The CORE Of The Problem

 

As I continue to reflect upon the sad outcome of the recent Ontario provincial election, I find that the bulk of my disdain, my odium, my repugnance, is aimed not at the minority of voters who gave Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives another majority. Rather, it is toward the majority who, through inertia, ignorance or overly delicate sensibilities (I didn't like any of the candidates!) elected to forgo one of their key responsibilities of citizenship - getting out to the polls.

And the true results of that dereliction of duty are just starting to emerge. Noor Javed writes:

It was supposed to be the most significant investment in Port Hope’s history.

But a land deal — two years in the making — between the municipality and the Ontario Power Generation to acquire 540 hectares of unused Crown land along Lake Ontario was abruptly terminated by the province, which said the land would instead be assessed by its newest program: the Centre of Realty Excellence (CORE).

The province’s last-minute intervention stunned local politicians and residents who said the local MPP, who is also Doug Ford’s environment minister, supported the $18.6-million deal, which would have seen underutilized lands used for employment, housing and the preservation of environmentally sensitive lands.

Given that the erstwhile deal included housing development, but also the preservation of environmentally sensitive lands, it is perhaps instructive to look at what the government's CORE website has to say: distilled to its essence, it is all about facilitating rapid development of housing through the reduction of red tape, along with stern penalties for municipalities and their taxpayers that don't get with the program:

Applicants who do not receive approval of their site plan application within the legislated timeframe would have their application fees refunded through a phased approach. Fees would be refunded at the following percentages based on the amount of time that has passed since the municipality received the complete application and fee, starting January 1, 2023:

• 50% of the fee within 60 days
• 25% of the fee within 90 days (for a total refund of 75%)
• 25% of the fee within 120 days (for a total refund of 100%)

Considering Doug Ford's well-known ties with developers, the defunct deal with Port Hope should alarm those who understand how important and increasingly urgent it is to preserve environmentally sensitive lands. Says Jennifer Jackman, who is part of a group that represents local environmental groups Willow Beach Field Naturalists and the Northumberland Land Trust:

“This area is unique naturally, it’s not one type of ecosystem … it’s a forested area with ravines running through it that connects to a wetlands. That functioning ecosystem is unusual, particularly south of the 401”.

Jackman said it’s too early to say if the environment will play a role in CORE.

“We haven’t found much about what CORE will be like — what its priorities will be. It doesn’t mention conservation or ecology as one of its priorities, it’s more about getting value for their lands. So we are a little nervous about this,” she said. 

Ms. Jackman is right to be nervous. And if things run to their predictable outcome, she will have not only the Doug Ford government to blame, but the millions of  Ontarians who could not muster the intestinal fortitude to stop a second Progressive Conservative majority by exercising their franchise.

 

 

Who Was That Masked Man?

As of yesterday, June 11, here in Ontario our newfound 'freedom' from masks is almost total, with the exception of LTC and retirement homes. Those who wish to continue requiring them must do so on their own initiative, without benefit of government authority. Thankfully, most hospitals are continuing to mandate them, sending a clear message that the dangers of COVID-19 are far from over.

Nonetheless, as fewer and fewer people choose to exercise common-sense precautions, preferring the sweet lie to the bitter truth, the mask will increasingly become a flashpoint for agitation and discomfiture. Even before yesterday, there have been some heated confrontations over those wearing masks in public. For ample illustration, check out some of Marie's posts.

I had a very mild experience yesterday when I encountered someone who clearly takes exception to safety precautions. Walking to his big white truck (why do they always seem to have trucks?), an early middle-aged fellow, having exited the Shoppers Drug Mart I was about to enter, sneered at me as I was donning my kn95 mask. The wisdom he imparted to me was as follows:

Him: It's a micro-organism, you know.

Me: What do you mean?

Him: The virus. It's a micro-organism.

Me: I think all viruses are micro-organisms. (After looking it up, I learned I was mistaken about this.)

I'm not sure what his point was, but I noticed when I was waiting in line he finally pulled out from his parking spot, perhaps waiting and hoping he could catch me with a clever come-back. (Yeah, but this is a different micro-organism!) Maybe either his inspiration or patience failed him. He left without convincing me of the error of my ways.

Well, I reflected on this very minor incident and speculated that more and increasingly heated confrontations will likely occur as fewer and fewer people wear masks. But I can't for the life of me understand why it matters or is a concern to anti-maskers if I and others continue to wear a mask. Do they not like any reminder that they are living in a fantasy thinking that COVID is over? Are they offended by the notion that any restrictions should exist? Do they yearn for total FREEDOM?

I don't have any answers, but I do know this. Contrarian and provocateur that I can be, I shall continue to wear a mask far into the future, if only to unsettle the cryto-facists amongst us.

I Did Not Know That

 

While I am perhaps understandably loathe to do the work of Doug Food's Ontario government, I feel an obligation to post about something I learned this morning. In what is undoubtedly a cost-saving measure, the premier's braintrust has decreed that it will no longer be sending out reminders to renew our now-free car licence plates. And even more confusing, there will no longer be any stickers to show that we are driving with current plates.

Even though sticker fees have been scrapped by the province, motorists can still be fined by police if they don’t renew their vehicle plates. Fines range from $60 to $1,000.

At the same time, the government has also scrapped mail-out reminders for licence plates, driver’s licences as well as health cards. But Ontarians can sign up for email, text message or robocalls when it’s time to renew.

In what is surely a testament to misplaced trust in the capacity of the average Ontarian to take care of details like renewals, Elliott Silverstein, an official with the CAA, says,

“What the government was trying to do, and what a lot of groups have been trying to underscore is that you’re still responsible to make sure your vehicle is registered and everything is up to date, because you need that for insurance … you don’t want to be driving without a valid licence, that can cause huge problems.”

Silverstein said the government is not issuing stickers, which may also cause some confusion “as people have been conditioned to equate the sticker to renewals, but now it’s actually just moving forward without a sticker ... you’re not getting something physically to show for it.”

Now, I hesitate to be a Grinch about this, but I feel compelled to ask an obvious question: How in the world would police know you are driving without a valid plate unless they stopped you for something else?

How about another question? How often do you check to make sure that your driver's licence and health card are current?

Blessedly, for those who have the capacity to think more than one chess move ahead, 

the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services says it has moved to digital reminders. Ontarians can register online with Service Ontario or by calling 1-800-267-8097.

We are told by the right-wing of a great desire for more freedom. Let us hope that people also realize that the great freedom from those annoying licence fees also entails great responsibility. 

Doug Ford is counting on it.

 

The Arboreal Record

This, from Michael de Adder:

Too Late, Too Late

 

“Come, my friends
Tis not too late to seek a newer world..."

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I don't post nearly as prolifically as I once did, in large part, I suspect, because I have lost the hope that things can be improved in ways that change the world from its present, ineluctable trajectory. The Tennyson quote given at the top is something I no longer believe in, for reasons I discussed recently. Rather, I think about tending my own garden, in the sense intended by Voltaire.

That does not, however, mean I have lost my taste for truth, at least my interpretation of it. I do abide by the maxim, "Better a bitter truth than a sweet lie."

It is in that spirit that I take issue with The Star's latest editorial, which sees the record-low turnout of voters for our June 2 provincial election as largely the failure of the parties opposing Ford's Progressive Conservatives to offer a compelling reason to vote for them. As one who has held his nose in countless elections, that view holds little currency with me.

Rather, the following letter from the print edition of today's Star speaks a deeper and darker truth, in my view:

Election result reveals a greedy, selfish Ontario

• Toronto Star
• 5 Jun 2022

Ford celebrates his majority win; Del Duca steps down, June 2

Dear Ontario,

You allowed the refund of your licence plate stickers to buy your vote. You voted selfishly, with only your own interests in mind.

You forgot about the thousands of seniors who died, lonely and neglected, in our longterm-care homes during the pandemic.

You forgot about the unravelling of some of the best environmental protection legislation in the country.

You forgot about the dozens of Ministerial Zoning Orders that pushed through developments against the wishes of communities.

The goodness of a society is measured by how well it takes care of those less fortunate and those who can’t speak for themselves. Our seniors, our needy, our disabled, our birds and insects and wild animals and rivers and lakes and wetlands and farmlands — they needed you to vote on their behalf.

This election revealed a greedy, selfish Ontario with a short memory, and a willingness to destroy our environment for short-term gain. How will you explain the consequences of your actions to your children and grandchildren?

Shame on you.

Karen Heisz, Toronto

Amen, Karen.

Brittlestar: People Are Stupid

No, it's not the result of yesterday's provincial election that prompted this title, although in light of it, Brittlestar's latest does seem apt. 

BTW, only 43% managed to rouse themselves from their torpor to vote yesterday.

H/t Moudakis

Now Here's A Thought

 For sane and reasonable Americans, this has gotta hurt:

H/t Mike Lukovich

Pavlov Had His Bell

 ... and the dogs responded accordingly. Marjorie Taylor Greene has her "peach tree dishes," also guaranteed to get the MAGA dogs salivating, even baying.

Marjorie Taylor Greene says the government is planning to “zap” people inside their bodies if they try to eat a real cheeseburger.

De Adder Strikes Again

I have nothing to add to this depiction by Michael de Adder of a diseased America we would all be well-advised to steer clear of.

The End Of Days

In these latter days of our life as a species, there is little that shocks or dismays me. Instead, I find my predominant emotion now is one of disappointment:

Disappointment that we never realized our potential as a species. 

Disappointment that our headlong plunge into oblivion is done with eyes wide open, getting and spending, using and abusing, directed mostly by our petty and shortsighted impulses and preoccupations. 

We could have been so much more.

There will be no apotheosis, and there certainly will be no deus ex machina to bring us back from the brink. That is surely the stuff of fantasy, the hope of the benighted.

Probably George Carlin said it best in a 1996 interview. Thanks to the salamander horde for posting this on Twitter:

In Gun We Trust

 

H/t Moudakis

Just a brief post.

As a parent of two and a grandfather of one (our granddaughter was born last August), I do not have the stomach, the heart or the psychic strength to really contemplate the ongoing horror that is the United States. Nor can I read or watch the protracted coverage in the media of the self-induced, oh so predictable, massacres that have become a regular part of that blighted landscape.

Although we in Canada have had our share of terrible shootings, the fact that they are rare is largely attributable to the sanity that undergirds our gun laws. It really is as simple as that. Contrast that with all of the misdirected comments about mental illness in the U.S. when the inevitable happens again and again there, with nary a mention of the real underlying cause, the American love of the gun and the the weak laws that fuel that love. 

One final note: despite the dimensions of the tragedies, I don't see why Canadian media are spending so much time and so many resources covering what has happened in that alien country. It will not bring back the victims, and, I believe, it blurs the distinctions between us and them. 

Note to the U.S. It is time you changed your national motto to one more reflective of your befouled character. 

Paltry Offerings - Part 5

The same, of course, can be said of the other two major contenders in the June 2 election.

H/t Moudakis

Given the dearth of  plausible ideas put forth during this campaign slog, I nominate the following as 2022's unofficial anthem for those seeking office:

Me, Me, And Me

 

Here in Ontario, the 2022 June election will likely see another Doug Ford majority, in part achieved by cynically buying the electorate with cash gifts that I have written about in previous posts. People will use their own inflation-induced economic hardships to justify supporting Doug Ford. Isn't he, after all, the man who has already rebated and ended licence-sticker fees, promised a six-month reduction of gas taxes post-election, etc.?

What is a voter to do other than revert to an 'it's all about me" approach to the world? Voting with principle and integrity seems not within the cribbed philosophy of many. At the very least, they should have the courage to admit their selfish shortsightedness.

The following letter, taken from the print edition of today's Toronto Star, neatly encapsulates the political prostitution a sizable segment of the electorate is willing to engage in:

Ontarians should be ashamed if Ford is re-elected

• Toronto Star
• 24 May 2022

If Doug Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do not care about the environment.

If Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do not care about our seniors.

If Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do not care about nurses.

If Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do not care about the young.

So what will Ford’s re-election show that Ontarians do care about?

This election is about “affordability,” so in effect, if Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do care about their own bottom line — they are selfish. To be fair, a majority will probably disagree, but a sizable enough plurality will have shown we’re not “in this together” but, in fact, we’re each in it for No. 1. 

Ernest Tucker Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

The Lighter Side Of Dementia?

In which Rudy Giuliani amply illustrates the old adage that it takes one to know one. May the farce be with him.

Marching behind Mayor Adams is

@RudyGiuliani

who gets into a shouting match with a Democrat. “You are a jackass… You are a brainwashed asshole… you are probably as demented as Biden,” Giuliani told the guy

Slouching Towards June 2

 

It would seem that Doug Ford guessed right: you really can buy people's votes with their own money. 

As the provincial election campaign continues, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives continue to sustain their lead, with a seemingly good chance at a majority government, as we get closer to June 2.

According to a poll from Research Co., conducted online with 700 Ontario adults from May 15 to May 17, 34 per cent of decided voters indicated they support the Ontario PC, 29 per cent support the Liberal, 23 per cent for NDP and seven per cent support the Green Party.

Oh well. I guess the man who, when he was a Toronto city councillor, advocated for a giant Ferris wheel and a monorail on the waterfront knows his alleged P.T. Barnum truisms.

He Speaks - But Will The Truth Set Him Free?

In the following, George Bush offers an opinion that reveals more than he perhaps intended. Was it just one of his usual gaffes, his advancing years, or a subconsciously motivated expression of atonement?

This Is One Part Of The Problem

The other, of course, is the love of the gun that indelibly stains America and which few are talking about in the aftermath of the Buffalo massacre.

H/t Theo Moudakis

Puppets On A String

 

I have to admit to being somewhat puzzled as to how the recent increases in interest rates will combat inflation, given that it is mostly caused by external factors over which we have little control. While some have suggested it will bring a much-needed cooling to a housing market that has soared nationwide to absurd heights, it is only Heather Scoffield who has put it into a different, some would say sinister, context.

She starts off by observing that Joe Biden seems to be directing his attention toward profiteers in the corporate sector.

He issued an executive order, set up a high-profile antitrust unit, told it to crack down on profiteering, and pinpointed exactly where he wanted to see action.

Airlines, telecommunications, prescription drugs, the web giants — the executive order called them out.

Such boldness and focus are absent in Canada.

Here, the focus is on making sure workers hit by higher consumer prices don’t push for higher wages. The fear is they’ll set off a wage-price spiral that would launch already-high inflation into the stratosphere.

Wages have been creeping up at a much slower pace than inflation. In February, average hourly earnings rose 2.7 per cent from a year earlier, while consumer prices rose 5.7 per cent. Of course, the numbers bounce around month to month, and wages are picking up a bit of steam. But they’re not on fire like the prices workers face when they go to buy their groceries or fill their cars with gas.

Just to make sure wages don’t surge, the federal government is easing the way for a huge influx of temporary foreign workers in low-wage industries. 

While the Bank of Canada is putting its foot on the necks of workers, corporations seem to be enjoying a free and fast rise to record profits.

Net income for corporations across all industries was up 5.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to the three months earlier. On an annual basis, non-financial industries were seeing profits 52.2 per cent higher, while financial industries were up 14.2 per cent on the year.

And while the government has made mewling mention of improper corporate behaviour, our country

has fallen far behind its global counterparts in cracking down on anti-competitive behaviour.

And I have yet to see any sweat forming on the collective brow of Corporate Canada, no doubt reassured that it is pulling the strings on a federal government it knows identifies with and fears it far more than it does the working person.

Perhaps Allan Baker of Scarborough, writing in The Star's Sunday print edition, sums it up best and demonstrates that corporate fealty is not limited to the feds:

Politicians help corporations as people go hungry

• Toronto Star
• 15 May 2022

Lagging wages just how Ottawa wants it, May 6

Heather Scoffield writes that, in contrast to Washington, where President Joe Biden has taken “a big swing at corporations,” in Ottawa “the focus is on making sure workers don’t push for higher wages.”

To ensure that wage rates for Canada’s lowest-paid workers remain at a minimum, “the federal government is easing the way for a huge influx of temporary foreign workers in low wage industries.”

This is a deliberate attempt to keep corporations highly profitable at the expense of hard working people.

Our friends and neighbours, who are working in low-wage industries, are already suffering from higher housing costs, increased food prices and gouging at the gas pumps.

 Scoffield also reports on the increases in corporate profits over the past year: “Non-financial industries were seeing profit 52.2 per cent higher.” At Loblaws, Canada’s largest grocery chain, profits were up nearly 40 per cent over 2021, which was also a profit-making year for the company. Loblaws eliminated a temporary increase in pay for front-line workers long before the pandemic ended.

In Ontario, Doug Ford has refused to change Bill 124, which limits wage increases for nurses and other government employees to one per cent.

Ontario politicians need to demonstrate to voters how they will reduce income inequality, and, I hope, eliminate the need for food banks.

 

 

 

Paltry Offerings - Part 4

For those in Ontario who care about the environment, this editorial cartoon from Graeme MacKay requires no explanation, but serves as yet another apt warning of the perils entailed in giving Doug Ford another majority on June 2.

About That Conservative Leadership Campaign

It would seem that the leading contender for the helm of the federal Conservatives, Pierre Poilievre, brings neither credit nor credibility to his party.

H/t de Adder

Bruce Arthur writes about the divisive tactics of this strange man, tactics that seem in many ways reminiscent of the nonsense that goes on in the U.S., where Joe Biden is blamed for inflation, ignoring the fact that it is a worldwide problem caused by a variety of external factors.

The Bank of Canada is a target thanks to the rise of inflation, which is largely due to the war in Ukraine and oil prices, house prices, China and COVID, and maybe some profiteering. People notice pocketbook economics.

In response to this thorny global financial challenge, Poilievre blames domestic spending and Bank bond-buying to support government deficit spending — he has always been against the pandemic financial supports to Canadians — and pitches … Bitcoin?

That would be the same Bitcoin that is down 50 per cent since November.   

His attacks on the Bank of Canada are similarly reckless. He wants the Bank to focus on keeping inflation as low as possible, while knowingly pushing lines of attack that could undermine its ability to do so. Expectations of inflation affect wage expectations, which affect prices, and if the market doesn’t think the Bank of Canada is serious about bringing down inflation, inflation doesn’t slow.

Maybe Poilievre truly doesn’t understand that. More likely, he just doesn’t care.

And his seemingly nonsensical advocacy for crytocurrencies has a sinister implication.

 Jessica Marin Davis is the president of Insight Threat Intelligence, a former senior strategist in Canadian intelligence, and the author of a book on international terrorist financing. She points out that of the money sent to the Ottawa convoy, the vast majority of the million or so via crowdfunding sites was frozen, leaving approximately $30,000. But over $830,000 came in via cryptocurrency.

Davis says, “it's super useful for money laundering, and it's super useful for other forms of illicit financing, and it's somewhat useful for terrorist financing. And I would say it's somewhat useful for other forms, like financing criminal mischief, as we saw in the convoy.”

Really, the simplest throughline to Poilievre’s bit is that if your goal is to hammer freedom to an audience that found wearing masks was an imposition, that vaccines were a conspiracy rather than a collective victory, and that are angry or confused by what’s happening with the world, then Bitcoin is just another aspirational buzzword that signifies the world doesn’t have to work the way you’re told it does. Poilievre has been pumping conspiratorial theories about gatekeepers for much of the pandemic; He’s still doing it. He’ll say just about anything, and that opens the door to all kinds of conspiracies, all kinds of anger, all kinds of extremism. 

Such is the sad state of politics today, powered by people who gleefully exploit and exacerbate societal divisions to feed their own power-seeking venality.

Definitely not the Canada I grew up in, and not the Canada I want to exist after I am gone.

 P.S. For a primer on the real nature and risks of crytocurrencies, click here.

 

Some People Never Learn

 

A Distorted Reality

I will readily admit to holding a long-time smugness about Canada and its citizens; a deep feeling of superiority seemed inevitable when comparing us with the United States, a country that has been unravelling before our eyes for a long, long time.

Unfortunately, some Canadians' response to the pandemic, and the truck convoy's illegal occupation of Ottawa, went a long way toward humbling my hubris. We are not as special as I thought we were.

That fact was much on full display last week when the aspirants for the Conservative Party's leadership had their first debate. Bruce Arthur writes about how the participants spoke of the convoy:

The truckers were heroes. The truckers were misrepresented. The CBC is Pravda, or worse.

 And perhaps worst of all, there was a brief competition over who was more loyal to the convoy. It was like watching two fans of the same band argue over who went to the earliest concerts and bought the first albums, before the band made it big. First, former Ontario MPP Roman Baber seemed to argue that public health restrictions were an attack on democracy and freedom, which taken to its logical policy conclusion would have meant a lot of Canadians dying in hospital parking lots. Then came the squabble.

The squabble was over who showed the most fealty to the insurrectionists' notion of freedom:

“Well, I did stand up for freedom during the pandemic from the very beginning,” said MP and leadership favourite Pierre Poilievre.

“That’s not true. You were not one of the loudest voices, Mr. Poilievre,” said MP Leslyn Lewis, who later took a reference from fellow leadership candidate Scott Aitchison about conspiracy theories to be a statement about her. “You did not even speak up until it was convenient for you. You did not even go to the trucker protests, you actually went and you took a picture in your neighbourhood at a local stop.”

“That’s not true,” said Poilievre. “I was there at the trucker protests. I was on the street. I was supporting those who are fighting for their freedoms.”

The implications of such stout defences are chilling.

And despite their previous support of the movement, even before it hit Ottawa, it was striking to see that the Conservative party could consider support of a lawless insurrection a purity test of sorts. Yes, Jean Charest called the convoy an illegal occupation — and was booed, as part of a rough ride — and the absent Patrick Brown has previously stated he didn’t support it. And Aitchison, too, appears to be an actual adult.

We all know, as Bruce Arthur writes, that the convoy consisted of an array of unsavoury elements, ranging from racists to homophobes to conspiracy theorists and anarchists, all fueled by 'dark money,' a Trumpian dream writ large.

And even if you remove all that and examine the ostensible motivations for the convoy as Poilievre describes them, it is a fundamental rejection of public health measures by a man who also rejected the very idea of government-delivered financial supports. 

 This is where the Conservative party appears to be going, unless someone can derail Poilievre. There was no talk of the nearly 40,000 Canadians who have died of COVID, which is just short of how many Canadians died in the Second World War. There was barely talk of the human toll of the virus at all. There was just a party whose dominant wing traffics in right-wing buzzwords and reflexive rejection of public health as a measure of partisan affiliation.

I am old enough to remember a time when there was no stigma attached to being a supporter of the Progressive Conservative Party. Those days are long gone, and that party, of course, no longer exists, either in name or spirit. 

All of us are the poorer for it.

 

 

 

 

Paltry Offerings - Part 3

As the Ontario election campaign continues on with inane promises, I continue to rely on the cartoonists to present the real picture.

One of Doug Ford's early friends:

Willful And Egregious Ignorance

                                       
I suppose that all political campaigns, to one extent or another, require some willful ignorance or selective memory. If they didn't, how could so many voters support so many obviously unsuitable candidates?

I started thinking about this topic recently as I read about the rise of J.D. Vance, who wrote Hillbilly Elegy, a book I very much enjoyed and whose author I respected for both his depiction of his family and culture and his triumph over his humble beginnings through hard work and education.

That respect, I see now, was gravely misplaced.

The winner of the recent Ohio Republican primary, Vance displayed such a depth of moral vacuity and abdication of integrity that even I, a seasoned cynic, found breathtaking. And it was all in the service of getting the nod from disgraced former president Donald Trump, a man Vance once repudiated. even comparing him to Hitler, but now embraces.

Edward Keenan writes:

In 2016, Vance rose to fame on the strength of his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which detailed the troubles of his family and, through them, those of Red State rural America. At the time, he was unequivocal, saying Trump was selling snake oil to people desperate for solutions to real problems.

“Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it,” Vance wrote in The Atlantic shortly after his book’s publication.

Well, if you can’t beat him, join him: in this race, Vance was the most enthusiastic peddler of what appeared to be exactly the same snake oil. He said the nation needed a “de-woke-ification program,” suggested Trump should defy Supreme Court rulings, and tweeted, “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.” He accused President Joe Biden of flooding the “heartland” with fentanyl to “kill a bunch of MAGA voters,” and ran ads saying if the media calls you racist and says you hate Mexicans, Vance was your guy. He drew endorsements from the QAnon-leaning wing of Republicans in Congress, and campaigned with Donald Trump Jr. at his side. He talked up the Trump border wall — a concept he once explicitly mocked — as a cure for what ailed Ohio. (If you don’t have a map handy, Ohio lies on the northern U.S. border, more than 2,100 kilometres from where that Trump wall was being built.)

Vance doubled down on his newfound allegiance by surrounding himself with other Trump sycophants, as Lloyd Green writes:

In the run-up to the primary, Vance hung out with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. Pressed on Greene’s recent attendance at a white nationalist conference, Vance offered his full-throated support. She is “my friend and did nothing wrong”, he declared. Being “in” with the Republican party’s extremes helps more than it hurts.

We are judged by the company we keep, and in addition to the aforementioned Gaetz and Taylor Greene, he is bankrolled by Paypal founder and Trump fawner Peter Thiel.

Thiel donated at least $13.5m to a Super Pac that had Vance’s back. Thiel also served as a conduit to Trump world.

In 2009, the German-born Thiel questioned the wisdom of expanding the right to vote to women and minorities. “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women – two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians – have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron,” he wrote.

I started this post by wondering about voter behaviour and their capacity to embrace willful ignorance. It would be simple enough to explain Vance's support by attributing it to the fanaticism that seems to follow Trump like a bad odour. But is that a sufficient explanation for supporting a candidate who displays none of the qualities we would hope for in a high-office aspirant? To endorse someone whose venal grasping for office should be obvious to all, whose ultimate allegiance is only to power and its acquisition, surely requires not only ignorance but massive forgetfulness.

Of course, I could be wrong. The older I get, the more I realize how little I really understand about our species.