A month from now Americans will choose who will be their President for the next four years. Will it be four more years for Donald J Trump, who one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s many alter-egos, Billy Wayne Ruddick of Truth Library (“Truthbrary”) called “the greatest President this country has ever had”? Or will it be Joe Biden, 78 year-old veteran of two previous failed attempts to be the Democratic nominee?
I did not watch the first of the three Presidential debates, but media reports said it was dire. One CNN journalist called it “a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck.” Trump was his usual loud-mouthed, obnoxious self, but Biden, while not sinking to his level, did nonetheless indulge in some fairly unpresidential language of his own.
What worries me is that after four years of Trump, was Joe Biden the best that the Democrats could find to challenge him? The guy is 78, an age when people should be bowing out of public life (if they’re in it) and taking things easier, not setting up as the most powerful man in the world. Though at 74, Trump is no spring chicken either.
I have a theory as to why Trump is so popular among so many Americans. He is the opposite of what a leader should be. Instead of inspiring trust, confidence and admiration, he somehow legitimises being a total a**hole. People look at him and think, Well, I think I can be a bit of an a**hole sometimes, but this guy makes it into an artform. He makes me feel better about being the way I am, because if he can be President, and a billionaire, being an a**hole must be okay. So I can carry on being one with a clear conscience.
I have also believed for some time that the Democrats made a huge mistake in choosing Barack Obama for their candidate in 2008. He had only been elected as Senator in 2004, and was not ready to be President. Hilary Clinton was already highly experienced and ready to take on the role of President. Had she run in 2008, I’m sure she would have beaten John McCain, and also the unremarkable Mitt Romney in 2012. By 2016, Obama, who would have gained experience in her administration, would have been ready to accept the Democratic nomination – and I reckon that by riding the wave of excitement generated by the prospect of ‘America’s first Black President’, he could have beaten Trump. Had he done so, Trump would probably have disappeared back into his world of reality TV, and would probably have decided politics was not for him after all. The Republican Party would have come to its senses and selected a different candidate for 2020. America would undoubtedly have coped with the pandemic better under an Obama administration than it has under the Trump one, and Obama would probably have had a decent chance of regaining the White House in November 2020 – and so get to serve his two terms, but later – and after America had elected its first female President. And though Clinton and Obama would doubtless have had all kinds of vicissitudes during their terms of office, America would not be the divided nation it has become under Trump. Now, though Biden must surely be in with a good chance of winning, if the election result is contested, as Trump has already indicated he will if the result does not go his way, the decision of who takes the White House may rest with the Supreme Court judges. Out of the nine judges, six are conservatives, with the most recent appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, being a staunch conservative whom Trump hastily handed the job to after the death of liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So it’s quite possible that if the election is close, or contested, as happened in 2000, the US Supreme Court, then as now dominated by conservative judges, will choose the Republican candidate – Donald J Trump.
I hope that Joe Biden can win, that enough ordinary Americans are sick enough of Trump to give the old guy a go. Because if Trump wins, he will probably change the constitution and make himself President for Life, just like those other lovely leaders, Xi Jinping of China, and Vladimir Putin of Russia.