A protest against Rob Ford in front of Toronto city hall. | Photo by Joseph Morris, Flickr

History repeats itself, Karl Marx wrote, “first as tragedy, then as farce.” In Toronto, the Rob and Doug Ford fiasco at City Hall seems to reach a higher level of tragi-farce every day.

The whole mess has become nightly fodder for U.S. late night TV hosts. Rob Ford has become a punchline. But this isn’t just about one man. In many ways the joke’s on all of us – including here in B.C. After all, Rob Ford’s campaign manager Nick Kouvalis was a key part of the team that pulled off Christy Clark’s come-from-behind election victory in May.

Kouvalis made sure Clark and the BC Liberals followed the formula that got Ford elected: Focus on one message relentlessly, appealing to the basest self-interest and, win by any means necessary, including all manner of skullduggery and unyielding personal attacks.

Although voters in B.C. probably never heard Kouvalis’ name during the election campaign, his methods were clear to see in Clark’s campaign. And he isn’t shy about his role.

“Nick Kouvalis … played key roles in the election victories of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and B.C. Premier Christy Clark,” the biography on his political consultancy webpage boasts.

Doug Ford may be brother Rob’s enabler-in-chief, but the army of backroom right-wing operatives should all be seen as enablers. Political commentator Andrew Coyne – no progressive, to say the least, but increasingly exacerbated by the amoral right-wingers in government – links the Fords to a wider coarsening of conservative politics.

“The same aggressively dumb, harshly divisive message that has become the playbook for the right generally in this country, in all its contempt for learning, its disdain for facts, its disrespect of convention and debasing of standards. They can try to run away from him now, but they made this monster, and they will own him for years to come,” writes Coyne in the Nov. 15 National Post.

I would go further, and say that this debasement of politics is linked to the debased ideology of neoliberalism. For more than a generation now, political life has been dominated by the mantra that greed is good. When the private sector is sacrosanct and the public sector under attack, when personal self-interest is lauded and the public good derided or denied altogether – should we really be surprised that vicious and corrupt bullies end up running the show?

In other words, an unethical economic philosophy is bound to churn out unethical politicians. The Fords are uncouth and unkempt, but they are very much a product of the larger right-wing political family in Canada. Just look at Harper’s finance minister Jim Flaherty, an old family friend and political colleague of Doug Ford Sr. Flaherty was brought to the verge of tears, at a press conference, when asked about the Fords meltdown. Harper himself, who avoids press conferences like the plague, has made no comment whatsoever.

Back in B.C., I have yet to hear Clark refer to the Ford fiasco, but then who knows if anyone’s even asked her about the campaign whiz she shares in common with Toronto’s beleaguered mayor. The more important point is to consider the larger picture of nasty, dumbed down politics and narrow economics and then to resolve to do better.

The crude methods of Nick Kouvalis only work in a depoliticized society – they sweep in to claim a victory won by decades of neoliberal propaganda. Only a long-term pushback in this battles of ideas can turn things around. First and foremost we must reassert that society is more than corporate interests, and that humans are driven by more than acquisition of money and possessions.

It won’t be easy; it never has been easy. The Nick Kouvalis’ of the world, and the political monsters they create, will always have more money. But they can only really win if we succumb to cynicism and despair.

The overwhelming opposition in B.C. to the Enbridge pipeline is proof we can make our case and win. Christy Clark is trying to flip flop on her government’s opposition to Enbridge, agreeing to a so-called deal with Alberta’s Premier Redford earlier this month. The “agreement” is a sham. It’s all theatre so that Clark can look tough, and at some future point claim she has extracted more royalties or cash for B.C. from this destructive mega-project. This effort will fail, because people know the real issues are about our environment, the global climate, and First Nations’ rights.

A few thousand people rallied this weekend in Vancouver to remind Clark of the wall of opposition to tar sands pipelines across B.C. So that’s one reason for hope that human reason and human decency can still overcome nasty right-wing politics.

Let’s hope the Ford implosion in Toronto marks the beginning of a comeback for genuinely progressive politics. Nick Kouvalis’ winning streak is no joke, and it’s high time we ended it.