As this Halloween approaches I just can’t look.
It’s far too frightening, upsetting, unsettling. I
feel a little sick. Am I scared of the dark?
Sort of.
It’s not so much the impending result of the UK Conservative
Party leadership contest which will crown either the unelectable, anaemic, dim-witted
and anodyne non-entity Jenrick or the unelectable, hateful, bonkers, would pick
a fight with her own shadow dim-witted Badenoch. No. It’s the impending Nov 5th,
bonfire-night bash in the US which could still turn into a colossal shit show
for democracy despite the bizarre and gargantuan disparities between the
candidates.
Those of you who read this (political therapy) blog
regularly, know that I am a dedicated letter writer – being as I am – stuck in
the old times. No tweeting or smartphone or Fb or any other forms of fast and
loose communication pour moi. In fact, if I could afford the postage with the
now privatised Post Office, I’d still type the letters on my old faithful
clunking Remington
TAVEL-RITER-DELUXE and send them by snail mail to editors
around the globe.
In my they-printed-my-letters cache are all the decent newspapers in the UK – though I no longer bother with The Independent. Plus, papers
in the Caribbean, the US, including The New York Times and more recently The
Star in South Africa.
The letter I’m posting below went out last week and
was published in Scotland’s The National. As a short-cut to my bemusement, it’s
a handy inclusion here.
Dear
Editor,
Have
you ever wondered how come the CEO or Manager of this or that org is so
breathtakingly, sometimes dangerously incompetent?
Maybe
like me you’ve felt uncomfortable reading reports about the inexplicably more
negative outcomes for people from minority ethnic backgrounds within the
medical service.
Perhaps
you struggle to understand how the world can look at one conflict, Ukraine, and
be unquestioningly and rightly appalled at the civilian suffering and look at
another, Gaza, and not only seem not to care (thus far – 2% of the child
population has been killed) but continue
to supply weapons.
Wonder
no more.
Just
cast your eye momentarily at the US electoral race between a competent, decent,
accomplished, articulate black/Asian woman and an old white male convicted
felon, sexual abuser, allegedly incontinent, racist who refused to accept the
results of the last election leading to the horrors of Jan 6th.
Really look at how close the election still is.
The
Harris v Trump race literally explains all that is inexplicable in the modern
world.
So despite Michelle Obama's fantastic closing speech
in Michigan lauded by many as distilling the real absurdities and realities of the American
democratic crisis and despite the reassuring summary of long-time political
sage and Lincoln Project snr adviser Stuart Stevens still - I really, really just can’t look…
However, Trump decided to hold a rally
reminiscent of Hitler’s 1939 Madison Square Garden event organised by the German
American Bund. Hitler – sorry Trump’s invited speaker Tony Hinchcliffe, at this MSG rally did not hold back with a racist jibe++ at Puerto Rico. Problem is, one of the key US swing states – Pennsylvania - has around 300k PR residents. In 2020 Biden won it by
just 80k votes and in 2016 Trump by about half that.
So – I’ still can’t look but maybe Trump's Hitler tribute act will help bring enough folk to their senses.
*
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