The "queue", to which John refers, is about to become a roll of dishonour. Perhaps Trump should be aware that he jostles in May's list with Erdogan and Modi. Perhaps May should wake up to Trump's blaring "rule" number two - "Buy American" - before she scribbles her signature, with Faustian flourish, to any 'deal'. Perhaps, here, we should all promote a triple volume offer of reprints - Orwell's 1984, Roth's The Plot Against America, and Paul Dehn's Quake, Quake, Quake.
The veteran Viennese refugee journalist, Willi Frischauer, commenting on the notion that there was such an animal as a 'new' Nixon, shortly before Watergate broke, offered the reflection, "The thing that worries me about these politicians, is that they actually mean what they say." Go figure.
As to the evaluation of Trump and the Obama years, the brilliant Guardian journalist Peter Jenkins, writing of the looming re-election of Nixon, set up a comparison, which would transfer well today....
"Barack Obama is a ten times better man than Donald Trump, and let him be remembered when the stains of Trump's presidency have been scrubbed out from the American heritage." Now, it seems, we must all hope that your heritage - and ours - lasts that long.
|