The age-old trouble with the left is their sense of righteous leading to their belief that the wider world largely subscribes to their views. This is grand scale naivety, probably the left’s most conspicuous feature. We saw it illustrated with Trump’s recent typically crass twitter, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” this bringing the predictable outcry from the predictable sources.
But the cold hard fact is that Trump would have struck a chord with the majority of voters, even if they don’t say so. Mass protests they can live with. Burning of buildings and looting of stores they rightly see as criminality, as in fact it was, by opportunist criminal gangs.
Meanwhile the corpse-like Biden has enjoyed an excellent start to his campaign by being kept out of sight and sound in lockdown. Against Trump he’s completely out of his depth.
A prominent American who shall remain unnamed and who knows him well, told me recently he’s a genuinely charming man, but, he said, he’s plainly showing early signs of dementia. What a choice for voters? How can the system flush up two such extraordinarily unsuitable candidates?
Trump can genuinely blame the virus for the economic mess. His modus operandi, like all tyrants, is to claim there’s enemies of society he alone can deal to. Last time it was “the swamp,” namely the financial world, plus illegal immigration. This time he’s chosen China. It’s a dangerous game for the world, but will probably work. He will blow Biden away in debates.
He did nothing about “the swamp” as he was out of his depth. His anger lay in the fact he was never part of that world, they rightly treating him as an ignoramus wide boy and snobbishly shunning him.
So too his alienation with America’s western European allies. His discomfort in their presence was always glaringly obvious as he sensed their snobbish contempt and derision of his ignorance. He was a fish out of water with the intellectually sophisticated likes of Macron, Merkle and company.
All in all, a horrifying option for Americans. If I was a voter I’d opt for Biden. Far better to have a figurehead President who allows other competents to mind the shop, than a mad, hugely flawed, ignorant oaf.
We live in such unprecedented crazy times, sensible future predictions are near impossible. Everywhere there’s public rioting and economic devastation. Nevertheless, I’m going to make a prediction. Assume the Presidential election is a close-run thing but Biden scrapes home. In such circumstances I’d wager Trump cries corruption and refuses to leave, therein causing a massive Constitutional crisis. By all accounts he listens to no-one other than his daughter and her husband, although one suspects they’re more sycophantic confidantes than advisors. So what happens?
Let’s face it, in a close-run election and what we know of Trump, that’s a highly probable scenario. America should be preparing for it now although constitutionally I don’t know how.
And to further stir the pot, imagine while that’s going on Biden drops dead, a not entirely improbable situation. The likely outcome; a military intervention pending handing over to Biden’s running mate who will be the first woman President. And should that be Amy then my crowing would be fairly noisy as I picked her last year as the stand-out Democrat candidate.
Don’t dismiss all of this as fantasy. In today’s madcap world anything is possible and never more so than with Trump.
POSTSCRIPT
I drafted this piece last Sunday. On Tuesday in the office I read a feature article from America in the Saturday New Zealand Herald awaiting me. Lo and behold it raised the same contingency, quoting diverse commentators of repute, all concerned that Trump, if beaten, would cry corruption and refuse to go.
Plainly it’s a realistic contingency given his known behaviour. As I’ve repeatedly said, we’re living in unprecedented crazy times.