But Mr. Ford, who died on March 22 while being treated for a rare form of cancer, wasn’t a sign that something was wrong with the city, but evidence of the smart planning and foresight that helped Toronto avoid many of the problems that plague American cities. In short, Toronto works because its suburbs never separated themselves economically or politically from the city core. Mr. Ford, a suburban populist, may have been an embarrassment to some, but his election shows that the system works.
.. The tension between the old Toronto and its suburbs is unlikely to vanish, nor are shifts in fortune between the two sides. But throughout all the battles, Toronto’s unified tax base has supported both and mitigated any political consequences.
..Compare Toronto’s good fortune with that of one of its closest American neighbors: Detroit. As David Maraniss’s new book, “Once in a Great City,” explains, Detroit had for years hoped to tie its tax base to that of the surrounding suburbs.
..an abandoned center surrounded by wealthy suburbs that simply look the other way. While other cities in the United States eventually formed metro governments, only Portland, Ore., has followed Toronto’s model and elected a regional council.
The Politics of Magical Thinking
The longterm decline in participation in local government and civil associations is an important piece of the “why Trump?” puzzle. The less experience citizens have in the practical work of politics, the more mysterious it becomes to them. Rather than (mostly) honest people trying to do a tough job, politicians are seen as wizards who command dark and incomprehensible powers. If they fail, it is not due to the difficulty of the task, but because they capriciously refuse to make full use of their abilities.
.. For the last century, progressives have been critics of local government and civil society. Not without justification, they’ve attacked the corruption, inefficiency, and injustice of political parties, town councils, private charities, and proposed national solutions to otherwise overwhelming problems. Conservatives bear responsibility, too. Dogmatic hostility to unions has helped marginalize the most effective form of association available to workers in large enterprises
.. Trump, in other words, is just a symptom. The disease is older, and also more frightening. Once we’ve lost our capacity for meaningful self-government it’s almost impossible to get it back.
Trump: The First 100 Days
And then Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, turns to the lectern to offer an inaugural address that for the first time in history is being delivered without any text or, as much as anyone can tell, without any preparation whatsoever.
.. There will be some attention-getting feud with a personality (Lena Dunham? Rosie O’Donnell? Kanye West?).
.. Most likely scenario: An infrastructure bill that allocates a huge amount of federal dollars to bridges, roads and highways—pork that appeals to members of both parties.
How America Was Lost
And there’s no telling how long that situation may last. If a Democrat wins the White House but the G.O.P. holds the Senate, when if ever do you think Republicans would be willing to confirm anyone the new president nominates?
.. Even if you’re disappointed in what President Obama accomplished, he substantially raised taxes on the rich and dramatically expanded the social safety net; significantly tightened financial regulation; encouraged and oversaw a surge in renewable energy; moved forward on diplomacy with Iran.
Any Republican would undo all of that, and move sharply in the opposite direction. If anything, the consensus among the presidential candidates seems to be that George W. Bush didn’t cut taxes on the rich nearly enough, and should have made more use of torture.
.. So why do I say that only one party has gone off the deep end?
One answer is, compare last week’s Democratic debate with Saturday’s Republican debate. Need I say more?
Beyond that, there are huge differences in tactics and attitudes. Democrats never tried to extort concessions by threatening to cut off U.S. borrowing and create a financial crisis; Republicans did. Democrats don’t routinely deny the legitimacy of presidents from the other party; Republicans did it to both Bill Clinton and Mr. Obama. The G.O.P.’s new Supreme Court blockade is, fundamentally, in a direct line of descent from the days when Republicans used to call Mr. Clinton “your president.”
.. Maybe we should all start wearing baseball caps that say, “Make America governable again.”