It’s always exciting when Canadian problems make American news. We like to know when they’re talking about us, if only to verify that they haven’t completely forgotten we’re here.
Unfortunately, the popular story recently has been the allegation that much-beleaguered Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was caught smoking crack cocaine. This claim may or may not be substantiated by video evidence that may or may not have been obtained by U.S. media site Gawker. All this uncertainty has made for an exciting week.
Since I have nothing at stake in this fracas, other than a general dislike of Ford’s policies and a slightly stronger dislike of his tactics, I happily piled on board the scandal bandwagon. I like scandals. We all do. They’re at once exhilarating and comforting: They combine the swift justice of an action movie with all the black-and-white certitude of a morality play, and this mix is a soothing balm for anyone who’s still feeling sore after our latest provincial election.
Living in a province of 4.4 million, where a meagre 1.6 million out of 3.1 million eligible voters went to the polls, it’s nice to see people getting animated and outraged about something — anything — political, even if it’s happening in Ontario.
One of the most interesting aspects of this story has been the role of the Internet. Once it became apparent that the owner of the alleged video would sell it for the right price, Gawker editor John Cook established an account on Kickstarter, a creative Internet site that allows people to advertise their projects and solicit donations to bring their campaigns to life. In Cook’s case, he asked the Internet to help him raise the $200,000 that the video’s owner was asking.
And the Internet delivered. Even though Cook announced on Monday that he’d fallen out of contact with his tipster and was uncertain about his ability to procure the video, by that point his “Crackstarter” campaign had already raised more than $160,000.
I’m not sure if Cook’s fundraising success can be attributed to the worthiness of his cause, our love of scandal or the fact that Ford’s many transgressions have made him a media punching bag since he was temporarily ousted from office last November. We like situations where there’s a clear villain, and scandal does that for us. It gives us licence to take aim at a person and press the trigger with confidence. If Ford does finally fall from grace because of this video, it won’t be because of crack: It will be because crack gave us the excuse many of us were looking for.
Then again, perhaps this scandal does have something to do with the nature of his alleged transgression. Cocaine is much more taboo than, say, embezzlement. White-collar thievery is so run-of-the-mill in politics as to no longer be surprising, which is perhaps why the Senate scandal seems to be business as usual. Senator Mike Duffy’s expenses cost the nation about half of what Cook’s campaign has raised — maybe the Senate could try Kickstarter next time?
We think of embezzlement as the province of the old, the empowered and the white; cocaine, the young, the poor and the black. Perhaps we’d forgive Ford more easily if he’d played truer to stereotype and stuck to the kinds of crimes we tend to take in stride.
We like scandals because they offer us simple breakdowns of complex issues. Only now, in a world of Twitter activism and Kickstarter campaigns, people aren’t just reading about scandals, they’re participating in them. Cook has shown that we can use the Internet to try to take down politicians. We can make our voices heard without engaging with the obfuscating rigmarole of politics proper. We can have a say without validating the system that makes Duffy’s Senate abuse possible. We’re active. We’re involved.
At least, that’s the dream.
Only half our province votes, and that’s not changing soon. So does participation in the Internet scandal machine effect real change, or does it distract from real issues, real power? Are non-voters unengaged because they distrust the system, and are they finding their voices online? Is this political involvement at its purest form, or is it the worst kind of distraction, allowing us merely to feel engaged?
And is there any way of Kickstarting the next election?
