Mao Zedong, he of the rotting teeth, lice infested body, venereal
diseases and mass murders, had a succession of young women for sex and he
regarded their infection as a sort of honour bestowed by his sick wonton
largesse.
I thought back to that disgusting dictator when Covid-riddled Trump
appeared on the veranda of The White House and took off his mask so that he
could infect those in his immediate vicinity who had not already fallen prey to
his super spreader tendencies and who, alas, would not have access to the
experimental, rare and expensive medical treatment that his 750 dollars of
annual tax would come nowhere near to covering.
It is astonishing, humbling and terrifying, to watch a
dedicated narcissist doing what he does best: thinking solely of himself in the
glorious exclusion of everyone around him.
There is a sort of Neronic magnificence to his almost complete lack of
empathy, humanity and consideration.
As I watched him gibbering away in his debased form of English,
he also made me think of Samuel Butler’s strange anti-Utopian novel Erewhon
(1872) where illness is considered a crime and where crime is treated as an
illness. This, almost perfectly, fits the
world view of Trump where for him illness is just for ‘losers’ and crime (as
illustrated by so many characters in the harlequinade of depravity that
constitute his entourage) is regarded as something that should be treated with
leniency and understanding and is easily excused and even pardoned.
Trump’s brush (as he would like us to consider it) with Covid
merely shows that all you need is strength of character to defeat the
virus. The 210,000 (and growing) dead
Americans were weaklings. And didn’t have
helicopter access to the 24/7 state-of-the-art medical attention that Trump had. But that is a minor point compared to the
element of confidence that is so much more effective against viral infections
than any mere medication.
After four years of not believing the degradation and
mendacity that have been keynotes in the dystopian presidency of Trump I am
exhausted by disgust. I find it hard to
keep up the level of contempt that Trump so richly deserves as yet another
parody of leadership is beamed into our homes.
The lies, the contradictions, the weasel words, the insults,
the corruption, the vulgarity, the sheer worthlessness of the whole Trump
enterprise with the loathsome Republican reptilian political power junkies that
acquiesce in his continuing pollution of his role are all draining. I know that four more years of this buffoon
will be insupportable and I sincerely hope that Biden and Harris manage the
landslide that they, that anyone other than Trump and his discredited
troop of filth, deserve.
The trouble with the Dumping of Trump (please god) will be
that all the attention, at least from my point of view, will then be focused on
the end of the year and Brexit and our own home-grown liar and narcissist
trying to spin it as anything other than a disaster.
Trump and Johnson are united by their lust for power and
attention and by their complete lack of something coherent to do with it. Neither has an ideology, apart from the
glorification of themselves, they don’t really know what to do. This is why Cummings is so important to
Johnson because he can supply a mirage of possibilities that Johnson assumes (he
is far too lazy to question and understand) will give enough direction to focus
his pitifully short attention span and make him look as though he has vision.
Johnson’s linking of the present dangerous times to the post
war Labour government’s belief in making a New Jerusalem is an insult to the
cross-party endeavour that looked beyond the end of the war as the time to put
brave plans into operation.
Johnson has read a speech.
He hasn’t thought about what society he wants at the end of this
pandemic. He hasn’t worked on ideas, sat
down with experts, felt the enthusiasm that something better must emerge from a
time of struggle and danger. Johnson
uses words like thin glue on a fragile house of cards: he knows nothing and
believes nothing to make plans realities.
Trump and Johnson were presented with a disaster. Their job as leaders was to keep people
safe. They have both failed. Failed spectacularly. Hundreds of thousands of people have died
because two empty chancers have not cared enough to give time, thought and
determination to do the basic parts of their jobs.
Mao killed millions.
The only thing stopping Trump and Johnson from doing the same is
opportunity. Unchecked, shoddy populists
like them will whittle away at our freedoms, will act with growing autocratic
assumption and will destroy. They have
already been devastating in their negativity.
At least with Trump there is the opportunity to dump him and to start
the process of normalization, with Johnson he has years and an 80 majority and
Brexit.
I weep for my country and pray that our institutions are hardy
enough to withstand the onslaught that the political griffon of Johnsummings is
likely to wreak on everything that I thought was secure and good.
I really can write myself into an apocalyptic frame of mind,
typing fingers dance to depression. So,
let me lurch out from the darkness and find something lighter on which to end –
whoops, there is a negative word if ever there was one.
I was phoned today by a very pleasant lady from the Liceu who
gave me some details of how the new opera season is going to happen. We have previously been told that there will
not be as many people in the theatre and that we will not have to sit next to
anyone and we cannot be guaranteed ‘our’ normal seats.
It will be like joining the audience for a little-known ‘difficult’
modern opera where most people vote with their feet and reject any attempt to experience
anything about the more esoteric and atonal music of the present day.
There is always an audience when I go to the opera because I
have a season ticket and therefore all the other holders of Torn A are in
their seats whatever the opera actually is.
The first opera (actually on my birthday) is not obscure at all, it is Don
Giovani and therefore it would normally have a full house. It will be odd sitting in a performance of so
famous an opera with Christopher Maltman as the Don with a sparse audience, it
will be interesting to see if the ‘spaciousness’ affects the experience.
I cannot say that I am entirely jocose about going to the
theatre at all. The cases of Covid in
Spain and Catalonia are, frankly, terrifying and I find it difficult to imagine
how the Liceu is going to organize things so that they are even marginally ‘safe’.
To take a single example: the average age of opera goers is
high and that puts us in the ‘at risk’ category and, most importantly, we also
need to pee. The toilets for our
particular section of the Liceu are small and are usually crowded during the
period before the performance and during the intervals. Quite how this is going to be regulated
without increasing the risk of infection (and middle-class violence) is going
to be fascinating to observe!
As we will have to wear our masks during the performance, it
will be important to chose a mask that is comfortable to wear for long periods
of time and one that doesn’t steam up my glasses too much!
But these are problems that have a gloriously musical ending,
so I don’t care too much, and look forward with what positivity I can muster to
enjoy myself.
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