Posters Mock Disgraced Crack-Smoking Toronto Mayor
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Posters Mock Disgraced Crack-Smoking Toronto Mayor

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Anti-Rob Ford posters have been popping up all over Toronto in recent days, mocking the city’s disgraced current mayor. And who can blame them? After getting videotaped smoking crack, hanging with gang members, claiming he had his drug habit under control, and refusing to resign from office even after the ousting of his chief of staff and other core staffers, Ford has (rightfully?) become a walking punching bag—humiliation on legs.

No Ford Nation

The colorful anti-Ford signs are part of a marketing stunt from NoFordNation, a three-year-old group (which is exactly what it sounds like) that hopes to prevent Ford’s re-election. The signs feature faux political hopefuls alongside catchphrases like “He promises to just smoke pot as mayor. Not crack;” and “If elected, I promise I will just get publicly drunk” (har, har).

Toronto’s mayoral election showdown happens on Oct. 27. It remains to be seen whether the signs will, you know, actually do anything to nudge Ford out of office; surprisingly, Ford’s poll numbers have held steady or even risen since the scandal broke. (Nah, we don’t get it either.)

String of Unford-tunate Events

The scandal’s gone huge, though; the man has become a veritable laughingstock and the punchline of endless bad comedians’ bad jokes. It all started back in March of last year, when a video leaked of Ford smoking crack and talking nonsense. He later apologized, saying, “We’ve all made mistakes. I’m not perfect. Maybe you are, maybe other people are, [but]I’ve made mistakes.” When asked whether he was being treated for addiction, Ford scoffed. “I’m not an addict,” he said. “Why go see an addict when I’m not an addict? I’m not an alcoholic, I’m not a drug addict.”

That. That right there. That’s the lamest part of the whole thing: Ford’s insistence that he’s not an addict, that he doesn’t have a problem. Dude, you have a problem. Would anyone but an addict take the ridiculously asinine risk of being videotaped smoking crack with a bunch of alleged gang members? That act alone is simply not one performed by someone in his right mind—it’s political suicide (well, kind of—ask Marion Barry). In my eyes, there’s no way in hell Ford would have picked up that pipe on camera if he weren’t an addict.

Political and Personal Denial

Which all circles back to his insistence of being okay clearly being, well, not okay. His family has an alleged drug history—his brothers and sister have long been wrapped up in the suburban Toronto drug scene, and per Gawker, “his brother, adviser, and current Toronto city councilman Doug Ford was a major drug dealer in the eighties.”

Does this mean Ford could get re-elected—lies, corruption and flagrant drug use be damned? Yep, possibly (again—ask Marion Barry).

No matter how the whole thing shakes out, the Ford scandal goes to show not only how skeevy and insidious the world of politics can be, but also how far-reaching and deep-seated drug addiction is. That river of denial sure runs deep.

Courtesy of HiMY SYeD from Toronto, Canada [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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About Author

Laura Barcella is a documentary researcher, author, freelance writer and ghostwriter from Washington, DC. Her writing has also appeared in TIME, Marie Claire, Salon, Esquire, Elle, Refinery29, AlterNet, The Village Voice, Cosmopolitan, The Chicago Sun-Times, Time Out New York, BUST, ELLE Girl, NYLON and CNN.com. Her book credits include Know Your Rights: A Modern Kid's Guide to the American Constitution, Fight Like a Girl: 50 Feminists Who Changed the World, Popular: The Ups and Downs of Online Dating from the Most Popular Girl in New York City, Madonna & Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop and The End: 50 Apocalyptic Visions From Pop Culture That You Should Know About…Before It’s Too Late.