Donald Trump and his supporters are a danger to us all
SOME of the changes over the last few weeks have defied belief. Here both the King and the Princess of Wales have been hospitalised. However the temporary transfer of the weight of royal duties to the Queen and Princess Anne has been smooth.
The course of events in the US have been very different. It is a threat to us all.
The first Trump presidency was bad enough. It ended with the Capitol Riot, which was intended to stop the legally elected president, Joe Biden, from taking office. Over the years Trump’s supporters’ attitudes have hardened. The myth of the ‘stolen’ election has mutated into historical fact.
There is nothing Donald Trump could do that would shake the rockhard faith of the Old Stone Age Right.
Now his determination to please his supporters is endangering us all. He has asserted that any NATO member not paying its dues would not be defended by the US. Putin could do as he wished, he added. This announcement caused consternation among all the politicians and generals of Europe, particularly as it comes on top of supplying Ukraine with weapons. He is risking the loss of Europe and us to please xenophobic rednecks whose priority is the exclusion of would-be migrants from Mexico.
American isolation is nothing new. It required the German sinking of the ‘Lusitania,’ with the loss of American lives, to help President Woodrow Wilson to propel the US into World War I.
After the war the country sank back into isolation and refused to support the New League of Nations. In the 1930s it virtually ignored the rise of Hitler. President Roosevelt realised the seriousness of the totalitarian threat but only the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 pushed the US into World War II.
However it learned from experience, not to mention the fear of communism, and was one of the founders of the United Nations, becoming ‘Globocop.’ It fought wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, to name but three.
But now, perhaps understandably, some sections of American opinion have had enough and would like to return to isolation. But we live in a different world.
Contact, information transmission and decision-making are worldwide and immediate in their effects. Isolation is an illusion.
Trump and what he represents are not the only threats. In the last few weeks it has become obvious that President Biden is suffering from increasing memory loss. His wife and staff have tried to conceal this, but now even his own party is worried. If he is like this now, in what condition will he be by the presidential election in November, let alone holding office again? On the other hand no obvious successor has presented himself or herself.
Rule by one person carries vulnerabilities. As they age, leaders are more heavily influenced by family and friends.
Contemplation. In the present era of long lives and widespread dementia, could there not be some similar fallback arrangement for republics? Or at least an upper age limit? With two octogenarians, both suffering from mental deterioration, in charge of the world’s most powerful country (for the time being), we have reason to worry.
Let us hope that if we survive, precautionary measures can be taken against anything like this happening again.