Doug Ford and Donald Trump

There's a recording somewhere of Doug Ford talking on the phone with the mother of an autistic child. She had complained to his office about what his changes to autism funding in the province were doing to her family and so he called her. I didn't listen to the recording because the sound of his voice (stupid, arrogant bellowing) and the sight of the man's face (with that maniacal, artificial grin) disgusts me. But there's one part of the recording where Ford attempts to sympathize with the woman's struggles and he tells her she deserves a gold medal. She tells him she doesn't want a medal. She wants sane policy.

Now, some people might take the fact that Ford reached out to a member of the public and tried to explain what he was doing and also expressed his sympathy for her, as evidence that he cares what his constituents think, that he believes he's doing the right thing, and that he's not a heartless thug.

My take on it is that if he believes he's doing the right thing, then he's stupid. I'm pretty sure that Doug hasn't thought too much about anything that he's doing. Cutting taxes and cutting government are (in the right-wing world he inhabits) simply magical actions that produce magical results of growth and prosperity and sticking it to "libtards." Once he's set on an idea, that's it. Nothing more to think about. Therefore, he'll confidently get on the phone with someone on the receiving end of his blithering idiocy and attempt to sell it to her. Obviously, this will go badly for him because his policy is based on ignorance and delusion. As far as his expression of sympathy, reading the transcript reminded me of nothing so much as the feigned concern of a bully after they've hurt someone. After they've injured someone they'll ask "Are you okay?" Maybe their rage has passed and they're semi-concerned. But more likely they're sociopaths. They arrogantly imagine that if they affect the sounds and the words of a person who cares about another person, then that acting job coupled with their own special greatness, will make the recipient of their abuse feel better.

Moving onto Donald Trump. The man had already lowered himself beyond redemption but I have to say that his vetoing of a bipartisan resolution to end US support for the Saudi-led genocide in Yemen is historically monstrous. Millions of lives. Millions of innocent men, women and children, are going to continue to die because Trump, the moral imbecile, doesn't want to affect the profits of US weapons manufacturers. This is testimony to the supreme moral degeneracy of the US political class. Obama and H.R. Clinton both countenanced this mass-murder. And Trump is using Obama's legal weasel-reasoning on Libya to justify his veto. And everybody's so fixated on this stupid Mueller Report that the continued US support for the slaughter of MILLIONS of people will quickly disappear from the news-cycle.