James Di Fiore's hatchet job on Niki Ashton deserves nothing but contempt

No doubt many have seen the inane hatchet job James Di Fiore wrote on the Huffington Post attacking Niki Ashton in deeply sexist, reactionary and over-the-top terms that lead to his absurd assertion from the title on that her "Obsession With Identity Politics Could Destroy The NDP".

Sadly it has been widely shared not just by the usual right wingers who love to rant about alleged "identity politics" while dismissing and attacking groups like Black Lives Matter and attempts to redress historic injustices more broadly, but also by some New Democrat partisans of other leadership contenders.

It should be noted that this is the same white male author who felt it was his place to pen a piece  Black Lives Matter Toronto Co-Founder Needs To Resign and then pathetically and defensively followed this up with Denouncing BLM Leader Made Me A Public Enemy. I'm OK With That (of course you are) when it turned out that unsurprisingly many black people and activists thought he was totally full of it.

He also wrote an article Charlie Angus Could Be The Bernie Sanders Of Canada that would seem to indicate that he is a fan of a different leadership candidate. One might point out that it is a pretty obvious fact that Ashton's politics and policies in this leadership race are far closer to Sanders' than Angus' are.

What is the basis, in this piece now, for Di Fiore's rather exceptional claim about Ashton?

As he sees it, "Ashton subscribes to the pathological wing of identity politics" and this is apparent due to the way she approached the "Elbowgate" incident which Di Fiore describes as "hysterical" (no invocation of historic sexism in that charge though, right James?). He then claims "Of course, most women rolled their eyes at Ashton, likely feeling infantilized by an elected official who is supposed to embody the intelligence and strength of female politicians" while providing absolutely no evidence for that assertion at all.

Many people, such as Simon Dougherty here on The Left Chapter, saw "Elbowgate" as rather more serious than Di Fiore seems to think. And Niki Ashton was hardly alone in the NDP caucus in calling Trudeau out for his actions.

Charlie Angus certainly seemed to be very upset about it, saying at the time:

He came over like a freight train. I sort of jumped back. He was really intent on getting there. He’s a very strong guy. I never sort of saw that in him until he came pushing past me. He went from zero to 100. He said to two of my colleagues, ‘get the f–k out of my way!’ You just can’t do that. You can’t do that in a normal workplace. You certainly can’t do that in the House of Commons.

So was Tom Mulcair, who got into a rather heated exchange with Trudeau in the House of Commons about it. I suppose since they are men their views are neither pathological or hysterical enough to be commented on though.

In addition, he brings up the time when Ashton took down a tweet when asked to by some activists in Black Lives Matter Vancouver. As I wrote about in the piece The backlash against Niki Ashton from anti-Black Lives Matter commentators is what is really off base, her actions actually made perfect sense, though obviously they would not to some white guy who has already shown that he thinks he knows what is best for one of the most effective activist movements in recent Canadian history.

On the basis of this incident, which is not even recent, he concludes "Obviously, Ashton is not a strong leader."

Seriously.

Let us review this again. A white critic of Black Lives Matter who thought Charlie Angus could be the next Bernie Sanders uses terms like "identity politics", "pathological" and "hysterical" to dismiss the entire campaign of a woman running for the leadership of the NDP on a socialist and feminist platform based on two stands she took months ago, one of which a number of her male caucus colleagues seemed to agree with.

It is a depressing testament to the depth of the misogyny that still exists in Canadian politics and political commentary.that this utter rubbish was taken at face value by anyone at all. But it also reminds how anything written by a man talking dismissively about a woman's leadership abilities will still be shared around as meaningful commentary even when it is predicated on basically nothing and even when his "evidence" is, to say the least, totally lacking.

See also: The backlash against Niki Ashton from anti-Black Lives Matter commentators is what is really off base

See also: Black Lives Matter is right -- The police are the oppressor