I live in Toronto.
Rob Ford was a bad mayor.
He also was caught on tape smoking crack. The Toronto police had him under surveillance and were well aware that he was doing illegal drugs.
They did not charge him.
Somehow, however, the man who filmed the incident wound up in prison.
He was also violent, nearly tackling a female legislator.
There was something sad about Ford. Something broken.
But he was a public figure. He wasn’t even charged for crimes that would have put ordinary people (and certainly poor blacks) in prison. He was a bad mayor, and overall, he was a bad man.
The fact that he is dead does not mean we should forget these things.
I would add that “Ford Nation” presaged the Trump phenomenon. Trump is smarter, better organized, and not a drug addict, but he is appealing to much of the same demographic. Ford’s followers felt he wasn’t “an ordinary politician” and that he “told the truth.” He did not parse as part of the problem.
Unfortunately he was incompetent, mean, and a drug user. Those facts had a bearing on how he ran the city.
If there is an afterlife, I wish him nothing but the best there. I ask that no person, no matter how evil, be condemned to some insane “eternal hell.”
That fact does not alter his record, which is that he did a great deal of harm.
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