TRIAL OF THE CENTURY

Regardless of whether you think the NY case was trivial and an example of ‘lawfare’, or a billionaire crook finally getting his comeuppance, it’s the realignment of the political parties I find to be the most interesting aspect of this whole thing. We are living through history, as they say. Oh no, I’m using ‘they say’ in my musings… I have definitely entered middle-age. In the United States, if you have a university degree and a Lexus parked in the driveway, chances are you are a Democrat. If you don’t have a degree and work a blue-collar job, it’s likely you identify more as a Republican. Yet, it was the complete opposite before the Tea Party came along and this current realignment began in earnest. There are always exceptions, of course… there are Democrats horrified by the mob rule of cancel culture and Republicans who died a little inside when toddlers were separated from their mothers at the Mexican border. But think about it; party realignments happen only every hundred years or so. And a president who slept with an adult film actress?! That was always the purview of the Democrats. Clinton made it pretty clear liberals confused serial infidelity with political virility. I remember left-leaning journalists writing things like (and I paraphrase), ‘The French don’t suffer hangups about their leaders having affairs.’ And remember ‘W’ saying he was bringing decency back to the Oval Office? Now it’s Republicans who couldn’t be bothered about their candidate’s personal life.

I know, it is provocative to suggest one doesn’t get to Trump without Clinton. In an age when, the morning after he was caught cheating, the politician appeared on his front doorstep to apologise to his family and resign, Clinton turned that inevitability on its head. He might have done the decent thing and handed the reins of power over to his vice president. But, instead, Clinton punched back. In doing so, he cut the strings that tie moral integrity to electoral viability. He normalised ‘boys will be boys’ behaviour, and Trump subsequently ran partly on that very thing in 2016. I’m not sure that genie can be put back in its bottle. Now, even illegal behaviour is to fall into the category of mere self-protection for the party of whoever is under investigation.

I’m a dyed-in-the-wool centrist. I like boring policy wonks. Charisma is for actors and is the death of good governance, in my opinion. Of course, as a GenXer, my opinion counts for absolutely nothing at any time anywhere. I believe in democracy, but I’m not convinced it can survive social media, which encourages the demhumanisation of anyone not physically standing right in front of us. Truly, how can democracy survive such blanket hatred? Figuring that out will be the hard work of the coming decades. Right now, though, how awful it must be for people on both sides of the aisle completely confused by the fact that their political party has left them behind. You can see it in the pained expressions of the faces of retiring politicians. To quote LOTR, ‘How did it come to this?’

Meanwhile, the West is permitting the use of its weapons on targets inside Russia, and Putin is threatening nuclear retaliation. Plus, an MIT professor has re-confirmed the data of a 1970’s study that determined the Western economy will collapse around 2040. I wonder what trial-by-jury will look like in 2050? Maybe the real trial of the century is yet to come.