Nice girls don’t: thoughts on Game of Thrones and the Democratic Leadership Race

Hot takes, compliments of Captain Obvious! Joe Biden is likeable, and the Game of Thrones series finale was less so.

I know, internet commentators have gone on ad nauseam about when and how the final episode let them down but for what it’s worth I’m not here to comment on the Game of Thrones series finale per se. For starters (by way of disclosure) I didn’t actually watch the show. I’m one of the few hold-outs who still believes that George R.R. Martin will someday finish the books, so my knowledge of the T.V. show is limited to the occasional YouTube clips and spoilers I read on Wikipedia. So no, I’m not going to hate on your favorite T.V. show; I think we can all agree I’d be pretty out of my depth. I would however, like to comment on the writers’ treatment of its two leading ladies and what that says about how we as a society regard powerful womyn.

It goes without saying that spoilers are to follow, so if you’re yet to finish the series or you want to believe that Daenerys never evolved past season 5, you might want to stop reading now.

Yes, the mad queen of Westeros was overthrown by the mad queen from across the sea and the audience was left scratching their heads and wondering who was left to cheer for. As confused as we were it was nothing compared to Jon Snow and the brotherhood of disillusioned white dudes, who having witnessed the carnage that the Mother of Dragons hath wrought, realized all too late that they might have backed the wrong horse. Ergo, the last queen was killed, a council was called, and the iron throne was claimed by a male character you’d be forgiven for assuming was no longer in the show.

Way to break the wheel, boys.

My issue with the series’ conclusion isn’t so much that Daenerys went mad (though I do agree with the critics that her 11th hour trip down the rabbit hole could have been better written), it’s that it’s another example of the writers punishing its female characters who dare to pursue power. Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister and even Davos Seaworth too experienced the horrors of war but never truly lost their grip on their moral compass. Even Jaime Lannister actually grew more temperate as the series progressed. The same cannot be said for many of the show’s female characters, who grew more destructive as they asserted their power. Sure, some of them made it through the series with their heads and their sanity intact but the implication is clear: we accept powerful womyn when their quest for power leads to villainy and by extension, their downfall.

I bring this up because after months of will-he, won’t-he speculation, Joe Biden decided that the Democratic leadership race wasn’t already full enough and threw his name in for consideration. Almost immediately he pulled ahead in public opinion polls, fundraising, and even shrugged off accusations of inappropriate contact with his female colleagues. This came as a bit of surprise to me, especially as the electorate is increasingly showing a penchant for newcomers with a relatively clean slate untainted by career politics. However, when I looked in to it more closely, it became more evident why the electorate was favoring him:

“I think many of these other candidates have great ideas,” One campaign attendee said. “They have great aspirations and they’re good on the stump – all the things you want in a candidate. But they don’t have the experience, the gravitas or the toughness that Joe Biden brings to the fight with Donald Trump. He can go toe-to-toe with him in any debate, anytime, anywhere.”

Really? “Gravitas” and “toughness”? No disrespect to Biden but these aren’t adjectives I would have readily associated him with. Folksy? Sure. Affectionate? Afraid so. ‘America’s Uncle?’ That’s not an adjective but I can see where you’re coming from. Tough? No. If you’re seriously suggesting that Biden is ‘tough’ I can only assume it’s because he has a penis, and therefore benefits from both assumed toughness and the freedom to act tough without reproach. The problem with this is the leadership race was already brimming with tough, gravitas-y female contenders that are now being overlooked because a well-known man entered the race.

Fellow nominee Elizabeth Warren was famously silenced by Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell when she #persisted in challenging Jeff Sessions’ confirmation as Attorney General, citing his track-record on civil rights. More recently Kamala Harris went toe-to-toe with Ken Barr over his conduct as Attorney General, particularly as it pertains to the Mueller Report. Both of these candidates have demonstrated how tough they can be but in so doing, could well have reinforced society’s worst assumptions about powerful womyn. After all, it wasn’t too long ago when the current president of the United States dismissed his female debate opponent as a “nasty woman” for daring to challenge his income tax avoidance during a debate. Statements like this are troubling because they reinforce the wide-held perception that politics is a game that womyn cannot win: either play nice and be called ‘weak’ or be tough and be called ‘nasty’ or God forbid, ‘mad’.

And yes, I realize that the current president of the United States may not be the best standard of comparison for how Western society regards womyn. I think even card-carrying Republicans would agree that that’s setting the bar a little low. My point is that Hillary Clinton was publicly ridiculed for doing exactly what Joe Biden is credited with doing right now, largely because she is a womyn and any womyn who dares to assert herself is met with public scrutiny. After all, nice girls don’t shout, or fight, or question the authority of men. A girl who does must be mad, and mad girls are dangerous and must be stopped before they wreak havoc on the kingdom at large.

To be clear, I don’t dislike Joe Biden, though I’ve got a few questions regarding his support for the Hyde Amendment and some lingering concerns with how he handled the Anita Hill testimony. What bothers me is that as soon as Biden threw his name in the ring, the progressive left abandoned the opportunity to make history in favor of endorsing the status quo. And why? Because they don’t think a womyn can assert herself? Should assert herself? Assert herself and retain the public’s respect? I don’t know, but if it’s any combination of the three then all the more reason to defend female candidates, for never was a wheel in more dire need of being broken.

Could it Happen Here?

A number of years ago I remember walking down Wellington Street in Ottawa, Canada and seeing a small group of teenagers setting up pink and blue flags on the lawn in front of the Parliament Building. Intrigued, I approached one of them and asked what the flags represented and was shocked when one of the girls replied that “they represent the babies that are murdered every year from abortion.”

I was stunned. I’d heard of anti-abortion activists successfully push for legislative change south of the border and they certainly angered me but I can’t say they scared me, as I naively assumed the anti-abortion movement just didn’t wield that much influence in Canada. This particular protest was a wake-up call. I’d seen multiple protests in the past and even participated in a few but I’d never seen such a coordinated, elaborate effort to take away what I considered a basic human right. The Parliament Building in particular is supposed to be symbolic of our privilege to live in a progressive, liberal society but any innocent tourist who took a selfie there on October 22, 2014 did so with the anti-abortion brigade’s shitty lawn decor defacing the background. Apparently the movement is stronger and more determined than I’d been led to believe.

I bring this up because all across the United States we’re seeing legislative changes restricting access to clean, safe abortions. Alabama Republicans recently passed a bill banning abortions except under rare circumstances. Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia and many others recently signed so-called “Heartbeat” bills in to law; compelling womyn to carry pregnancies to term as soon as a heart beat can be detected. I want to believe that such legislative changes would never fly in Canada but we’ve already seen politicians at all levels of government express anti-abortion sentiments, which begs the question: could it happen here?

Recent figures suggest that the anti-abortion movement is gaining momentum in Canada but it’s difficult to know just how broad their influence has grown. It’s true that participation in the annual capital city March for Life has exploded by staggering 2000+% since 1998 but you know, word gets out, people plan ahead, it’s not unusual that these things gain momentum over time. Also, it’s not all-together difficult to obtain a percentage increase of 2000+% over twenty years when your base figure is only 700. My readership increased by 450% in one month but in numerical terms, that’s an increase of 18 from a base figure of 4.[1]  Yes, 700 is a helluva lot bigger than 4, but I’m also one person and the capital city March for Life Rally coordinated buses to recruit participants from across two provinces. I’m not saying their numbers are insignificant; I’m just saying that it’s fair to approach the participation rate with a touch of skepticism.

More importantly, this figure doesn’t illustrate the volumes of people who support a womyn’s right to choose but are less inclined to spearhead a counter-protest for a fight they feel they’ve already won. Lives have literally been lost in the fight for universal suffrage but last federal election, 32% of eligible voters didn’t even cast a fucking ballot.[2] As for abortion, statistics show that 77% of Canadians support a womyn’s right to chose and in the face of such a high approval rating, it’s easy to grow complacent. However, while pro-choice individuals refocus their interests elsewhere, anti-abortion activists will not, and that’s when complacency becomes dangerous.

Abortion was fully legalized in Canada in 1989, when the Supreme Court ruled that section 251 of the Criminal Code – which outlined the circumstances in which an abortion was legally admissible – was unconstitutional. Prior to 1989, a womyn could obtain an abortion provided she made an effective case to a panel of doctors, who were (let’s be real) generally white, male and so blinded by privilege that they could not possibly appreciate the constraints that they were imposing on pregnant womyn by compelling them to carry a pregnancy to term. The court did not, critically, decide that government has a constitutional obligation to protect a womyn’s right to choose, rather struck down the panel requirement and paved the way for the legalization of abortion.

Despite this “setback”, the wording of the ruling did offer the anti-abortion movement some space to campaign to restrict abortion rights, as long as their recommendation differed from what was originally in section 251. For instance, in 1990, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney tried to recriminalize abortion through legislation that could have become law if it hadn’t been squashed by the Senate. However, I think the most insidious example of the anti-abortion movement’s desire to restrict abortion rights came in the form of the Unborn Victims of Crime bill, a failed private members bill that called for harsher punishments for violent offenders who attacked pregnant womyn with the intent to harm the foetus.

On its surface it seemed progressive enough. After all, haven’t feminists traditionally argued that governments don’t do enough to support victims of domestic violence? However, on close examination it became more evident that this was part of an agenda to restrict abortion rights in Canada. First off, the law’s capacity to prosecute a violent offender should not be contingent on whether or not the victim happened to be pregnant at the time of the attack. Assault is assault, no matter who it was committed against or what circumstances they found themselves in. Moreover, similar laws have been passed in the United States and statistics show that they have no impact on deterring domestic violence, undermining the case that the bill was developed on. Finally, the wording of the bill was somewhat suspicious. It did not refer to “woman” or “foetus”, it referred to “mother” and “child”, and even concluded with an argument that “It is not a defence to a charge under this section that the child is not a human being.”

Yikes.

To be clear, this was a proposed amendment to the Criminal Code and by law, the Constitution can override amendments to the Criminal Code that violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, the wording of the bill was ambiguous enough that it could well have triggered a lengthy court battle with pregnant womyn wishing to terminate their pregnancy caught in limbo.

This brings us back full circle to the topic of could it happen here. It’s no coincidence that these restrictions on abortions throughout the United States are being imposed now. Anti-abortion activists have been emboldened by the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and believe that with the number of Supreme Court justices now favoring conservatives, that they will be able to overturn Roe v. Wade. Kavanaugh – a man who was famously appointed despite strong evidence of having violated one womyn’s right to exercise control over her own body – seems well-positioned to support legislation that would restrict womyn’s rights further.

So could it happen here? Technically, yes. Will it happen? I’m not sure. Five years ago I would have said ‘no’ but five years ago I also would have said that there’s no way BREXIT will pass or the Donald Trump will be elected president, so I’m not sure what to believe any more. I do recognize that the Canadian and American legal systems are different, and that it might be easier to overturn Roe v. Wade than it would be to circumvent R v. Morgentaler. However, it’s imperative that pro-choice activists recognize that access to abortion in Canada is not a constitutionally enshrined right. There are multiple avenues that anti-abortion activists could pursue to limit a womyn’s control over her body that are well within the limits of the Supreme Court’s 1989 ruling.

Over the past few weeks, several Canadian politicians have come forward including Sam Oosterhoff and even Ontario premier Doug Ford, identifying as anti-abortion. Much has been made of the inherent contradiction of conservative politicians stripping away social safety nets while denying women access to abortion, and I think that’s fair. Compelling low-income womyn to carry a pregnancy to term and then denying both mother and child access to adequate social services has been rightly labelled pro-birth, not “pro-life”. That being said, I don’t think access to a clean, safe abortion should be contingent on a womyn’s ability to economise her decision. Or prove that she was raped. Or demonstrate that her life is at stake if she carries her pregnancy to term. Requiring womyn to “prove their case” in order to obtain an abortion is essentially what the Supreme Court struck down in the first place. At the risk of compromising my anonymity, I will say that I am a healthy, educated, thirty-something with a well-paying job complete with benefits. In some pro-lifer’s dystopian wet dream I might pass for a “breeder” except for the fact that I don’t want children, and I don’t feel that I should have to publish my tax returns to justify my decision.[3]

Now, some might call my decision “selfish” but I have little patience for that line of thinking. After all, the anti-abortion movement has been championed by individuals who’d sooner set the planet ablaze then pay a carbon tax so if you count yourself among their numbers, spare me the faux-moral platitudes. Moreover, I don’t consider exercising control over your own body to be selfish. If anything, it’s reclaiming your rights in the face of individuals who’d violate them to serve their own agenda. The pro-choice movement is founded in the principle that your body is just that. Your body. It cannot be used for forced labour or breeding quotas or anything else without your consent. If we decide that there are exceptions to this rule, we may open the flood-gates to other exceptions that gradually erode our ability exercise this fundamental freedom. Now, more than ever, is the time to be “selfish”.

Elections in Canada are just around the corner so if you care about this issue, contact your local candidates and grill them to determine unequivocally where they stand on abortion. Not just in the case of rape, or incest, or any other caveat that they want to ham-fist in there to guarantee some wiggle-room. Where they stand on a womyn’s right to choose what can or cannot be done with her body. Let them know you care about this issue and that you will hold them accountable if they betray your trust.

[1] Speaking of which, smash that ‘like’ button and hit ‘subscribe’!

[2] Don’t tell me the options didn’t do it for you. There is ALWAYS a least suck-y candidate

[3] It’s not like I’m running for president….

Let’s Talk about Sex

I wavered a lot on whether or not I would write about this topic this month. Writing for mass consumption comes with some risk (okay, ‘mass’ might be an over-statement – I have two followers), in this case a barrage of well-sourced comments in the comments section that I am not necessarily prepared to answer to. After all, this touches on science and I’ll be the first to admit my high school bio is a little rusty, and it was never great to begin with.

In the end I decided to go for it, partly because I don’t think you need a degree in science to care about scientific issues. Just this year we saw a sixteen year-old Swedish girl do more to fight climate change than some climatologists. Also, this is only my fourth posting, so I guess I’m still working under the naive assumption that it’s possible to have a civilized conversation on the internet. Maybe if I acted in an all-female Goonies reboot or had a Twitter account I’d feel differently, but I want to believe that under the deluge of misogynistic, homophobic rhetoric that we’ve come to expect from the internet,[1] there exists a powerful minority that came here to share ideas and to learn. If those people end up reading this post and sending me questions or comments I can’t answer, so be it. More than anything I just want to start a conversation because I can’t be the only non-scientist out there twitching because something is clearly not right.

So let’s talk about sex.[2]

No, not that one, the other one. The one your parents ticked off on your birth certificate.

No, stay with me because I think this is important.

In April 2018, Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya lost her case against the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which decided that female athletes with differences in sexual development (DSD) must take hormone suppressants if they intend to compete in specific events. Semenya – like many womyn – was born with elevated testosterone levels, which many believe offers her a competitive advantage over other female athletes. The ruling is predicated on the assumption that testosterone is responsible for the lean body mass developed in puberty, which offers male athletes a competitive advantage over female athletes. The degree to which elevated testosterone levels in female athletes lead to improved performance is still inconclusive, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true. What I don’t understand is why we’re punishing them for it.

There are many, many natural phenomena that can give someone a competitive advantage in sport. Some people are taller, have faster metabolism, greater propensity to build and maintain muscle mass, etc. The sad truth is that while healthy lifestyle habits are important, Mother Nature is a fickle bitch who prefers to roll the dice when deciding our genetic make-up. Many of us will lose. Caster Semenya happened to win. Why can’t we just congratulate her and cheer her on from the comfort of our lazy boy recliner like we would for anyone else? We did that for Michael Phelps when scientists determined his body produces less than half the lactic acid of his rivals, and is basically engineered for swimming. Or when Eero Mäntyranta, a cross-country skier from Finland was found to produce approximately 50 percent more oxygen-carrying red blood cells than a normal person. Or when Oliver Wood told professor McGonagall that Harry Potter had the perfect build to be a seeker.

Alright, so I don’t follow organized sports, but the point still stands. We tolerate genetic advantages in star athletes unless they happen to challenge a very narrow and problematic definition of what it means to be a woman.

The gender binary owes at least some debt of gratitude to the scientific community’s predisposition to sort human beings in to false dichotomies, white – coloured, gay – straight, man – woman, the list goes on. This was largely driven by a desire to group human beings together to justify some of the worst social experiments of the modern era, such as slavery, colonialism, and of course the disenfranchisement and exploitation of womyn and sexual minorities. What makes cases like Semenya’s so threatening is they illustrate that the supposed scientific, empirical evidence that underpins these assumptions, is flawed. If the assumptions are flawed, what about all the social baggage attached to them? Do we have to reassess our outdated consensus of what womyn are and what they are capable of? What might that lead to? These are difficult questions, and sometimes it’s just easier to compel someone to take hormone suppressants than try to answer them.

While the IAAF ruling referred exclusively to Caster Semenya’s biological sex, it’s hard to not to wonder to what degree racism and homophobia might have played in the proceedings. The ‘angry, black woman’ trope is a time-honoured tradition employed by the white majority to prevent black womyn from challenging the unique discrimination they face on account of their ethnicity and sex. In 19th century minstrel shows, black womyn were often performed by overweight white men in exaggerated makeup to reinforce the false narrative that black womyn were ugly, inhuman and unfeminine. This characterization has affected womyn of colour across the board but has especial bearing on Caster Semenya, because her biological sex is what’s under dispute. Adding to this is Semenya’s sexual orientation. She is openly gay and gay womyn are often regrettably characterized as unnatural and unfeminine, which may have further undermined her ability to defend herself. Any time she spoke up or challenged the panelists, she risked reinforcing the ‘angry lesbian’ trope, which could have biased the panel against her.

I read the executive summary of Semenya’s case and it concluded with a section entitled “The Panel’s expression of gratitude to Ms. Semenya”, where they thanked her for her “dignified personal participation and the exemplary manner in which she has conducted herself throughout the proceedings.” Of course she did. Of course she refused to give voice to the pain, anger and humiliation she’s endured since winning gold at the 2008 World Championships, tainting what should have been one of the proudest moments of her life. Discrimination against SDS women is inextricably linked to sexism and any display of negative emotion would only have reinforced the opposition’s case that she wasn’t really a woman. Add that to the fact that Caster Semenya is a gay, black woman from the continent of Africa and you have a perfect storm of prejudice that effectively strangled her defence. She had little choice but to sit there, calmly and patiently, while the panel issued its ultimatum: suppress your genetic makeup or quit doing what you love. And that to me speaks to the real tragedy of this case, because no one should have to make that choice.

[1] don’t bother, I moderate every comment before it gets posted

[2] baby

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Resolving Cognitive Dissonance Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Loving Conspiracy Theories

“…It’s like evolution. Some people believe it and that’s their opinion, I just don’t. I didn’t come from an animal.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to focus on my work but like an audible car-crash, I couldn’t will my ears away from the conversation before me. If truth be told I wasn’t surprised. After all, just last week I heard the same guy dismiss the link between cigarettes and lung cancer because five of his friends smoke and none of them are dead yet. Creationism, for all its faults, is sufficiently wide-spread that I can at least understand some people believing it or being shamed in to believing otherwise.

“…it’s the same with dinosaurs.”

Wait, what?

“…I don’t believe it, it’s a hoax.”

I was stunned. I’d always assumed that obsessing over dinosaurs was such an integral part of childhood that I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to refute their existence, leave alone actually refuting it. More importantly, I was struck by the way he dismissed their existence and the way everyone around him responded. A long-winded chain of supporting evidence might at least have been entertaining to listen to, but this. This was as noteworthy for its lack of detail as it was for its conclusion. He didn’t want to believe, so he didn’t. By all indicators he doesn’t seem to suffer for his ignorance. No one challenges his assumptions, preferring instead to tune him out when he goes AWOL. He could draw the most absurd conclusion imaginable with absolutely no evidence to back it up and everyone within earshot would just shrug it off as one of his quirks.

I departed shortly afterwards and made sure I was out of earshot before leaning over to a friend and telling her what I just witnessed.

“Oh,” she responded, “so that’s another one.”

Fuck me.

Knowing that two individuals walk in my inner circle and were so easily swayed by conspiracy theories made the whole episode seem less funny and more sad. I realize this sounds elitist but I wanted to believe that I was better than this. Knowing that I went to the same school as not one but two individuals who refute the existence of dinosaurs made me feel stupid-by-association. Yes, ‘stupid’ is harsh. I too saw the Facebook memes and realize that judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree is an unfair metric to measure intelligence with. But what about the fish who argued that the rule against exploring the interior of a shark’s belly was a conspiracy to deny fish freedom of movement? Does even a small part of you want to nudge that fish towards a willing shark and let natural selection run its course? No? Well, maybe you would if you were a fish from the same school (hey-o!).

That being said I shouldn’t be surprised that so many of my peers can readily dismiss the popular consensus through a simple conspiracy theory. Many educated individuals occupying the highest levels of public office are every bit as willing to spew unsubstantiated jargon if it serves their narrative. Just a few weeks ago we watched the American president dismiss a 428 page report from a government appointed Special Counsel with a single hash-tag (okay, maybe not a single hash-tag; hash-tag CollusionDelussion got some traction but let it be known that hash-tag WitchHunt and Hash-tag FakeNews did their part). Day by day, the committed work from journalists and congress men and women have shown that the ‘total vindication’ announcement might have been premature, but this hasn’t swayed the president or his puppets at Fox News from labelling the investigation a conspiracy to undermine the presidency. And as much as we’d like to believe otherwise, the truth is many intelligent, educated people believe them.

It’s tempting to group conspiracy theorists in to some monolithic block of ignorant red-necks who’d rather watch their child die of measles than vaccinate them with ‘Satan’s lube’, but the truth is more complicated than that. Reminder: Ann Coulter went to law school. Ben Carson is a brain surgeon. Even President Trump, the alt-right’s patron saint of Twitter falsehoods and failed business ventures obtained a university degree from Penn State. You can graduate from a well-regarded institute of higher learning and still be dumber than a sack o’ bricks. Indeed, it’s actually quite common. Studies on conspiracy theorists from American Alt-right websites suggest that they are typically more educated and earn higher wages than the average American. By assuming that all conspiracy theorists are uneducated, we not only show-case our arrogance but expose our own ignorance, giving conspiracy theorists greater means to challenge conventional wisdom. After all, if we were wrong about them, what else could we be wrong about?

When I was in university I took a number economics courses that touted the benefits of the free market while conceding that these benefits are often undermined by external factors called “market failures”. I’m not interested in debating the merits of the free market system – that’s a topic for another day – but I would like to suggest that parallel forces exist which can undermine democratic societies governed by the principles of free speech. In order for markets to work, consumers require free access to complete, comprehensive information in order choose which product they’d like to purchase. Similarly, free speech is predicated on the notion that an open exchange of ideas will identify social problems and potential solutions, and how we intend to vote. If we stop criticising ideas because they come from educated speakers or wealthy institutions then the free speech experiment falls apart, and we may as well start appointing our leaders by divine right.

For what it’s worth I can understand the knee-jerk impulse to write-off hard evidence as a conspiracy to undermine your core beliefs. The facts no longer fit the narrative, so you changed your facts. I can also appreciate that that we trust educated people to report information truthfully on the basis of sound evidence – especially when that person happens to be a public figure. However, educated people are still people and therefore subject to the same moral failings that all human beings suffer from. They can be biased, stubborn, proud, short-sighted and just plain wrong. This is why when an educated public figure uses their platform to publicly discredit research that has been widely corroborated; we have a duty to call them out. So next time someone tells you that climate change is not a reality or dinosaurs didn’t exist, whether they be a former school chum or President of the United States, don’t let that fish off the hook so easily (last fish-pun, I swear). Ask them ‘why’.

Someone else’s Asshole

A number of years ago I remember watching an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which included a brief segment on the then-upcoming municipal elections in Toronto, Canada. The mayor at the time – Rob Ford – had just finished an extremely controversial first term culminating in a public reveal of a video showing him smoking crack-cocaine. Even then he’d planned to run for re-election but withdrew after doctors discovered a malignant tumor in his abdomen, and endorsed his brother Doug Ford to run in his place.

Doug Ford, as Oliver effectively demonstrated, proved to be every bit as tactless as his brother. He gaffed his way through the remainder of the mayoral race, facing accusations of misogyny and anti-Semitism before ultimately losing the election to current mayor, John Tory. Hearing this, it may come as a surprise that Oliver actually ended the segment by imploring Torontonians to “for the love of God, please elect this man”. Rob Ford, Oliver argued, couldn’t be mocked without a twinge of guilt as many of his antics were the result of his well-documented substance abuse problems. Doug Ford, by contrast, is “just an asshole”, who can be mocked and belittled without remorse.

It may seem crazy that anyone could encourage electing someone like Doug Ford but the even crazier thing is, we sort of did. After losing the mayoral race, Doug Ford ran for and won the leadership race for the Progressive Conservative party to become premier of the entire province of Ontario. He ran a campaign grounded in social conservatism and fiscal restraint and Ontario residents – disillusioned with the governing Liberals – decided to give him a chance. On Election Day, 58% of registered voters showed up the polling booth to grant a branded asshole a majority government.

I’ll say this for Doug Ford, the man didn’t waste any time. Shortly after being elected, he introduced legislation to roll back sex education for elementary school students, cancel environmental pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and eliminate education programs on indigenous issues, proving that the nonsensical jargon he spewed on the campaign trail was more than just rhetoric. If he has his way, we may even see a rollback on funding for Ontario’s public healthcare system and he hasn’t even finished his first year in office yet.

Now, Doug-Ford-the-premier has a very different agenda than Doug-Ford-the-mayoral-candidate by virtue of the separation of powers, but Doug Ford is still the same man he was when he ran for mayor. You can hear echoes of his failed mayoral campaign in his current agenda as premier, which makes Oliver’s tepid support seem all the more bizarre. While Oliver never commented on the content of Ford’s mayoral platform, he has done other segments on Last Week Tonight discussing topics like sex education and climate change that fly in the face of everything Doug Ford stands for. Moreover, Oliver subsequently did a segment on the 2015 Canadian federal election where he implored Canadians not to re-elect then-Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, who shares many of the same values as Doug Ford. Fun fact: in the lead up to that election in last-ditch attempt to garner support from the burgeoning Canadian alt-right, Harper actually attended a campaign rally hosted by the Ford brothers themselves. It was a desperate bid that may even have alienated conservative-leaning voters, who considered the Ford brothers too extreme, even for them.

Yes, Oliver is a comedian and his endorsement was made in jest. The joke in this case is that he and other non-Torontonians want the opportunity to laugh at someone else’s asshole and for what it’s worth, I can appreciate how appealing that would be. I’ve been watching John Oliver, Stephen Colbert and Samantha Bee since they were Daily Show correspondents. I’ve laughed whole-heartedly at American assholes from the warm comfort of my Canadian living room, safe in the knowledge that their policies would never affect me. But now, as someone living and working under the leadership of one such asshole, I can’t help but wonder what Americans experienced under the leadership of their assholes that I so easily laughed off.

To be absolutely clear, I love Last Week Tonight and doubt that either Oliver or the show’s viewers would ever earnestly vote for a candidate like Doug Ford.  I’m also not suggesting that political humor leads to indifference. Satire, when done well, can actually frame important issues in ways that the mainstream media either can’t or won’t. However, as we inch closer and closer to high-stakes elections, I do think it’s worth reminding ourselves what an enormous privilege it is to be able to laugh at someone else’s asshole. Or scoff. Or willfully bury our heads in the sand and wait for the storm to pass in the guise of “radical self-care”. We can still claim the moral-high ground without challenging the immorality of those we oppose. But in the meantime, assholes will continue to enact policies that threaten and stigmatize the most vulnerable members of society.

And those people aren’t laughing.

Happiness is relative – thoughts on the conclusion of the Mueller investigation

Happiness is relative. Depending on what you fear, what you are expecting, or even your state of mind, something that might not otherwise have affected you can make or break your day. Take for instance the lump you discovered in the shower that you were so sure was malignant. You frantically made your way to the doctor and braced yourself for the worst only to learn that you’re not facing imminent death, you just have a wonky tit. Had you expected this you might already have a list of plastic surgeons on speed dial, but you weren’t expecting this. Your wonky tit is in that moment, beautiful, because effectively confirms something you’d taken for granted every day prior to that fateful shower:


Turns, out you’re not dying, and that’s good enough for now.


I bring this up because after two years of build-up the Mueller investigation closed on a particularly disappointing third act. While we’d all assumed that smoke would inevitably lead to fire, Robert Mueller was unable to prove that the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russian government in the lead up to the 2016 US election. Mueller attempted to soften the blow with the disclaimer that “while this report does not conclude the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him”, but this did not prevent the American president and his minions from declaring the report a “complete exoneration” (which, as many have pointed out, is the literal opposite, but I digress). Liberals itching to initiate impeachment proceedings have had to retreat and reassess their battle tactics while Trump and his supporters celebrated what the BBC labelled “The best day of Trump’s presidency”.


This particular phrase stuck with me because make no mistake, regardless of what the Mueller report was or was not able to establish, this is still a pretty low high-point. Obama passed a signature health-care reform bill, Reagan negotiated the end of the Cold War, and as of today, “the best day of Trump’s presidency” was establishing that the malignant tumour looming over his shoulder was no more than a wonky tit.


But of course, happiness is relative. When you compare a not-guilty verdict to incarcerating migrant children, suddenly a wonky tit doesn’t look that bad. But that’s exactly the problem. The bar cannot be set so dangerously low that the absence of failure is mistaken for success. Even if Trump was not aware of the concerted effort of the Russian government to manipulate the 2016 election, he still benefited enormously from it. The hacked emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee were selectively chosen and released so to maximize the political damage on then-candidate, Hillary Clinton. Even if Trump did not collude with the Russian government, 34 others did, and were either found guilty or struck a plea deal with Mueller’s team as part of the investigation. And even if Robert Mueller was unable to establish that the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russian government, Trump is still facing multiple legal challenges such using his charity to serve his business interests, illegal campaign donations, illegal business practices and financial dealings, and many others. And this doesn’t even begin to address the numerous other scandals that have plagued this administration, such as the previously mentioned incarceration of migrants, the (not a) Muslim travel ban, the list goes on and on.


So yes, when you consider the many controversies that president Trump is or could be embroiled in, Sunday March 24th, 2019 could very well be the best day of the his presidency, but that alone should be cause for concern. Simply ‘not dying’ cannot be the standard that we hold our leaders to. They need to thrive, so that the people they serve may thrive with them. And if Trump and his supporters regard a not-guilty verdict as thriving, this begs the question, what does failure look like to them? Because make no mistake, happiness, is relative, but so is despair.