At some point in his life, H.L. Mencken scribbled into his notepad:
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
And here we are. November 8, 2016. This is that ‘great and glorious day’ that Mencken preached – only he was joking, for America and the world the fact that Crooked Hillary or The Donald are about to seat themselves down in the Oval Office is a dark and terrifying reality.
Out of over 318 million people in the U.S., around 50 candidates were borne which was eventually narrowed down bit by bit, waving goodbye to Bernie Sanders, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Ben Carson on the way, to Trump and Clinton. The vile spawn of a ultra-rich businessman and a failed politician who lies quicker than her husband.
See, when it first hit screens across the globe back in 2012, I thought The Campaign was just a funny film – but now it’s obvious it was a premonition.
Essentially what we have on our hands is a presidential election taking place right now between one candidate who thinks it’s okay to grab women ‘by the pussy’, refuses to publish his tax returns, and is considering banning an entire religion from America; and another candidate who has been investigated by the FBI on numerous occasions, lies prolifically, and wants elections, outside of the U.S., to be rigged. As if that wasn’t enough around 50 per cent of Americans actually believe Clinton should be in jail…
Examples of Clinton’s lies are quite easily accessible online. Back in 2010 she rather casually told ABC: ‘I have not supported same sex marriage’, but then in 2013, Clinton proudly boasted that she had ‘supported marriage for lesbian and gay couples’.
In January of this year Clinton claimed: ‘I voted for border security and some of it was a fence. I guess it was a kind of wall’. Just a few months later and Hillary was quick to quip: ‘We will not build a wall!’.
It goes on. 2008: ‘I will do everything to urge the Congress to reject the Colombian Free Trade Deal’. 2011: ‘One of our top goals is to complete Free Trade with Colombia’.
Now trust me, there’s a lot more evidence out there that Hillary is not much better than The Donald – but she is, without doubt, mildly better. Despite some major fuck ups, for the majority of Clinton’s career she has maintained a relatively liberal stance and succeeded in most of her work.
As for Donald, he’s failed countless times as a businessman considering that small old loan he was given by his daddyo. Trump Airlines – failed. Trump Vodka – failed. Trump Mortgage – failed. Trump The Game, Trump Casinos, Trump Steak, and Magazine – all failed.
This is a man who boasts about sexually assaulting women, a man who boasts about tax avoidance, and a man who’s never stood in office – nevermind the fucking Oval Office. The thought of a man who turned a $1 million dollar loan into a successful career – but one rife with failure – does not justify a man to be President of the United States, especially when that big red button would be sitting just in front of his fingertips.
Just last night Trump said in his final plea: ‘We’re just hours away from the change you’ve been waiting for your entire life. I am with you. I will fight for you. And I will win for you, I promise’. Personally, that change isn’t the sort of change I fancy but as people across the globe continue to look towards extremism to quell their endless dissatisfaction with the establishment, and rightly so, it looks more and more like a possibility.
But just how catastrophic will this election be? Well according to Dominic Waghorn from Sky News, it could be devastating on a global scale.
Dominic refers to Trump’s claims that he will rip up trade agreements with the West, take one giant leap out of NATO, and annihilate relationships with America’s allies. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that’s incredibly risky behaviour.
Commenting on the matter, the Former British ambassador to the U.S., Sir Christopher Meyer, said:
It could be that he puts a nail in the coffin of the North Atlantic Alliance. He’s already said if that state in his view is not paying its dues to the NATO budget then Article 5 will be suspended.
That is truly a nail in the coffin of the post-Second World War international order.
To fear monger a little bit more, the Financial Times‘ Economics Commentator Martin Wolf claimed that ‘the West might soon be lost’.
He added:
If things are to go extremely badly, the global economy goes into a global recession because of the trade wars he launches, lots of the debt in the world collapses because everyone has lost faith in the underpinnings of the global economy and we’re back in the 30s.
I don’t think we have ever seen a candidate emerging of this kind in the US, actually really ever.
Certainly since it’s been a great power. And I think we are right to be worried about the potential implications of this transformation of the basis of American democracy.
Never in the history of the modern world has a presidential election led political scientists and commentators to predict the end of western civilisation.
Personally my biggest issue with this election, and what will be a dark reality for the next four years, is the fact that neither candidate is good. This is not a ‘Good vs Evil’ election, this is merely an evil (Trump) vs a very slightly lesser evil (Clinton) going head to head to become leader of the Free World.
With Brexit on the horizon, a second cold war with Russia looming ever closer, the Middle East disintegrating into a scorched Earth of violence, terrorism, and religious feuds.
China is expanding its territory and military, North Korea is forever threatening world war and doing all they can to launch a nuclear bomb – it’s a haunting time for humanity and very little is certain.
The only thing that is certain, however, is that in the near unnerving future, the Oval Office will seat the fat arse of a ‘downright moron’ for the next four years.
Here’s to the future.
