mark Towhey and Nick Kouvalis would admit that. As has been pointed out before, citizen implies a a dual relationship, a contribution to the community and using the benefits of it. Taxpayer only implies the latter, and that's a pretty lousy vision. 

Team Ford also uses 'entitlement' language to speak derisively of things like the Riverdale Farm, low-income nutrition and childcare subsidies. It's pretty effective language, but language that can be co-opted and subverted. After all, what's a bigger entitlement than not keeping property taxes, the lowest in the GTA, at the rate of inflation during consistent structural deficits? After all, this dispropotionately helps the wealthiest whereas KPMG cuts disproportionately affect the neediest. That's entitlement. Flipping this kind of language can help to lift the facade from Fordian rhetoric and deconstruct the impact that it has on how the city's policies treat its citizens. 

Via @joshuahind

2) There's been some chatter lately about Project 23 over at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke. The project, which sounds like something Nick Fury might organize, aims at focusing on the Mushy Middle votes that assure Ford passage of most of his priorities. Daren Foster (Cityslikr) writes:

"...we need to concentrate on those in the so-called mushy middle. Let’s call it the vulnerable middle. Councillors, both new and old, who are regularly siding with the mayor out of either fear of the mayor’s tactical pressure or plain old political expediency. The going’s good now and they are aware of fallout if they are seen to be bucking Ford Nation. So they’re skulking in the shadows, hoping no one notices them and that come election 2014, they’ll be able to continue under the radar of their own ward races.

Let’s start informing them that that’s not going to happen. They will have to answer to their voters if they continue their craven allegiance to this administration. If they think there’s a price to be paid not being a Team Ford player, notice needs to be served there’s going to be no free ride for such slavish devotion."

I think Foster is right in encouraging people to inform Mushy Middle councillors that their votes enable Ford to pass motions without any consideration or compromise are noticed and ill-advised. But I think that more than threats have to be offered, that assistance is needed too. As Foster points out, many of these councillors are in vulnerable wards and will need help to be re-elected. Rather than threatening to simply unseat them, a co-ordinated effort is needed to support those that oppose awful policies in the face of electoral difficulties. Not offering that alternative may force them to side with Ford who can offer Sopranos-like protection and resources to help. It's this kind of coalition building that can go a long way in establishing a large enough opposition to stem the bloodletting from the current administration. 

3) There's two main ways to defeat an opponent in politics, to raise your own positives/sell your own ideas and raise your opponents unfavourables. So this will be split into those sections.

Connect to communities and raise negatives. Also, people like cats. 

3A) First, the idealism. It's pretty tough to raise positives in city hall due to relatively low name recognition/public interest and the individual structure of city hall. But it's possible. There are two aims here: to connect to directly impacted communities and make the larger connection to communities who are not directly impacted.

The Jarvis Bike Lanes Debate is a good example. Led by Dave Meslin and the Bike Union, the cycling constituency was out in force. It was an impressive display even if it fell short. What is more difficult is making the connections to people who are outside that issue. I don’t ride a bike, but the process by which the removal was passed impacts me as a cheapening of our democratic discourse. If I have an issue at city hall, I want fair, open and transparent means to discuss it. It also impacts me as a friend and family member to those who do cycle or as someone who cares about the environment (some of this was done, but I feel more of it was possible). Building those coalitions and connections is tough work but it’s needed to fight the populist-style politics at city hall.

3B) The second cynical portion is, sadly, easier to accomplish and often more politically effective. Ford’s negatives are already dramatically up (from 17 to 24% strongly disapprove) according to the latest StratCom poll and his slash and burn politics may gradually continue that trend and erode cover given to the Mushy Middle in supporting him.

What the opposition needs to do is speed up that deserved process before too much damage can be done. This can be done by making Ford earn his credibility. This requires holding him accountable for his facts (80% of budget goes to employees! 10x the traffic on Jarvis!), campaign promises (repeat, no service cuts), and cutting into the myth of the populist everyman that has been created for him. Because really, he cares more about his ideology (facts be damned) and image than he cares about you.

The TL;DR version for those of you (like me) with Twitter-attention spans:

§          Develop consistent messaging and terms to undermine Ford’s

§          Nudge the Mushy Middle using both the carrot and the stick.

§          Tailor messages for both narrow constituencies and broader communities to demonstrate how it impacts their  lives

§          Drive up Ford’s negatives to show how his disrespect for facts, process or promises disrespects each citizen

A lot of this has already been done in less formal ways, but if the Ford administration is to be limited in the damage it can inflict then opposition must be their equal in organization and focus, a difficult task given the loose structure at city hall.