Dear America,
Four years ago you broke the heart of all the world’s educated and liberal people by electing a former reality TV host and psychopath to the office of President of the United States. 63,000,000 Americans went to the polls in 2016 and told the world that you were willing to hand the world’s most powerful job to a man-baby, whose credentials as a racist and misogynist were beyond dispute. Since then he has lived down to enlightened thinker’s expectations by caging toddlers and shrugging off Covid-19 as a “hoax.” As of 9th July 2020 Trump reached the landmark of 20,000 “false or misleading claims” (aka lies) in office.* Few of us expect honesty from politicians but this is abnormal and pathological. In his deranged mind the truth is whatever he says and consequently, we have all had to endure the madness of King Trump. Sufferers include not only Americans who knew better but citizens of the “global village” who did not even get a say – disenfranchised for their lack of US citizenship.
Today America you began to make amends, turfing that vile creature out of office. In every sense this is a victory for civility and decency, one that stops neo-fascism in its tracks and shifts the trajectory away from far-right extremism. Joe Biden is as good as it gets at this moment in history and I am SO happy that he will be the next President. I am happier still that Trump will not be President – indeed, he will be dragged out of the White House kicking and screaming and there is some justice in that.
I love the American people but I hold no love for its politics, anymore than I love the politics of the United Kingdom – my home country. We are constitutionally bound to a kleptocratic “royal family” who are born into privilege and sovereign entitlements that normal people can only dream of. Our politics is dominated by a tiny clique of under-educated and over-privileged “born to rule” clowns, whose main (and perhaps only) qualification is the school they went to. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, they get in.
That said, we cannot pretend that the Trump regime and the Johnson regime is business as usual. These are dangerous men with no moral compass; to speak to them about other people or “regular people” is to address them in a language they do not understand nor care about. Bush and Blair were war criminals and yet the xenophobia, nihilism and indifference of Trump and Johnson was beneath even them. It is wrong to say “they’re all as bad as each other” because this generation is “off the chains” in a way we have not witnessed in our lifetimes.
Thank you America for showing us the leadership we need. You have rid us of Trump, rendering him once more the crazy guy screaming at or into the TV. It falls to us now in the UK to find a way to rid ourselves (and the world) of “baby Trump” Boris Johnson. This third-rate journalist and talk show hack has exploited anger, ignorance and despair in exactly the way that Trump did. We need to follow America’s lead and in so doing, we need to send a clear message that he doesn’t represent the majority of us.
Today I felt a glimmer of (political) hope for the first time in over a decade. It may well fade but in the meantime it’s a win for the good guys and we shouldn’t drown it with introspection.
It’s a happy weekend, a rare one in which politics put a smile on our faces. I for one will enjoy the moment and be thankful for it.
I ordered a pizza (a rare thing) and opened a bottle of Champagne (not such a rare thing) 😉
Yours sincerely,
M
* Source: The Washington Post
Dr Martin James 