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.
