OLD GORY

 

American politics is vastly more entertaining than its British counterpart and progenitor, the ‘mother of all parliaments’ in the picturesque halls of Westminster. British politics is akin to a pair of puppies yapping at each other over who gets the blanket, whereas the American equivalent is a pit-bull dog-fight in a junkyard. No doubt the First Amendment is the difference, but I thoroughly enjoy the ad hominem attacks American politicians make on one another, whereas the British politician – who is more restricted in their speech than anyone – must mind her Ps and Qs.

And the Americans have trounced the British when it comes to bad boys vying for the top job. Britain has Rishi Sunak, to whom some pathetically insignificant financial and very minor scandal clings, which anyway concerns his wife, Boris Johnson, deposed for going to a party, and Sir Keir Starmer, who probably never even flicked ink pellets in class when he at school with, and a year below, me.

The Americans, on the other hand, may have the first-ever Presidential run-off in its history in which the two rivals have posted bail and are taking part in the debates wearing ankle monitors. They have a way to go before they hit the high bar set by Africa, where a cannibal, say, will be fighting at the strictly regulated ballot-box against a guy who merely set his opponents on fire, but it’s a start.

The disparities have been minutely enumerated on what there is of right-wing news in the USA (funny how a combination of the First, lack of governmental control – at least obviously – and a free market produce such a left-leaning media in such a fundamentally conservative country), and it looks as though Biden’s accusation would lead to federal prosecution, whereas Trump’s should be a civil case. Why, then, are the media crowing about Trump facing 400 years in jail? Because they are psychotic, essentially, like much of the rest of the Left. When they want to read something cosy and familiar, which they feel reflects who they are and their lived experience, these people nestle up with DSM V.

Republican Representative for Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has supposedly seen the document with the power to drop the Biden family into the shark tank, and the prospect of President Kamala Harris terrifies Democrats as much as it secretly delights real Republicans. Also, if either Trump or Biden experience what so many of America’s criminals currently do not, that is, incarceration, then Ron de Santis and Gavin Newsom are limbering up.

The politicking, with Trump’s indictment following the same day as Biden’s people discovered that the document the FBI said didn’t exist actually did exist all along, and makes interesting beach reading, is at the highest level. Machiavelli must be watching from somewhere, the rest of his day’s appointments cancelled.

A lot of very hot air is expended on the subject of political morality, but it has no more place in competitive politics than rules in a bar fight. This could be the first US Presidential election won or lost by lawyers.