September-October 2024 79
VILLAGE IDIOT
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 24
DONALD TRUMP (78)
Real-estate billionaire and reality-show host. President USA, 2017-2021; voted out
2021 though does not accept that; candidate again in November.
Trump has brought little but discord to the discourse.
His opponents don’t know how to handle him or his supporters.
He does not regard truth as a thing.
His supporters appear to be unswayable no matter how badly he behaves or what he
says.
Rather than supporting what Trump stands for they appear to be somehow focused on
antagonising liberals, do-gooders and those who are most opposed to Trump, instead.
This may be because they have been psychologically traumatised by a sense they
are victims in life — with the world, led by its establishment and its science, ranked
against them.
Or it may be because they have genuinely been ill-served by a self-serving liberal elite.
Inequality in the US, driven by the ascendancy of the very richest, is shocking and
rising. Living standards have not improved for ordinary people over the last generation.
But Trump’s policies in general won’t help ordinary Americans, less still the worst off,
and least of all the most socially vulnerable.
The discourse allows Trump casually to lie and misbehave pervasively but if his
opponents lie or misbehave once they are liable to be nailed and assailed for it.
It should not.
The discourse treats seriously claims that Democrats are inspiring violence against
Trump by listing the dangers he poses to democracy; and therefore that listing the
dangers is as great a threat to democracy as the dangers listed.
It should not.
If Trump is a danger to democracy the truth must be told, often, intrepidly and with ho
holds barred. If, as he does, he trades in violence it is he — rather than the people who
want him to stop trading in violence — who must be stopped. Through politics. Any
other approach risks bringing down the fragile, and not boundless, benefi ts of twenty-
fi rst-century democracy: and is therefore too dangerous to even be worth considering.
If the discourse favours democracy, it should make this approach central.
It is not clear what Trump, a narcissist, wants to achieve through his exercise of power,
except dangerous self-promotion. He has no principles and no morality. He does not
believe in democracy except as a vehicle to his ends. Populism is the policy calculated
to optimise his brand, to elevate his ego. If it’s popular in America to take the world to
the abyss he will do it. This makes him one of the worst people imaginable to be the
most powerful man in the world.
Voters get their chance to have him back on Tuesday, November 5.
October-November 2024 79
VillageOctNov24.indb 79 03/10/2024 14:27

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