PMURT
Nobody wants to hear anything more about the US election or about its victor; but, just for the record, I'd like to make two observations I've not yet heard from any of our wailing pundits.
Firstly, I don't think Donald Trump deserves all the vitriol he daily receives. (Don't stop reading.) While being an extraordinarily detestable character for sure, rather than obscuring this he highlighted it in new and fantastical ways almost daily. He demonstrated – with a vigor, candor, and regularity unseen in the American political sphere, and did so on almost every front – his total ineptitude, cruelty, and disconnect from reality.
(I mean, had video emerged of him sexually assaulting one of his hotel employees in the back of his limousine and then kicking that person, a Somali refugee, out onto the street this wouldn't have provided the public with a significant additional reason to find Trump unfit for the presidency. So baldly horrible is he, the man even stated this fact during his candidacy.)
In this way, how, I wonder, is he to blame? If he'd skillfully deceived hundreds of millions of people perhaps then he could be seen as a monster; but some sixty million Americans saw virtually all our human flaws and the worst of our nature – in full concentration and on display simultaneously in a single vulgar specimen and decided this fully met their expectations and approval – and travelled to their local ballot box to materialize that feeling and carve it into the historical record.
(As an important side note: this is exactly what you get when voting is praised above all, as a right, an honour, and an obligation – even when there are no suitable candidates. And this is why ballot spoiling or a "none of the above", or "reshuffle" option should be emphasised and enshrined.)
Secondly, and more importantly, Trump's election (when Clinton's was guaranteed by every statistician, historian, sociologist, and pundit with a public voice) should stand as a permanent reminder to us that the world is far more interesting and less predictable than we would allow it to be. Lest we forget.
Comments