John Chuckman
COMMENT – FEELING ALMOST SORRY FOR TRUMP
I am now fairly convinced Trump will lose the election. The
sense of things, including his own behavior, and not just polls, is going that
way.
So, it is hard to believe, but I find myself feeling almost sorry for him now. Maybe it’s just a twinge of the belief I share with the great Graham Greene about the duty of writers always to support the underdog.
No, I do not in any way support Trump, and the world will be a better place without his influence, but there is something sad in his situation. As there is very much in his complete failure to deliver anything for peace and demilitarization in the world, things that he spoke of four years ago.
Quite the opposite, he has dumped huge quantities of weapons into a fragile world, torn up hard-won treaties, opened new intense hostilities, as against Iran and China, and actually murdered people as well as supported others who murder, such as the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
I reject virtually everything Trump has done and said, but since leaving the hospital, I’m seeing a lonely, desperate figure, someone who believes he is heroically fighting for a cause. The belief is delusional, of course, but for those suffering with them, delusions are as real as anything else.
A man ready to risk his life (along, of course, with the lives of others) to be re-elected. There is an immense sadness about that, particularly when you consider the trail of chaos that his time in office leaves behind. He has made absolutely nothing better in the world.
He left the hospital against expert advice. And he remains not just sick, but infectious, perhaps highly so.
Biden has changed his view on a second debate. Plexiglass screens are not going to be enough. Now, he says there will not be a debate unless medical experts declare Trump free of the virus. How much chance is there of that, given the short time left?
Not much, and I think the Democrats have hit upon an effective political tactic to avoid any risks from a second debate. The first one was a record-breaking shame and disaster for all involved.
There is very little ever to celebrate in American politics. Trump is a horror; however, Biden is anything but a hero. His record in public office, a long one, is impressive only for being unimpressive and frequently downright shabby.
American elections really are designed as huge public events that get people excited but, in the end, do not make terribly much difference to the country’s many harsh realities. Both parties are war-and-imperial parties, only differing by talk about social policies which never are realized.
And the bought-and-paid-for nature of Washington’s entire political establishment, where “money is free speech,” means there is little in the way of a pool of leadership talent to call upon. Leadership is quite a different matter than performing tasks for those who pay your way. It must be nurtured, and it takes time to develop and mature, just as any other talent.
A former CIA man who writes articles on some independent Internet sites, John Kiriakou, wrote recently about John Negroponte’s support of Biden.
If you are not familiar with Negroponte, he is one of Washington’s true eminence grises. He is a Republican, but he is more than that. He is an insider’s insider, an advisor to Presidents, a manipulator, a Neocon, a true war hawk sharing responsibility for much of America’s global carnage over the last 20 years or so.
Negroponte says the country could not stand another four years of Trump. He will likely now be part of Biden’s inner circle. I don’t find that very comforting.
So, if you expect imperial America to tone down its many hostilities, demands, and its dangerous arrogance in the world under Biden, think again.
Biden’s entire 50-year political career gives no encouragement for such expectations. He has, just like the late John McCain on the Republican side, never seen an American war he didn’t like.
I’ve noted before that you don’t receive the Medal of Freedom – the one for politics and national affairs, as Biden did – for being a hero. Past recipients include Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright among a regular Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors.
In domestic matters, too, there will only be a bit of furniture rearranging. There was an incident a while back when some big Democratic donors expressed concern about Leftist noises coming from the Party.
For example, remember Bernie Sanders saying he believed Biden would be the most progressive President ever? Clearly, a case of Bernie’s getting carried away by his own hopes and enthusiasms. But the big-money people do not take such words lightly. They take no chances about what they are getting for their money.
That is just the way politics work in America, and in both parties. That is why so little ever changes, changes at least for the better. Changes for the worse are frequent. The worse for both ordinary Americans and the world’s people.
Biden was reported to have assured the donors that there would be no real change in the status quo.
At least, we will not have to hear the ugly words of Trump. Or watch his grimacing and grotesque posing. That’s about as much as any contemporary election in America can deliver. A change in the cast of characters for a long-running play which just carries right on.
And, of course, that fact, too, is something to feel sorry about, profoundly sorry.
