AMERICAN GOTHIC!

 

NEW LOCKDOWN: Day 8, Friday.

 

 

As we continue to fret our way through the no-man’s-land of the space between the counting of the votes and some sort of definitive result from the interminable American election, I have mused over the future not only for America but also for the rest of us.

     What seems likely to happen is that Joe Biden wins the election and becomes President of the United States.  The Blue Wave of support for the Democratic Party has not happened and so the new president will be faced with a reduced majority in the House of Representatives and a Senate controlled by the Republicans.

     Already Republican slime in the human form of Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell have stated that they will make it as obstructively difficult as possible for the new president and for the Democrats.  The Slime will have been emboldened by the fact that the election did not sweep away Trump and his sick ethos, rather it will now allow itself to be entrenched in Republican ‘thinking’ for the foreseeable future.  This means that Biden (if elected) will be faced with a frustrating period of government where every truly Democrat idea is frustrated by the Senate.

     At the end of four years (if he lasts that long) Biden will have little in the way of positive achievement to look back on.  He will also be four years older.  So, he will be fighting the 2024 election as an 81-year-old.

     This is where the choice of Kamala Harris as a running mate and vice president comes into play.  If there had been a Blue Wave, then she could have played her part in overturning the discredited actions of Trump and enacting a whole slew of legislation to bring the country back from the brink.  She could have been well-placed to become the candidate for the 2024 election if Biden was unable or unwilling to take on the next four years.

     But after four years of frustration and limited achievement she would be handed a poisoned chalice.  And remember, Trump was NOT trounced, a terrifyingly large percentage of the population saw four years of a grotesquely dysfunctional presidency and voted for four more years of it and Kamala Harris, a coloured, left-leaning, woman is going to tick all the bigot boxes to limit her election.  The incredible numbers of non-white voters who supported Trump, with a special call-out to those Latinos who respond to the word ‘socialist’ with instinctive horror, all combine to suggest that Kamala Harris would be a disaster at the polls in 2024!  And can you imagine either Biden continuing at 81 or the in-fighting in the Democrats in looking for someone else in the lead up to 2024?

     So, this is my horror scenario. 

     The period 2020-2024 is a disaster for Biden and the Democrats. 

     The Covid horror continues as anything that Biden says is immediately construed as an attack on basic liberty by Republican and far right (is there now a difference?) elements.  Covid therefore continues as an ongoing disaster with Democratic attempt to cope with the pandemic seen as anti-democratic (!) and as ineffectual -. Biden will be blamed for the mounting deaths in a way that Trump never was.

     Obama Care is struck down by the Supreme Court, this is seen as a triumph for the wrongly and unjustly forced from office Republicans.  Biden is blamed for the increased deaths and misery caused by the increased numbers of Americans who will no longer have any form of health insurance.

     Tax rises are implemented to pay for the financial disaster of Covid.  Biden is blamed for making ‘ordinary Americans poorer’.

     And so, it will go on, unfairly, with Biden being blamed for things that just seemed to slip off Trump.  Biden, emphatically, could not walk down 5^th Avenue and shoot someone and get away with it.  No way!

     And then, the final horror of 2024, when Trump returns as the ‘wronged’ President and stands as the Republican Party’s nominee to become the 47^th President of the United States of America.  And wins!

 

I fairly obviously hope to god that none of this (apart from Biden winning) comes to pass.  But 69 million bitter ‘disenfranchised’ (!) Tump voters is an awfully large proportion of the population to take with you if Biden (as he surely must) puts himself forward as the healing president trying to bring warring sides together after a more than bruising campaign.

     Trump will have lost the popular vote by millions.  Again.  But who seems to care about that?  The vagaries (or idiocy) of the American Electoral College is what decides, and the Trumpian Hordes are going to be a complicating factor in American politics for the foreseeable future – a future in which a hamstrung Democratic president, unable to count of both houses of Congress is going to fight a losing battle with the Trumpian Hordes baying for his blood.  I do not envy him his task.

 

What can help Biden now is that all the court cases which have been held in abeyance because the President could not be prosecuted are now all activated.  As should be court cases against the nepotistic scum with which the President surrounded himself.  Conflicts of interest should be examined and those suspected (!) of wrongdoing should be prosecuted.   

     Trump has done so much wrong that it is essential that all of his wrongdoing is prosecuted: for the sake of the Republic, he must not be allowed to get away with his trashing of legal norms.  Justice must show that no one is above the law, up to and very much including Trump.  It is essential that any member of his family who is suspected of corrupt wrongdoing should also be prosecuted so that their feelings of indemnity that have characterised the last four years are brought back into some sort of legalistic focus.

     By the way, I am not sure of the legal position of Trump in the period from whenever the final result is called until Biden takes over, but could Trump give presidential pardons to all those who have aided and abetted him in his occupation of the White House?  He has, after all, mooted the idea of giving himself a pardon!  

     Is it still possible for him to resign, have the odious Pence take over and then as president Pence (I refuse to accord even the hypothetical suggestion of office for that man a capital letter) give Trump an open presidential pardon for any and all crimes committed during his ‘presidency’?   

     Given how many of the norms of decency Trump has already broken with impunity, such a devious Get Out of Jail Free process would not be beyond his depths, so to speak!

 

As I type, we still do not know if Biden has been able to gain the 6 votes he needs (assuming Arizona is safe) to gain the presidency.  Presumably, if he is able to, Trump will demand a recount in all the knife-edge states, not to gain power, but rather to give him more time to spread further unfounded rumours and conspiracy theories.   

     Even if Trump eventually goes, his leaving behind a tarnished presidency and a ‘suspect’ accession will be enough for him and the shaeless Republican Party to work with for the next chapter in the sobering tale of Modern Political American Gothic.

 

 

Tomorrow: the end or the beginning?

 New Lockdown Day 4, Monday

 

 

The interminable American election campaign is drawing to a not-end.  After all, who actually believes that the decision will be made on the night itself?   I still remember the infamous “hanging chads” fiasco in Florida in 2000 where the result of the election eventually depended on the decision of the Supreme Court.  To an outsider, the eventual judgement seemed (!) politically biased and was, surely, essentially undemocratic - but the Democratic candidate accepted the court’s decision and gave the presidency to a Republican.  It is just about possible to imagine that ‘acceptance’ of a contrary judgement by Bush if the tables had been reversed; it is totally impossible to imagine it happening with the Orange Outrage that presently occupies the White House.

     The most compelling forecast for the 3^rd of November as the in-person votes are being counted is for the O.O. to claim victory before the postal votes have been counted and then try and litigate his way back to power and he motivates the wilder factions in his base to take direct action.

     The fact that staid journalistic media are talking seriously about the fragility of democracy in the United States and the possibility of somehing approaching Civil War, should be astonishing, but is anything but.

     I sincerely hope that we will look back on this particular period of a Trump Presidency as a fascinating aberration in the functioning of the body politic, and the fears of democrats as wildly overstated, but today, the day before the election, I see no real cause for complacency.  Although Trump is almost certain to lose the popular vote (again), given the vagaries of the Electoral College there is always a way to power for him based on a small number of swing states and small numbers of voters.  The shockingly blatant attempts by various Republicans to supress voting may be enough to tip the balance towards the incumbent, and because the balance in the Supreme Court has already been tipped, he is in a good position to use Conservative Trump-appointed judges to retain his hold on power.

     In reality, I find it incredible that anyone could possibly vote for a person so lacking in basic humanity.  If you are only concerned about power, then that would explain the vile enablers in the Senate, but they will be forever tainted by their ‘association’ with Trump, unless, of course, you are a member of the ‘base’.  But even with that sludge of humanity, it is white and ageing and will eventually dissipate.  Unless the Republican Party re-invents itself then it will be subject to the oblivion of entropy.

     Enough speculation: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and that can wait another day or so, or so, or so!

    

Um, if I have entered myself into a self-denying ordinance not to mention the USA Presidential Election, what else is there to talk about?  He said during a time of Covid-19; financial breakdown; immanent Brexit; social unrest; closed culture; lockdown, and sunshine.

 

Perhaps one thing that I can mention (again) is a recent book purchase called, “What Great Paintings Say” – fairly fatuous title, but an excellent book, and at present cheap on Amazon, I paid 15 euros for a hardback version!  This YouTube clip gives you some idea of the format and the contents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyAgOuQhUNM

Well worth buying.