Trump's Words.

When Trump dismisses the NFL shooter merely as ‘this deranged lunatic’, he is demonstrating yet again either: a.) His inability to comprehend the complexities of human nature (not to mention the irony of the statement in this particular case) or b.) His continued need to pander to the lowest common denominator in American society.

Or both.

You might ask: ‘Is this Presidential material?’ Does anybody still need to?

Brand Trump and Other Questions.

I read yesterday that lucky Americans who have $500 dollars to spare on something really worth having can now obtain a gold (painted) smart phone on which is printed:

 

TRUMP

 Make America Great Again

I thought it pretty amusing – just the latest reason for the world to laugh at America, especially when it came to the bit about Trump insisting they be made in the USA while the tech boys politely informed him that the USA doesn’t possess the means to do so

But then I came to the more serious aspect. This is an American President to whom holding the highest position in the land isn’t enough. Now he wants to be a brand as well. I’ve never known this before in my lifetime, and it’s another reason to ask: ‘What on earth is going on over there?’ Is it simply what happens when you allow a businessman to take over the reins of politics? Is it another step along the road towards making America a dictatorship, in spite of banner-wielding crowds explaining that America is not a monarchy – constitutional or any other sort – and they’d prefer to keep it that way? I’m curious.

I’m also led to wonder whether an American President should really be acting as a disinterested intermediary in the Israel/Iran affair, not as a partisan authority figure ordering Iran to surrender unconditionally.

And on a slightly connected theme: is it true, as was written in a BBC news feature recently, that the IDF has developed the habit of shooting near-starving Palestinian civilians queuing for flour at aid centres? If so, I’m naturally curious to know what orders Trump has given to Israel on the matter.

You know, my head is shaking so much these days that I sometimes wonder why it doesn’t fall off.

Trump's Tablets.

I see Trump is now directing his fire at America’s Ivy League universities. He says they’re not doing enough to prevent pro-Palestinian protests and are not supportive of his brand of American conservatism. Well now, what can they be thinking? And so the dear old US of A takes one more faltering step down the slippery slope to fascism.

American Conservatism According to Trump:

1. You will stand with hand on heart to recite the Oath of Allegiance every day.

2. You will repeat: ‘God bless America, land of the free where all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’ every time you see my face or hear my name. (Although he won’t realise that Voltaire was joking.)

3 You will revere the insanely rich as demi-gods, for they are the descendants of the Founding Fathers and represent the spirit of America.

4. You will do as you are told at all times by men of wealth who wear the badge of status conferred by me.

5. Women will be treated as objects of play to suit your pleasure, for that is their purpose in life. You will only take them seriously if they are young, pretty, and reading from an autocue words written by me or which have my approbation.

6. You will have no truck with dictionaries. However I define ‘terrorism’ or ‘anti-Semitism’ shall be the new truth.

7. You will develop the habit of somnambulance at all times and remain quiet except to roar angrily at my enemies.

I didn’t make this up, you know. This is what I’ve heard Americans with brains say about America.

On Trump and the T Word.

I read earlier that a woman has been charged with criminal damage after splashing some red paint on the walls of the clubhouse on one of Donald Trumps Scottish golf courses. Donald called it ‘an act of terrorism’ and said he hoped that she would be very harshly treated.

Well, come on. Turnberry isn’t exactly a national monument, is it? And the building hardly stands out as a notable piece of architecture. Vandalising property is, indeed, criminal under British law, but it’s a pretty minor sort of criminal. It doesn’t come close to wanting to steal Greenland from the Danes, or evict the Palestinians from Gaza so he can turn their ancestral homeland into another Mediterranean playground for the rich.

And have you noticed that Trump reacts to every bit of protest aimed at him or his entourage by calling it ‘terrorism’? He’s obsessed with the word and clearly hasn’t a clue what it means. A simple definition of terrorism would be: ‘purposefully hurting the innocent with the aim of reducing their resolve or morale.’ Writing ‘go home Trump’ - or whatever it was - in red paint on the wall of an unprepossessing building is hardly hurting the innocent. And I wonder whether Trump realises that American policy has been responsible for some of the greatest acts of true terrorism the world has ever known. How many innocent people were cruelly killed or hurt by the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden in 1945? There was a war on, yes, but none of them were combatants. That’s terrorism. Defacing a building or trashing a Tesla car isn’t (except to Mr Dunderhead.)

Redaction and Recovery.

I was just reading about Trump’s latest foray into absurdity with his attacks on the Smithsonian and other institutions. He says they’re giving a false view of American history, and what needs to be shouted from the rooftops is everything which can be presented as glorious or grandiose by those with a conservative mindset (or maybe that should be mind(less)set.) Oh, and run by white men of course. Everything dark or dubious must be airbrushed out so as to give a true picture.

You know, we British had a very big empire at one time, and some people still regard it as a glorious achievement. But we don’t pretend that the Amritsar massacre didn’t happen, or that the forced labour camps in India didn’t exist, or that the Croke Park massacre in Ireland is just an urban legend. If history is to be worth anything it must be on a warts-and-all basis, otherwise it isn’t worth a hill ’o beans.

I’m beginning to have a vague, so far unformed suspicion that there’s more to Donald Trump than appears on the surface. He’s too far out, too extreme, too volatile, too bird brained to be just another Republican President. He looks more like a conspiracy theory beginning to take shape, and it looks to me as though America – and maybe the world at large – could be heading for something bad and irreversible if he isn’t stopped sooner rather than later.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, a shout-out for Mark the technician at Plusnet (my ISP.) I spent an hour this afternoon wallowing in techno devices, many twisted and unruly yards of various cables, the litter of cardboard boxes, and much of it spent balancing awkward things on my lap or crouched uncomfortably under the desk where my computer lives. And at the end of it all the new device didn’t work. A further hour was then spent with Mark the technician on the phone. It was hard going but he got me there, and there was even an element of serendipity thrown in for good measure. That little story is a rare one these days.

Trump and the Grabbing of Gaza.

Now let me see whether I’ve got this right. My understanding of the Israeli hardliners’ attitude towards the Palestinians runs roughly thus:

This whole land is our land. God gave it to us thousands of years ago and so it is scared ground. That being the case, only we have the right to occupy it; you have none. That’s why we’re forcibly evicting you from the place you have called home for many centuries and making it available to proper Jews. (If I’m in error, please feel free to correct me.)

If I’m right – or even approximately so – I wonder how the hardliners will feel about having part of their sacred ground owned by America and developed into yet another Mediterranean playground for wealthy westerners. I wonder whether this was the reason for Mr Netanyahu’s visit to his pal Trump a few days ago. I suppose Mr N might well be in favour of allowing a part of what he considers to be Israeli territory to become American-owned because Israel will then have another level of security against the dastardly Muslims. And so maybe he can persuade the hardliners to agree to having part of God’s own country swallowed up by American capital. Strange world, isn’t it?

But what about Hamas and other dissident groups in the Middle East? How would they feel about it? I can’t imagine they’d be too pleased, and I feel it would be logical to expect deaths and bloodshed to follow in the wake of such a project. If Israel really wants to take the steam out of Hamas, surely it needs to reach an acceptable accord with the Palestinians, not throw stinking mud in the faces of the armed wing.

And what of the Gazans themselves? I gather tens of thousands of them died in the recent ‘war’, and those that are left are now trying to rebuild their lives. How must they feel about somebody living over 4,000 miles away seriously threatening to relocate them and turn their homes and homeland into an investment opportunity? (It’s interesting that I haven’t yet heard anybody in the media use the term ‘diaspora.’)

I think it must be obvious that this plan of Trump’s is both heartless and the height of disrespect, but that’s just the nature of Trump. I’m quite sure that he has no heart, and I doubt he could even spell the word ‘disrespect.’

And another point occurs to me: For nearly forty years I’ve been complaining about the despoliation of the Mediterranean coastline by the tourist industry, especially the northern part fringing Europe. Even the locals are now complaining about it. They want tourism rationed there, and a return to something like sanity. Now Trump wants to do the same thing in the eastern Med, just as he took part of the wild Scottish coastline and built commercially attractive golf courses on it.

But will he succeed? Personally I doubt it, but Big Capitalism is a powerful enemy so maybe he will.

A Few Titbits and Trump's True Words.

Lately I keep trying to think of something to write to this blog in order to keep it going but I keep drawing a blank - largely, I think, because my frustration with the human animal is reaching the point where I’m almost welcoming the prospect of being able to say ‘stop the world, I want to get off.’

I could write about the disturbing, almost total, dearth of bees and butterflies in the garden this summer, even on warm, dry, sunny days when their favourite nectar-bearing flowers are in full bloom. I could write about meeting little Nell in the lane yesterday evening, and of talking at length to the male half of her human hosts. He told me that a friend of his has moved to the US and prefers it there. (I didn’t argue.) I could recount how I washed and polished the Lady Clio (my latest wheels) this afternoon. It took me 2½ hours and wore me out, but she’s now spick and sparkly and a credit to the world of motor cars. I could mention the fact that I still haven’t heard the song of a blackbird or robin this year, and the belief in some quarters that birds act as messengers from the universe.

But why bother making the effort to write more than a short paragraph to cover all such minor matters when you’re tired and waiting for the world to stop?

One thing that did amuse me briefly this morning, however, was reading something Trump said to his tribe of admiring simians at some gathering or other. He referred to the shooting incident and said ‘I shouldn’t be here.’ I do believe it’s the first intelligent comment he’s probably ever uttered. Yes, I do realise he was merely milking the martyrdom cow, but it was pleasant to appreciate the irony for a few minutes.

The Fascinating Case of Donald's Little Menagerie.

I’m about to run the risk of offending those Americans for whom I have enormous respect, but a blogger has to do what a blogger has to do so here goes.

I was just reading about Trump’s little hooley in Wako, and becoming swamped with such a combination of disbelief and amusement as the day would quake to look on. His theatrical entry to the strains of Top Gun music was risible enough, but then there was the image of countless mentally challenged baboons running around shrieking ‘God! Guns! Trump!’ (and wearing T shirts and waving banners carrying the same mantra of simian aspiration.)

I have to admit here that the number of baboons present was minuscule compared with the population of the US as a whole, but they are the image of America the world sees, and so they are the image – unfairly or not – that Trump presents to the world. What sort of impression do Americans think it makes? Then again, I don’t suppose baboons care much about reputation so let’s broaden it out a little.

If the best the Republican Party can offer as a candidate in the next presidential election is a choice between Dunderhead Donald and nasty Mr DeSantis, doesn’t that rather compound the issue? And if DeSantis gets the nomination I expect the baboons will go on the rampage and a measure of carnage will ensue. And if Trump wins the nomination but loses the election to a Democrat, I expect the baboons will still go on the rampage. And if Trump wins the election the baboons will triumph and America will go even further down the hole of resembling a troubled, third world backwater. What price leadership, power, and influence then?

November 2024 is going to be interesting, isn’t it? I wonder whether I’ll be around to see it.

What's Up, Rudy?

This business of Trump and the election is becoming ever more unbelievably absurd to an outside observer. On the one hand it’s causing a shift in my perception of the so-called President. I’m now beginning to wonder whether he has some serious and identifiable metal health condition which prevents him from accepting his loss and creates delusions which are absolutely real to him. If so, maybe we should be wishing him a speedy commitment to treatment.

But what of Giuliani? Why is he still hanging in there making preposterous statements? Is he mentally ill, too? The rest of the Trump team may be excused their idiocy on the grounds that they’re merely lackeys and lackeys have to do and say whatever the boss orders. But surely, Giuliani is a man of status, so why is he not walking away from this surreal attempt at pantomime?

Maybe we need to paraphrase Shakespeare here and simply say:

O strange New World 

That has such imbeciles in charge of it

Maybe it’s as simple as that.

America: the Verdict

It’s Wednesday afternoon and the American presidential election is still undecided. It matters little now whether Trump or Biden takes the final victory because the important question has already been answered. The rational result would have been a landslide for Biden to leave Trump out in the wilderness at last, but instead it’s too close to call. The American people have spoken. It would be impolite of me to say more.

Trump and the State of America.

I was just reading a BBC News feature on the findings of opinion polls ahead of the Presidential election. It appears that, at a national level, Biden is leading Trump by something like 53:47. That troubles me.

Let’s be straight and simple here. Donald Trump is an ego-ridden, not overly intelligent, bigoted braggart and bully. His rallying call ‘Make America Great Again’ has got to be the political joke of the century because I sense that America’s reputation in the world has plummeted during his presidency. To put it simply, America has become something of a laughing stock and very many of us no longer respect it.

So the question is: why does nearly half the population of America not see this and still intends to vote for him? If it were a mere 5-10%, you could put it down to the little rednecks at the bottom of the heap who haven’t a clue what the capital of France is or how many cents make a dollar. But it isn’t 5-10%; it’s nearly half. So what does that say about Americans and American culture? You tell me.

To be honest, I’ve more or less lost interest in Donald Trump. I now find him so boring as to be supremely ignorable. But today has rekindled my interest because today America is going to show us something of significance about itself. That's why I've become a keen spectator again.

Don and the Disease.

I see dear old Donald has got Covid. Or so they say. I’d be disappointed if there’s even a single person in America who isn’t asking the question: ‘Has Trump really got Covid, or is this a lame attempt to get the sympathy vote?’

Well, maybe he has, or maybe there’s another possibility. I gather there are plenty of people of Republican persuasion who have serious misgivings about their beloved leader, and I very much doubt that Russia is the only country where political undesirables in positions of influence come to untimely ends.

Am I being unduly cynical? That’s a matter of opinion; I’m only considering possibilities. Better that than be naïve. It seems to me that people generally, at least here in the west, are becoming ever more cynical, and people like Trump are part of the reason.

Current and Prospective Nightmares.

Shall I make a valiant effort to describe today’s nightmare in detail? No? Oh good. It isn’t easy to describe the individual characteristics of every creature in a can of wriggling worms. Suffice it to say that it involved the changing of mobile phone supplier, and Virgin Media was the nightmare factory as usual. I’m changing to Plusnet. Their customer service procedures, along with their service operatives and technicians, are excellent.

This is how the days are at the moment, alas. I still have disturbing dreams at night, but they’re nothing compared with the nightmares which keep landing on my head during the daylight hours. Most days my head spends so much time swimming that it’s forgetting how to stay afloat, and the evenings are ever wan and weary. It explains why I feel scared, or at least reluctant, to get up every morning.

*  *  *

But enough of that. Let’s talk about Trump for a change. The BBC’s American correspondent described last night’s debate in Ohio as ‘chaotic.’ Well of course it was. Trump was involved, and it pleased me just a little to read that everything happened more or less exactly as I thought it would.

But at least Donald did manage to emphasise his right wing credentials, and that’s the worry. If Americans were to put him back into the White House in November, the occasional whiff of Fascism which seeps out of his Twitter account would become a full blown unwholesome smell. America would be establishing itself as a near-Fascist state run by a Fascist-minded President put there by a Fascist-minded population. In that case, I hope that we in Europe would be able to maintain as much distance as possible from the Land of the Free.

The second worry is that, no matter who wins in November, there will be a lot of ill feeling going around in consequence. The body of America is in danger of becoming a diseased mass of pustules ready to burst, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to see a few litres of blood being spilt on the streets of American cities in the aftermath. That’s Trump’s legacy, and I hope I’m wrong.

Trump and Cohen Go Slagging.

So who should we side with in the Trump vs Cohen spat? Cohen paints Trump as the lowest form of sub-humanity; Trump says Cohen is a liar and a loser. So which is right?

Well, Cohen’s depiction of Trump is pretty much exactly how I’ve always seen Trump anyway, so Cohen’s depiction is vindication of my own judgement through watching the whole sorry saga of the Trump presidency from 3,000 miles away (and growing very tired of it.). But I’m not stupid. Could it be that Cohen is simply tuning into the general opinion of his adversary held by the savvier end of American society, and is making the whole thing up to preach to the converted so as to make a lot of money from sales of his book? I don’t suppose we’ll ever know, but I did find a couple of the assertions at least amusing.

Trump on Hispanics: ‘I will never get the Hispanic vote. Like the blacks, they’re too stupid to vote for Trump.’ So only smart people vote Trump? What a fascinating and hilarious concept.

Trump on Stormy Daniels: ‘But I bet (my supporters) would think it’s cool that I slept with a porn star.’ That’s because they’re stupid, Donald. You need no credentials to sleep with a porn star. You don’t even need a libido. All you need is lots of money, because that’s the game they’re in.

Trump and the Donkey Question.

I didn’t read the news report on Trump’s address to the Republican convention yesterday, all I read was the headline which quoted him as saying: ‘Biden will destroy America’s greatness.’ Well now, I once referred to Trump as ‘a braying donkey.’ It seems I should now apologise to all donkeys everywhere, and so I do.

It did occur to me to wonder what would happen if donkeys were allowed onto the presidential ballot (as long as they were born in the good ol’ US of A, of course…) How many people would vote for the donkey rather than Trump or Biden? Pity we shall never know.

And I did read a comment from an American woman on one of Sarah Cooper’s YouTube videos. She said ‘November will be a test of America’s IQ.’ Quite so, and I can truly say that I will sympathise with those Americans whose IQ exceeds around 50 if Trump wins.

Trump's List.

I just watched the second instalment of Schindler’s List. What a horribly harrowing film it is, and what I find interesting is this:

The Nazis were just about as low as low can get, right? I think most of us are agreed on that. So isn’t it a little strange that Mr Trump wants those who claim to be anti-Nazi locked up? And is it perhaps appropriate to note that Mr Trump is in the habit of wishing violent, or at least draconian, retribution on those who think differently than him? Might that have some connection with the fact that he is so avowedly anti-anti-Nazi?

Trump and the Mouth.

I suppose I shouldn’t let the day go by without mentioning Trump’s assertion that the Chinese deliberately engineered Coronavirus in a lab as a bio weapon. I’m not sure just how effective an indiscriminate virus would be as a weapon, but let’s leave that one aside.

When asked to state his evidence for such an assertion, Donald said ‘I’m not allowed to say.’ Allowed? A week or two ago he was boasting that he was President and the President can do what he likes. So who, exactly, isn’t allowing him? Or did he mean that it is not in the national interest to reveal the source? Is this another example of Trump’s inadequate command of English, or maybe evidence of the fact that his mind is incapable of understanding the difference between ‘not allowed’ and ‘not in the national interest’?

And what of possible alternative theories? Could it be that the virus was actually engineered in America and released in Wuhan in order to discredit China? Is that ridiculous? Maybe, but there is an unofficial Cold War going on between America and China, or at least between Trump and China, and America has been regarded with some suspicion since the official explanation for 9/11 was settled on. A lot of people didn’t believe it and still don’t. Or what of Australia? They don’t like the Chinese either. Do they have biohazard labs in Australia? I’ve no idea.

All this is idle speculation, of course, and speculation is always foolish in matters of this kind. Trump might even be right about this, but there are two real problems here. The first is that we don’t really know just who is pulling the world’s strings, and the second is that Trump needs to learn to get his apparently limited brain in gear before shooting his mouth off.

A Reluctant Trump Note.

I’ve been trying to keep off the subject of Trump lately because I find him tedious and of little consequence, even though I admit that he does provide the occasional laugh, as with his advice to ingest or inject disinfectant. But he does seem to be plumbing new depths at the moment. Given what has been coming over the water in the past few days, it appears that he’s:

Ignorant of even the simpler aspects of human biology.

Unaware of the difference between bleach and disinfectant.

Unwilling to take personal responsibility for his actions.

Unaware of what the word ‘sarcasm’ means.

Reluctant to seek the advice of those who do know a subject before shooting his mouth off.

But there’s something else which should be of concern to Americans and all those who are in any way influenced by America. He’s never been particularly lucid – much less sophisticated – in his speech, but he seems to be becoming even less so.  One of his pronouncements which I read today was so badly constructed that it was almost indecipherable. I’m guessing that at the moment he would fail even a primary school English exam.

And this is the man who is going to try to get re-elected in November. If he’s successful it will be a serious indictment of America and Americans because the Coronavirus crisis is just the latest test he’s taken and been found wanting. But maybe I should consider what a neighbour of mine said the other day:

‘I can never decide whether Trump is a complete idiot or actually very clever.’

Indeed. Maybe Trump simply knows how to keep his fan base happy.

Headline Priorities.

The daily news headline is supposed to reflect the most newsworthy fact of the day, isn’t it? That’s what I’ve always believed. Today’s banner headline on the BBC website is all about President Trump declining to wear a mask.

So tell me, why should I, an Englishman living in a quiet rural backwater of the English countryside, be remotely interested in whether Trump wears a mask or not? What I’d be more interested to know is what effect the Covid-19 pandemic is going to have on this year’s presidential election, and whether the world is going to have to put up with Trump longer than it thought it would.

Mirroring Art.

Does anybody know whether Donald Trump can read? If he can, maybe somebody could take advantage of the present situation by passing him a copy of Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. There’s a chance he might decamp with his rich friends to some moated, presidential-style mansion deep in the bayous of Louisiana or somewhere, there to cut himself off from the plague fodder. Because we all know what happened to Prince Prospero, don’t we?

Better still, if he really is illiterate, maybe somebody could read it to him and surreptitiously change the ending so he isn’t forewarned.