I’ve never been able to make up my mind about the USA. My best visit ever was to Alaska when I experienced the wilderness. The huge spaces, mountains, glaciers, endless forest, close encounters with wildlife: bears, including a grizzly mother, moose (probably the more dangerous), human inhabitants (big in heart and soul, wild in their passion for their ‘real’ lives). To get to our main objective and meet our contacts, we had to cross a river where the road bridge had been washed away that past winter. A crude hand-operated system had been rigged, involving what us climbers call a Tyrolean Traverse. Look it up; yup, that crazy. But, then, Alaskans are wont to call the rest of the USA the Lower Forty-Eight. Ain’t no praise. While I was there a woman had just won the Iditarod (look it up; a brutal 600-mile plus dog-sled race) and the good old gals were going around with T-shirts emblazoned: Alaska – where men are men and women win the Iditarod.
Then there was Montana and a ranch in the dead of winter: good horses to ride in the deep snow, skating, cross-country and downhill skiing, skidoos – and guns to shoot, plenty of those. It’s Montana, Big Sky Country, untamed beyond a European’s frail imagination, serenely beautiful in winter. But, in the local ‘town’, population 286, there was menace in the local bar: we were the ‘strangers in town’. It felt, one evening, as if we’ walked into a Western. Oh, and Patrick, one of our ranch hosts that night, had a Glock in a holster on his hip.
Once upon a time in New York, a city I loathe in every ugly aspect, I was waiting for a sleeper out of Penn Station, heading for New England and an interview with a legendary climber. Hungry, I wandered out the concourse and sniffed around, lighting at last upon an Italian trat. I walked in, to be greeted with absolute silence from the large family there gathered, meal well under way. A waiter anxiously approached me and, on hearing my accent, said ‘English’ to the entire establishment. Everyone relaxed. I’d unwittingly walked in on a Mafiosi supper party.
In a deep, forgotten corner of rural America I found myself – ironies of ironies, the week after Trump ‘won’ (only the electoral college, not the popular vote) in 2016 – close to the border of North Carolina with Tennessee. My friend had already upbraided me for my choice of sweater to attend that evening’s volunteer fire station fund raiser. ‘You planning to wear that? They already think anyone from London is gay’. I changed.
Now, my friend, born and raised in North Carolina, was – let’s just say, twitchy that night. Wealthy, and having a mountain chalet nearby, he felt an outsider. Given that the people we ate with that evening were dirt poor – like a rerun of the 1930s classic film Grapes of Wrath, in front of our eyes – he was. I was pure alien, literally from another planet. I hadn’t witnessed such overt deprivation since I’d been in the Dominican Republic. Then, it had been among Black Haitian refugees, with whom I was working. I felt more accepted there.
The folk we ate with in North Carolina had all been life-long Democrats; until they weren’t. To say they were a forgotten people is a cliché, if none the less true for that. They all voted Trump in 2016: who else? He, like Reagan, was a movie star. And he spoke their language, unlike aloof graduate Hilary. By the way, the prize in the fire station fund raiser raffle was a hunting rifle. We didn’t wait for the result having, out of politeness – and a little trepidation – bought some tickets.
And so, to Donald J Trump, convicted rapist (oh, pardon, convicted sexual offender: he was only found guilty of sexual assault), serial liar, proto-fascist, insurrectionist, fantasist, narcissist, nutcase. Oh, and the official Republican Party, GOP, candidate for the November, 2024 USA Presidential Election.
One way or another, he’s caught in the vice-like grip of Vladimir Putin. Whether that’s because of alleged sex-tapes filmed in Moscow years ago, that appear to show Trump being peed on (how very apt) by a pair of working girls or, more likely, because he genuinely admires Putin and the way he runs Russia, it hardly matters.
This past week I read Rachel Leingang’s thoughtful piece about the way Trump speaks at rallies. It’s sobering and scary, in equal measure.
She writes:
‘Journalists rightly chose not to broadcast Trump’s entire speeches after 2016, believing that the free coverage helped boost the former president and spread lies unchecked. But now there’s the possibility that stories about his speeches often make his ideas appear more cogent than they are – making the case that, this time around, people should hear the full speeches to understand how Trump would govern again.
‘Trump, like Biden, has confused names of world leaders (but then claims it’s on purpose). He has also stumbled and slurred his words. But beyond that, Trump’s [words] can take a different turn. Trump has described using an “iron dome” missile defence system as “ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. They’ve only got 17 seconds to figure this whole thing out. Boom. OK. Missile launch. Whoosh. Boom.”
‘During this week’s Wisconsin speech, which was more coherent than usual, Trump pulled out a few frequent refrains: comparing himself, incorrectly, to Al Capone, saying he was indicted more than the notorious gangster; making fun of the Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis’s first name (“It’s spelled fanny like your ass, right? Fanny. But when she became DA, she decided to add a little French, a little fancy”).
‘“Sounds like a little bit of a weird topic but it’s not, it’s a very bad thing,” he added.
‘These half-cocked remarks aren’t new; they are a feature of who Trump is and how he communicates that to the public, and that’s key to understanding how he is as a leader.
‘The New York Times opinion writer Jamelle Bouie described it as “something akin to the soft bigotry of low expectations”, whereby no one expected him to behave in an orderly fashion or communicate well. Some of these bizarre asides are best seen in full, like this one about Biden at the beach in Trump’s response to the State of the Union:
‘“Somebody said he looks great in a bathing suit, right? And you know, when he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand, because you know sand is heavy, they figured three solid ounces per foot, but sand is a little heavy, and he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look, at 81, do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people. Today we have, I won’t say names, because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was, like – Michael Jackson once told me – ‘The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Cary Grant.’ Well, we don’t have that any more, but Cary Grant at 81 or 82, going on 100. This guy, he’s 81, going on 100. Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit, either. And he was pretty good-looking, right?”
‘You not only see the truly bizarre nature of Trump’s speeches when viewing them in full, but you see the sheer breadth of his menace and animus toward those who disagree with him.’
Leingang makes the point that US media are failing in their democratic duty by not running, on television, radio, or in newspapers, Trump’s speeches in full. Only then, she says, will the full horror of the man and his mixture of deranged and dangerous views be apparent. I am afraid I am less sanguine. Anti-social media tip the balance these days toward exactly the kind of twaddle and tripe he peddles. Conspiracy theories thrive in this toxic brew; Trump knows this. He believes – perhaps genuinely – that he is a victim of one.
The question most of us in Europe – other than Truss, Farage (big, big, fan), plus the long list of usual suspects – continually ask how on earth can such a ludicrous orange–faced clown get to be a 2024 US Presidential candidate? And the answer is easy: he, like Reagan, is a media star – and ace manipulator. He knows, if he knows nothing else, how to use the media, particularly television. And X, formerly known as Twitter, along with his own anti-social media platform. His team rely on the American media to chase the sound bites, never the whole sickening meal.
We’re in the Age of Impunity; welcome to its top host, the new Goebbels of the airwaves – and of anti-social media with its lies, distortions and fake news.
Can he be stopped? I wouldn’t bet on it. Yes, I am appalled by that thought, too. There is this, too. If he loses in November, he has already said he won’t accept the result. This just could be the year when the USA revisits 1861.
This week: Tim read The Patriachs (how men came to rule) by Angela Saini. It is an uncomfortable read, by which I mean she spares no one in her detailed analysis, including women, both historically and right now. That the patriarchy is not some biological fact, rather than one that has been constructed over millennia (classical Greece, with all its high-blown chit chat about democracy, has a lot to answer for) is self-evident. At one level, it is about scared men frightened out of their wits by gloriously untamed female sexuality. However, there is more, much more. The active part women play in all this is also key, both to understanding why women’s rights are in retreat all over the world, and how to change that. Once and for all.