UPDATED: "Anticipatory Obedience"

Anticipatory obedience is a term I was unfamiliar with until reading an article in The Guardian.

[I]n On Tyranny, Tim Snyder’s bestselling guide to authoritarianism. Snyder defines the term as “giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian” before the authoritarian is in position to compel that handover.

It appears that is precisely what has happened at The Washington Post. The newspaper's editorial board had drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris for U.S. president, but then its owner, Jeff Bezos, intervened and forbade it. It appears that Bezos, who also owns Amazon and Blue Origin, wants to make sure that if Don Trump wins the race, his businesseses, which compete for government contracts, will thrive.

Within hours of making that decision, 

high-ranking officials of [Blue Origin] briefly met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas, as the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency.

Trump met with Blue Origin chief executive officer David Limp and vice-president of government relations Megan Mitchell, the Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that the Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, had also recently reached out to speak with the former president by phone. 

Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post editor-at-large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, who resigned on Friday. On Saturday, he argued that the meeting Blue Origin executives had with Trump would not have taken place if the Post had endorsed the Democratic vice-president as it planned.

The was additional fallout.

 In their criticism of the Post’s decision on Friday, former and current employees cite the dangers to democracy posed by Trump, who has openly expressed his admiration for authoritarian rule amid his appeals for voters to return him to office.

The former Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate story, called the decision “disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process”.

The former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said in a post on X, “This is cowardice with democracy as its casualty”.

The cartoon team at the paper published a dark formless image protesting against the non-endorsement decision, playing on the “democracy dies in darkness” slogan that the Post adopted in 2017, five years after its purchase by Bezos. 

The Post was actually the second major paper to veto a presidential endorsement. 

The Post’s non-endorsement came shortly after the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, refused to allow the editorial board publish an endorsement of Harris.

Unfettered and fearless journalism has always been crucial to stable, well-functioning democracies. With the craven, self-serving sycophancy of people like Bezos and Soon-Shiong, it is clear that America's drift toward authoritarianism is no longer limited to the unhinged MAGA  crowd. As a consequence, all are diminished and endangered.

UPDATE: In today's (Oct.29) Star, Andrew Phillips writes:

The point is that by ordering their papers to stop short of endorsing Trump’s opponent the owners are showing weakness in the face of a candidate who has made clear he’s prepared to violate every norm of democracy. Make no mistake: Trump will take advantage. “If Trump sees a sign of weakness,” former Post editor Martin Baron told the New Yorker over the weekend, “he’s going to pounce even harder in the future.” 

The Corrupt Use Of Political Language

I hardly know what to write these days. With the world engulfed in darkness, everything seems too big to address. Perhaps sticking closer to home, dealing with smaller issues that may be amenable to correction, is the best course. We'll see.

It has probably not escaped your attention that language, especially language coming from outside the arena of politics, has become debased. Every question is met with an anodyne, political answer that adeptly, if not transparently, evades anything resembling a truthful response. It is one that models what our politicians are eminently skilled at. The following is one such example.

The Durham police, already being investigated for corruption, finds itself embroiled in yet another instance of the law's subversion:

Chris Kirkpatrick, deputy chief of the Durham police, was allegedly driving his unmarked vehicle through a school zone in June when he was stopped for speeding. 

The next day, Kirkpatrick was stopped again, this time for allegedly travelling more than 50 km/h over the speed limit — an offence that, according to the Highway Traffic Act, should lead to a charge of stunt driving, a license suspension and the immediate impounding of the driver’s vehicle.

Both times he was let off, according to an internal complaint made by a Durham cop and shared with the Star. 

What is interesting about this case is the 'followup' after the Durham police chief referred this corruption to its police services board, which then had the Peel police investigate. The problem is that after Peel filed its report with the Durham board, there was no public report, just ....... silence, followed by the usual political use of language.

The mayor of Ajax, Shaun Collier, is the chair of the civilian board, but refused to answer any questions about the report. 

Collier did not respond to followup questions sent earlier this month by email, including why the board, a civilian body intended to represent the public’s interests, had not made public the findings of the Peel police investigation.

In August, the police board sent the Star a general statement, attributed to Collier, that did not address the specific allegations against Kirkpatrick, but said all allegations against police are investigated “with the firm objective of ensuring accountability.” [All emphases mine]

The statement continues: “All members of the DRPS are expected to be exemplary in their behaviour, and this is especially true of leaders of the organization. If misconduct does occur, regardless of the member’s rank, appropriate action will be taken.”

Such obfuscation has not gone unnoticed:

The police board’s refusal to make public the investigation into Kirkpatrick illustrates the “significant gaps in our police accountability framework,” said Danardo Jones, a law professor at the University of Windsor. 

One of the main purposes of a civilian police board is to promote accountability and transparency within the police service, Jones said, so a police board operating with “this veil of secrecy … is obviously problematic.” 

Instances of contempt for the public, and concealment of wrongdoing amongst the guardians of public safety,, are never pretty to bear witness to. Equally troubling is the use of language that does nothing to illuminate the truth but instead betrays deep disdain for the people they, in theory, serve. 

For Your Consideration

Okay I confess to being a bit obsessed about certain things:

H/t Moudakis

Meanwhile, Star readers weigh in:

An outrageous, insulting and self-centred waste of our tax dollars

Four ways to mock Doug Ford for trying to buy our fleeting love, Oct. 21

I could feel Heather Mallick’s frustration as I read her article and I agree with everything she said. We taxpayers mustn’t overlook where Ford’s $200 generosity is coming from. It is not coming out of his personal pocket. It is coming out of our tax dollars. So, in effect, he is giving us back our own money. This is an outrageous, insulting and self-centred waste of our tax dollars. We need and deserve to have our taxes spent on necessary services that are designed to help every person in Ontario.

Patricia Steward, East York

We’re donating our pre-election cheques to help the homeless

Doug Ford poised to send out pre-election cheques to 16 million Ontarians, Oct. 16

Premier Doug Ford’s blatant bribe for votes is disgusting, shameless and a very typical of his Progressive Conservative government. Our two-person household will be signing over our two cheques to the Ontario Alliance to End Homelessness. We feel the money will be of more use to those homeless folks Ford tells to “get off your a-s-s and start working like everyone else.” One wonders if homeless folks will even get a cheque, since they don’t have an address. Well done, premier. More than $3 billion spent on bribery, when that money could and should go to health care, education and ending homelessness [emphasis mine]. Priorities, folks!

Nancy Van Kessel, Mississauga

What Is Your Vote Worth?

How does $200 sound? That is the price, to put it crassly, that Premier Doug Ford has estimated will buy your vote - $200 to make you complicit in his malfeasance, his corruption. his backroom deals, only some of which have come to light, (with more revelations pending, if Marit Stiles has her way).

Some voters might be insulted by Ford's low opinion of their worth; others will simply take the money and ask no questions, content with his explanation that it is to "stimulate the economy. Thie Star's Martin Regg Cohn is not among the latter group. He writes:

Ford’s PCs want an early election, no matter the cost. Never mind the unnecessary $155-million election expense — that’s the least of it.

If they settle on the $200 figure for every adult and child in Ontario, that works out to as much as $1,000 for a family of five — and perhaps $3.2 billion out of the treasury in total. That money is badly needed to shore up our schools, our hospitals and our homeless, but the premier believes he needs it more desperately to soften up voters.

That is a pretty high tab to be putting blinders on people's eyes, but blinders are what Ford needs, given his' situation'.

The headlines have faded, but few have forgotten the $8.28-billion imbroglio over protected land made available to private developers on the premier’s watch (until he reversed course under pressure). That police probe could be released sometime next year, delivering potentially bad news and a political death sentence.

Rather than wait for the police to rain on their re-election parade — scheduled for June 2026 under Ontario’s fixed election law — the plan is to move the campaign up by more than a year to early 2025. 

Regg Cohn calls it for what it is:

It’s an elegant, if expensive, election plan: a kickback for voters, gifted by a government accused of kickbacks from developers (despite those opposition allegations in the legislature, no criminality has been proven and the police aren’t talking).

But lest we forget, Ford is an old hand at pandering to the public.

Ahead of the 2022 election, Ford’s Tories cut cheques to rebate motorists for licence plate fees that the government cancelled, at a cost of more than $1 billion to the treasury. During the COVID pandemic, parents received as much as $250 per child. And the previous PC government of Mike Harris issued $200 “dividend” cheques.

How to justify such shameless pre-election (early election) vote-buying?

The unspoken reason is to satisfy the premier’s lust for power. The official rationale is to support people’s purchasing power.

Regg Cohn ends his piece with this query: ... does he have voters figured out?

Only you can answer that question.

UPDATED: Misanthropic Leanings

In these days of the tail wagging the dog and the rabble seemingly having taken over the public square, and often the agenda, I find myself feeling increasingly misanthropic. At one time, the crazed and profoundly ignorant amongst us were merely tolerated; now, however, we see them apparently in the ascendancy.

While watching some of the recovery efforts going on in both Florida and North Carolina after climate-induced hurricanes wrought havoc, I was, to put it mildly, bemused to hear one victim of the destruction opine she wasn't sure about climate change, as "not all scientists agree on it." Similarly, many vow to rebuild, despite the obvious fact that wider and wider swaths of the U.S. are quickly becoming inhabitable.

I grow weary, astounded by the fact that in the U.S., a man who has proven his manifest unfitness for public office still has a good chance of being returned to the White House. Many complain that they don't know Kamala Harris's policies and can't vote for her. Apparently Trump's many articulations of his post-election vision of mayhem and revenge satisfy many on the policy front.

I grow weary, too, of the great unwashed in Canada that have taken over public discourse. Given their thick and untutored minds, a disdain for Trudeau translates into unqualified support for the repugnant and pugnacious PP. Seemingly, no other parties exist with which to park one's vote. 

I grow weary here in Ontario. Doug Ford is being quite successful in his outreach to the benighted; like Pavlovian dogs, they salivate copiously at his decision to limit cities' ability to establish new bike lanes while raising the speed limit to as high as 120 kph on some highways, the consequential increase of greenhouse gases gaining nary a notice.

In today's Star, Bruce Arthur surveys some of the landscape being driven by those least fit to lead:

Two-and-a-half years later, and elements of the [convoy] movement are being embraced by politicians more than ever before. What if the convoy is succeeding at changing our governments for the worse?

Former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall gave convoy leaders advice, and they met with CPC leader Andrew Scheer in Regina, and various MPs cheered. Then-Conservative leader Erin O’Toole took a half-hearted approach in meeting organizers, and was criticized for it. He was ejected for many reasons, after which interim CPC leader Candace Bergen saw an opportunity, and so did Pierre Poilievre. He glad-handed with convoy folks, and is now the leader of the Conservative party, and quite likely to be our next prime minister, at some point.

Poilievre has dutifully lined up with some of the most deluded members of the public: marching on the day before Canada Day in 2022 with anti-vaccine veteran James Topp, or his private member’s bill that would have banned vaccine mandates for travellers and federal employees, marketed in anti-vaccine code words that implied more than COVID vaccines.

But it’s worsening. In Alberta, Danielle Smith’s government fired Alberta’s then chief medical officer of health Deena Hinshaw, which Smith justified by saying of public health, “they shut down the economy, they put on masks, they put on restrictions, and I thought, we’re not going to let that happen.” 

The Alberta Human Rights Act was updated to include the right to refuse a vaccine or to not wear a mask, and Smith plans to do the same with the Alberta Bill of Rights. Her new deputy chief of staff, by the way, owns a restaurant that in 2022 accepted puppy pictures instead of vaccination passports for entry. 

And in B.C., Conservative Leader John Rustad crossed into a different place. He has not only told an anti-vaccine group that he regretted getting vaccinated, but in a video unearthed by the indefatigable PressProgress, he was asked about a concept that the most angry and deluded anti-vaccine activists use: Nuremberg 2.0.

“Are you for or against a Nuremberg 2.0?” asked anti-vaccine activist Jedediah Ferguson, making it sound like “Newemberg.”

“A do it bigger 2.0, sorry?” asked Rustad, confused.

“Nuremberg 2.0,” repeated Ferguson, smiling.

“Nuremberg 2.0,” said Rustad, a smile spreading across his face. “Ah, yes. That’s probably something that’s outside of my scope.”

I rest my case. 

UPDATE: A new pandering initiative from Doug Ford that will likely will ensure his re-election: 

Premier Doug Ford is poised to send cheques to 16 million Ontarians to offset rising costs as a possible early election looms, the Star has learned.

Sources say the premier’s gambit will be announced in Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy’s fall economic statement on Oct. 30.

While the precise amount of the rebate cheques is still being finalized, it should be at least $200 for every adult and child in the province.

That means it could cost the provincial treasury about $3.2 billion when the cash flows out the door in January or February.

Of course, few will wonder about the true expense of this initiative - less money for schools, medicine, social programs, etc. But hey, at least it proves Dougie is for "the little guy', doesn't it?

Happy Thanksgiving

To new and long-term readers, the best of the season. 

H/t Greg Perry

And this warning seems appropriate for the times in which we live:

Suddenly, Canadians aren’t so different from Americans

We Canadians have always seen ourselves — rightly or wrongly — as  smarter, kinder, more sensible, more progressive and more forward-thinking than our American neighbours. We watch with a mix of horror and bemusement the three-ring circus American politics has become. Then along came Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and suddenly we have to ask ourselves “What happened?” His insufferable sloganeering — if I hear “axe the tax” one more time, I think I’ll scream — his aspiration to climb down to the lowest common denominator, and his mean-spirited, schoolyard name calling have somehow appealed to a shockingly large portion of our population. He has increasingly been following the Donald Trump playbook, maybe even trying to “trump” Trump with his outrageous accusations.

Suddenly, we find ourselves not so different from Americans and the social and political mess in which they find themselves. Ironically, we still don’t see ourselves as “them.” We need to open our eyes and search our consciences because at this rate, if things don’t change, it won’t be long.

Michael Bines, Toronto 

Continuing With A Theme

This seems to fit nicely with my previous post about the Trump Grift.