This horror movie’s real

Only that great American comedy The Simpsons could do the current state of America justice. Goodness knows the rolling tragedy needs some levity. True, there was the outright hilarious sight of Donald Trump holding up what he said was a Bible in front of a church. It reminded me of the equally hilarious duel in The Lord of the Rings between the good (Gandalf) and bad (Saruman the White) wizards. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to rock with laughter in either case at the po-faced brandishing of weapons/talismans. And I mean that kindly.

I wondered aloud what Trump was really holding in that stunt, or photo opportunity, as his coven cowered around him. It could have been an old diary for all we know, because he didn’t have the gumption to open it and call on scripture to back his campaign of inciting violence.

The prophet Isaiah’s bit about beating swords into ploughshares could have been relevant, or ‘‘Blessed be the peacemakers’’, which would have left him choking, but he could have tried it for fun. It was a new pose, piety, and he was suitably unconvincing.

I suspect he’s got his hopes up about stirring street violence in the months leading to the election, starting now, so that he’ll seem to be a patriotic hero who quelled a revolution. For that he needs the vandalism and looting to continue unabated.

Sadly for him, the genuine marchers against racism are now calling out that element, policing them without the help of the amped-up legion of military and paramilitary Trump has dragged in hopefully to rough up people voicing their constitutional right to be heard.

His fan base, he seems to think, needs footage of people – black, white, whatever – bleeding and dragged by the hair to waiting paddywagons.

The South American dictator in Trump is struggling to take over what shreds of respectability remain. It’s like something in the Alien franchise.

American history is inspiring and brutal in equal measure, which is why it makes such great horror movies. It fought two wars to forge itself as a nation, against the British as colonials, then against itself in a civil war.

Its founding fathers were inspired by the French Revolution’s cry of liberty, equality and fraternity, but the country has always struggled with equality and fraternity between whites and blacks. There was also the horror show dispossessing Native Americans of their lands with heart-stopping cruelty.

You might have noticed the equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, seventh president, in Lafayette Square in front of the White House in news reports. In his career, and that of other presidents since, there was a mixed bag of good and bad.

He sought to advance the rights of ‘‘the common man’’ against ‘‘the aristocracy,’’ we’re told, a vision that did not include black slaves. He may have owned up to 300 black human beings on his cotton plantations and campaigned against abolition.

The inscription under the statue reads ‘‘Our Federal Union It Must Be Preserved’’. He was big on that, too.

Fittingly, considering the horse and the pose, Jackson was a general in the United States Army. He served in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. He also killed a man in a duel, and was the first president to survive an attempted assassination.

There was more to him, of course, but such was the rough mixture that made up the man who’s been on that spot since 1853.

No-one will ever raise an equivalent statue to Trump. It wouldn’t be fair on the horse.