Awaiting November with Interest.

The American Presidential election is certainly garnering some interest over here. The BBC is positively gorging on it. It always surprises me that we pay very much attention to who is going occupy the White House for the next four years, since we over here are, after all, over here and not over there. I suppose it all started with the tug of war between JFK and Comrade Khrushchev over the siting of Russian missiles on Cuba. Even so, in all my life I’ve known very few people who paid much heed to the matter.

It seems to be the Trump phenomenon which has changed all that. All eyes are on America because we’re fascinated by the prospect of it going up in flames if Trump loses. We’re aware, you see, that American society has never been so divided since Gettysburg and all that jazz. Whoever wins, no doubt there will be an awful lot of people taking the ‘Not My President’ position, but I would imagine that the identity of the winner will make a big difference for one simple reason:

As far as we can tell, confirmed Democrats are generally a pretty peaceable bunch of people. Those given to wandering the streets dripping side arms and assault weapons are likely to be almost entirely Trump supporters. They also have smaller brains and are more inclined to seek solutions through the medium of violence. All of which makes for an interesting situation, and leads to the presumption that November will be a time to watch America from a distance.

What’s also interesting me is Trump’s choice of tactics while the opinion polls indicate a close contest. Having tried and apparently failed with the race card, he then moved onto the conspiracy theory: ‘That crowd welcoming Air Force 2 when it landed in (wherever it was) didn’t exist. It was AI generated. Nobody turned up.’ Well, that was soon quashed and I wondered whether he might try the sexist card next. He didn’t, probably because somebody with a few more brain cells advised that it would be very risky. And so now he’s busy pushing the ‘I, victim’ button, another favoured ploy in the propaganda game. Having already had ‘If I’d turned my head at that moment, I’d be dead’, ‘I shouldn’t be here’, and ‘I took a bullet for democracy’, he’s now fallen back on the bullet-proof screen gag.

All very fascinating. November beckons. I haven’t looked forward to November since I was a small boy and was still being given birthday presents.