º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍø

What about absolute popularity?

Exhibit A is Doug Ford. The premier has jumped the shark ever since his polling numbers soared into the stratosphere.

At 53 per cent in the latest opinion survey, Ford’s Tories have climbed to heights unseen. Now his rhetoric has soared to levels unhinged and unchecked.

Ford flirts with vigilante justice one day, then threatens to take the law into his own hands by overruling local governments. The premier wags his finger at unemployed youth, then shakes an empty whisky bottle at a corporate nemesis.

It’s no secret that Ford’s folksy, earthy sayings can strike a chord. But his homespun rhetoric can also strike out when the premier overshoots and overshares.

You can have too much of a good thing that goes bad. Too much popularity in the polls, too many seats in the legislature, too many Ford fulminations in real time.

Beware the fall — and the fallout. For gravity has a way of grounding even the most popular populist politicians.

All it takes is a photo-op flop followed by a drop in the polls. Just watch him:

— This week, the premier took a shot at speed cameras, a day after vigilantes took an axe to 16 cameras across Toronto. Other leaders called it criminal vandalism and made the case for targeting speeders; Ford played the part of pretend Robin Hood by calling out the cameras as cash grabs that soak poor motorists while enriching city coffers.

“They should take out those cameras, all of them,� the premier opined. All of them? Are school zones now war zones against motorists?

— For weeks, Ford has been rallying to the cause of a Lindsay homeowner charged with aggravated assault (and assault with a weapon) that left an intruder with life-threatening injuries requiring an airlift to a º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøhospital. The topic of self-defence is surely a talker, but shouldn’t be for a premier who oversees our police and court system; why not wait for all the facts before acting as judge and jury without evidence?

— Youth unemployment is hovering at levels not seen since the pandemic. Rather than heal an ailing economy, Ford’s response this week was to blame and shame the victims: “If you look hard enough … you’ll find a job.� This from the politician who looked hard to “find a job� at his father’s company when he quit college.

— Ford outdid himself with a news conference publicity stunt last week, pouring out a bottle of Crown Royal rye as he raged against the owners for closing a bottling plant in Amherstburg, while reporters watched open-mouthed. The company’s alleged crimes hardly seemed to fit the premier’s harsh sentences — it was consolidating production across Canada and the continent, not moving it all to America.

What explains Ford going off half-cocked all the time? When there’s no one around to rein in the premier, he’s prone to running amok and going with his gut.

Perhaps it’s the recent departure of former Ford whisperer-in-chief Ivana Yelich. As deputy chief of staff, she lurked in the back of news conferences, perched behind the Teleprompter, smiling and nodding her head up and down when Ford was on track, narrowing her eyes and shaking her head from side to side when he veered too far.

The premier dreaded his post-event debriefs with Yelich, who knew how to make him regret his rhetoric merely by fixing him with a disappointed gaze. Now, there’s no one to make him think twice in advance or have second thoughts in the aftermath.

Then there are the polls. At 53 per cent, Ford’s governing Progressive Conservatives are roughly twice as popular as the second-place Liberals, who are stuck at 27; they are about four-and-a-half times more popular than the New Democrats, who are down to 12 per cent.

Blame the feedback loop: The more Ford goes over the top, the more he tops the polls.

No wonder he can’t help remaking himself as Robin Hood one day on speed cameras, and Captain Canada the next day when mouthing off at Donald Trump.

Ontarians remain in the mood to hear Ford unleashed when he’s lashing out at the American president. But do they really want rants from a premier about young people being too lazy to get a job, or why speed cameras are the problem instead of speeders?

At what point will police grow weary of a law-and-order premier who second guesses them for laying charges against someone accused of using excessive force? Will voters really want the premier to pick fights with municipalities about speed cameras or misplaced bike lanes when those decisions are best left to councillors who are accountable at election time?

What can save Ford from himself? Public opinion is what populists pay attention to.

The day Ford watches his words is the day he sees his numbers come back to earth in the polls.