Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was talking about older people and death in that often-quoted poem. It is much to far ahead of the election to make a confident prediction but I can cheerfully suggest what might happen when Joe Biden beats Trump in November. When all avenues for dispute are closed, the man child best be carried down the White House driveway and thrown bodily into the street.
There was an excerpt from David Frum’s new book about Trump in the Toronto Star yesterday. I must admit, from the first words I read, I disagreed with the premise of the book. Frum claims that Trump is challenging the very tenets of democracy in America, “perhaps irrevocably.” I would suggest to you that Trump has never bothered with what passes for democracy in the United States. He ignores it.
It is like Mr. Trump’s understanding of truth. It does not seem to exist in his vocabulary. It is for others.
Frum seems to see the on-going corruption of American politics as a class war. It is unlikely that David Frum is a member of the one per cent, but he appears to identify with them. He does not accuse Trump of creating the conditions he exploited to gain power. Trump is a user. He is no politician. He is not even a nice person.
But I was watching the TV news from the United States on that November evening four years ago. You saw the Trump family and it was hard to tell who was the most surprised. Trump has never been a good enough actor to feign that surprise.
In the Frum excerpt, he explains the legal means at Trump’s disposal with which he could have carried out some of his objectives. The fact that nobody seemed to be telling Trump, or if they were, he was not listening, must have thwarted many of Trump’s plans.
A friend called while I was writing this and when I told him what I was writing, he offered to buy me a copy of the book. I was pleased with the offer but explained to him that I always waited for the remaindering of political books. I have never read one that cost me more than $7. That is a good average of what they are worth.
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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry
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