Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
“I don’t know what weapons the Third World War will fought with,” Einstein is reported to have said when interviewed after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “but the fourth will be fought with sticks and stones.”
I feel the same way about elections. I’m not sure how elections will be fought in the next few years, but in the next decade I fear most of them will become little more than auctions. It seems that there is competition all over the world to see what parties can make the most outrageous claims, in the manner of bidders at an auction competing to offer the most money.
“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Trump’s famous claim, based on comments by J D Vance, who seems to have taken them from an “influencer”, who made it all up, seems hard to beat. But it isn’t . It’s been done before. I’ve seen and heard similar things in Britain over the years, and if I were in Lincoln 800 years ago I’d be listening to a story with a similar feel to it. It’s not much of an advert for the human race that this form of racism is still popular, and that it still wins votes.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Apart from the outrageous claims, there is the financial aspect of auctions too, and Musk throwing his money about has brought that into the process in an obvious way. You probably all know my thoughts of the uS elections – get rid of all the clutter that surrounds it, like voter registration, postal voting, televised debates and just make it into a straight auction. You could save all the campaigning money and use it to buy a result then, in the style of the old tax farming days, you could concentrate on using your presidency for personal gain.
In case you are worrying that I’ve become political, I haven’t. I’m just continuing the old themes of cynicism and farce. The fact this involves politics is purely coincidental.
Subjects for future discussion include racism, religion and eating dogs.
Banknotes – Zambia
There are times when I feel quite cheerful about being nearly dead.
I said exactly the same thing to my sister earlier today. 🙂
Very, very discouraging, Quercus. Compared with Trump, Biden feels like St. Joe. And that comment about eating dogs and cats was both nasty and ridiculous. But that’s how Vance runs.
It’s a great fault with electoral systems that we can’t just vote to eject candidates who make comments like that.
I wish us all luck getting through these times.
True. 🙂
The Third World War is being fought with drones and verbiage
That will be OK as long as they don’t escalate it. Having said that, I’d not complain about a reduction in verbiage.
You have succumbed to commenting on Trump. My daughter made me promise I wouldn’t. But I had my fingers crossed behind my back. Unfortunately we are all going to be affected . And I will probably not be able to say definitely that I saw the decline and fall of the American Experiment but I can say we are all looking at the crumbling of the foundations.
Yes, it’s Churchillian in that this may not be the beginning of the end, but does seem to be the end of the beginning.
All I need to worry about now is whether my life will be dictated by Europe, Russia, China, social media or Islam. Always something to worry about in the life of a xenophobic jingoist! 🙂