Comrades,
While I've been sidelined for a bit, news has been filtering through from Stateside that the President of the United States is on the rampage as campaigning starts to heat up in earnest for the first Tuesday after the first Monday
in November. He doesn't believe it when Mrs "I pray for you" Pelosi barks "Once impeached, always impeached!". [Just ask Uncle Bill Clinton, he'll tell ya]. It matters diddly-squat in Universe Donald. Acquitted in a charade of
a Senate trial over the Ukrainian brou-ha-ha where no witnesses were called and no evidence was adduced before a decidedly disinterested Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who was eager to do his level best to do
nothing. Got off Scot free along partisan lines, thanks to the good ol' Grand Old Party. Just what the Founding Father's would have envisaged as they put quill to parchment and scribbled out the hallowed Constitution.
Don't you know if you've ever seen Daniel Day-Lewis doing a star turn in the motion picture Lincoln (described by one critic as 'a very good movie about voting' - which it is), but in the entire 150 minute fillum, the Lincoln character only raises his voice once, as he thumps a fist on a table and says "The President of the United States has tremendous powers! And I intend to use them!" Aint that the truth?
The Donald has taken that advice on board big time since his acquittal, announcing to the world that he is now "America's Chief Law Enforcement Officer". It's like saying "The Law? What Law? I am The Law!" Despots love that sort of trash talking to bits. And dictators also have a penchant for getting rid of anyone who has ever gone after them - which is exactly what the Trumpotus has done, firing anyone and everyone in the Justice Dept. who's ever had anything remotely to do with the "Russian Hoax Investigation", or just making their positions untenable, which ever is easier. Never mind his Attorney General saying one thing when he means another and quietly stacking the lower Federal Courts with ultra-conservative reactionary judges, once that's out the way, then you can go about using the unfettered Presidential power of pardoning and commuting the jail sentences of your criminal mob mates, and various other lackey's, crony's, toadies, suckjobs, arse lickers, parasites, grovelling hangers-on, apparatchiks and running dogs who've found themselves on the wrong side of the scales of justice for simply doing The Donald an honest favour. It seems he was told it would be good grace to also pardon some hard-done-by common or garden criminals just for balance and appearances. For Gawd' sake. How miserable does it get?
But never mind any of this currying of favours - DJ!'s use of the tremendous powers of the Presidency is no more apparent than when it comes to Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. Take for example, the brilliant campaign stunt he pulled off at the Daytona 500 NASCAR race. Staged at the Daytona International Speedway (seated spectator capacity 101,000) at beautiful Daytona Beach, Florida, it's America's biggest motor race outside the Indy 500. The Trumpotus thought it might be a good idea to drop on by, given that Florida has a long and tortured history as an electoral battle ground state with dodgy one-armed bandits counting the votes (just ask Al Gore - he'll tell ya). Of course, DJ! has zero interest in motor racing, but he knew full well his audience would be on the redneck side in a goodly majority. So, here's how the brief visit trackside unfolded. The Presidential plane - the highly modified and mighty Boeing 747-200 Jumbo - did a low level pass over the speedway, before Air Force One arced into a sweeping loop and landed at the Daytona International Airport, which just so happens to be right next door to the race track. As the The US Air Force Thunderbirds did an aerobatic display in their super-charged F-16's, the Trumpotus was couched into the waiting Presidential Limousine, which soon enough appeared on the circuit itself, doing a full lap of the 2.5 mile race track, followed by his entire entourage of Secret Service vehicles. Some of the crowd, according to the Reuters report, started chanting "four more years! for more years!". The Limmo then stopped at the podium, the Donald with the shy and retiring First Lady clambered out and mounted the dais. The Trumpotus then "briefly addressed the crowd" before, in his role as Grand Marshall, said the time-honoured words: "Gentlemen, start your engines". (There are currently no lady drivers in NASCAR). The race cars then lined up behind the Presidential armoured vehicle known as "The Beast" and they all did another lap, before the Limmo pulled off and exited the speedway taking the creaking buffoon's carcass with it. Now, you can only do that if you're the President. Scotty from Marketing would be having wet dreams about it. The race cars then did yet another parade lap, and finally, they were off and racing! However, after 20 laps, it started raining heavily and the race stopped. Oh no! (it's not possible to drive at speed on wet, banked, oval tracks). As the glorious Florida weather set in, the race was postponed, and it was then run and won the next day, Monday. Never mind. Or call it an omen, if you want, but it's probably too soon to get out the crystal ball.
Forever the showman and carnival spruiker, The Donald might be as dumb as a fucktard, but he's not stupid - he knows how to campaign - had plenty of practice back in '16 he did, and the rules are very simple. Appeal to the lower appetites and the baser instincts and always, always, back the horse called called Self Interest, because that's the only thing 95% of the American electorate is interested in. And after all, this bizzare Yankee self-boosterist par excellence has always relied, as it was neatly put mid-week by the Associated Press, on "the audacity of hype". Never mind the Donald's posse of Masters of the Dark Arts busily rigging the Electoral College once again, or them damned Ruskies already having their grubby little fingers in the campaign, with their army of bots currently flooding yr Soshul Meejah promoting the living bejesus out of the now front-running Democrat candidate Senator Sanders better than his own campaign does. Just doing The Donald an honest favour. Vlad the Impaler down in the Kremlin knows full well that an ageing self-confessed Agrarian Socialist from rural Vermont who runs on campaign slogans like "Not Me. Us" and "The Real Revolution Starts Here" has two chances of beating the Trumpotus in a general election - none and Buckley's, you might think. Who knows? But as Daytona showed, it's why the tremendous value of incumbency is beyond pure gold and into platinum territory in the American Miracle of Democracy. There have only been three one-term Presidents since the Great Depression, and just six in the 130 years before then. You do the math.
Photo's courtesy the Associated Press.
