Comments over Those Fallen

 

Some comments on those fallen would seem a gloomy title for a poem, but there is across party lines scant reason not to see it as a struggle above victory, an accomplishment sans celebration, a triumph only of the less angelic avenues of their minds, regardless of who can claim the ostensible hold on the mythological number of 270 electors. 270 men, women and else, who will perform the actual, nigh-sacred duties of electors, in lieu of the hundreds of millions (over one yi , a limit reached in the momentous last year of last millennium, not to be outdone by the figure "billion" until another two centuries). Whether those electors will continue performing those duties is one question on the slab, to awake or be done with, at least 

My prediction of 2016, my last - so to speak - . This time, it is decidedly harder, and 

No, Iowa stays red and the two junior states are swapped, and would it not be merry if they were, appropriately after climate. "Wiscigan" must not necessarily split, although my prejudice tells me the negative fallout of certain stalwart DNC foreign policy, as well as a waltz with the governor of the sole state of Mondale (the apparent choice for a candidate herself chosen while a California senator) may favour Wisconsin. All in all, the "false landslide" seems speculative, and neither will - as John Doe did - collect all seven. Elsewise, shall Nevada prove, as in 2006, a stunning upset?

To their fans, they may be idols, but they are neither demigods or statesmen. This is the age of looming oligarchy, not a vicious single-party tyranny, and while Trump has long since made no secret of the relationship between his own ego . In this regard, however, I consider the oligarchic tendencies of the Democratic party just as alerting, if not exactly recent. Post-liberal liberalism, liberal democracy sans the demos part, .  

How, then, will he handle Chairman Xi? The Russian Vozhd, as he might as well be called? Will issues of adulation be offered, and what harsh terms will be proffered 

And how did I get here? 

The Experiment Resumed (across the aisle)

 

Donald Trump, the comeback geezer. Who would have thought, even eight or seven years ago, that he would stand at the precipice of another non-consecutive term, a feat undeniably born as much from tactless Democratic arrogance, and incompetence, as from his own inarguably magnetic, if magnetically divisive, command of charisma. If he wins, as he is - as opposed to in 2016, as well known by this author - predicted doing, he will be 

And arguably, Donald Trump is unfit for this office. I myself, though I steered clear of that specific iceberg of a phrase 

And then, on the other side of the strait, a Scylla, Ms. Harris. A woman - the fact so cherished by her superior predecessor, Mrs. Clinton, in 2016, now very selectively (and perhaps neurotically) upheld as an argument from the "diversity" crowd - of far narrower intellectual proportions, almost touching those of her predecessor. This, as the elderly ex-housekeeper familiar to the call of Carcosa said in True Detective, should frighten you, but not for the same reasons. While his front porch, or basement, or keyboard strategy, arguably understandable in 2020, was dictated by the need for a constitutional monarch, protected from result and blemish by any meaningful primary, her being put in the same position, a maid at the bow of the ship of democracy, heralds far greater horrors as far as the position and integrity of the office is concerned. Yes; I am not beyond saying these words of her as well. While it "should be enough", as has been said (perhaps not enough) of her contender . And if that is not enough, should the fact she is neck in neck to the man, Donald Trump, not the most popular (ex-)president in United States history, or even biting at his sordid coattails, be enough? 

Be that as it may, whichever candidate you regard as impossible - a choice seemingly much in line with sex, as it has been in my country of birth - or whether, conclusively, you find that a serious ballot (leaving alone whether there is anything else) can be cast for either party which have held a monopoly since the exit of Mr. Fillmore in March 1853, it is clear that a gradual and very symbiotic degeneration of both parties . Hence, the two-party system, while predictable and largely sympathetic, for as long it held conservative Democrats (now an extinct species) and liberal Republicans (now the conservative ones being the hounded minority) is to blame. We must . And here I would put much blame, if blame for inaction can ever be issued, at Mr. Sanders, who I have praised and wished good fortune in the past not because of my complete coherence with him on issues, or admiration of his deep intellectual rigour, but for identifying something which is not only, and could be much more popular, but also... unifying. Well, what would have been wrong with an American Party? In this, at least, I must offer my gracious praise of Mrs. Stein. Third time's the charm, it is said, and although I agree with GRRM:s stillborn praise, supporting her agenda and denouncing her character (an important issue, and not only to be used as a dagger against the Orange One) was sub-par. With Mr. West I know . Of Mr. Kennedy, well, while much positive may be spoken, he is now as much a figure of the past as well as, conceivably, the future - but not, under any circumstance, of next Tuesday. His feat this year was a great betrayal, though it followed on a crime so abominable it may, perhaps, be washed out with outright betrayal, though not, I think, by sullying his own colours. 

The One Hundred Years of Carter

It was a moment I had been waiting for, if a bit unsteady . The record set by the second, if 

 

The Ire of the "Wrong" Winner

The predictable, but decreasing gusto of voices decrying the imminent fall of democracy has yet again risen, if with predictable parrotlike repetition, over the weekend's election in Austria. Held five years after the snap election forced by the Ibiza scandal, 

The FPÖ, the "Liberty", or rather "libertarian" party of Austria, has however marked itself against the twicket of far right/populist far, populist, hard or even "new" right through existing throughout the entire post-occupation (ending in 1955, and leaving behind a constitutional scar in neutrality, requiring the permission of victory powers in belatedly entering the European Union 40 years later), posing a challenge which has often been considered, well, "queer" rather than frightening, and a different electorate. In essence, it is a party difficult to grasp in terms of ideology and tenable to do so only in terms class, posing a "third estate" or middle ground to the industrialist, upper-class, conservative ÖVP (the heir to the party which ran the Austrian dictatorship during the 1930s, and hardly ever denounced for it) and the working-class SPD, a faction of the socio-economic centre, simultaneously of liberal and the nationalist, or the Liberal Democrats and UKIP if you will. 

This has changed, of course, through the inexorable and irrevocable process of breaking through, posing now - at an "old" figure of a bare 30 % - the role of the "major" party of Austria. In some regards, it is no more imposing now than in 1999, and in the likely red-cyan coalition which will emerge, perhaps less so. 

The Ire of Power

Among the greater qualities of Frank Herbert's recently re-lauded Dune saga is the question of power, and how it is not a feast of . And apart from the truly disgusting, to most of its non-contemporary viewers, examples the 

Equally true, it must seem now, is the notion that the president of the United States, the informal "leader of the free world", quotation marks to observe the too-obvious contradiction, could not be the firm authority demanded by the office, short of a Palpatinesque performance now wielded against his chances of maintaining that office, and thus - from the far cry of opposition, rather than succumbing in name to a successor - the power flowing from (if not alongside) it, imperium and potestas and auctoritas in all. 

A Sloping Roof

The metaphor of roof, substituted for the more appropriate "ceiling" in a famous clash of minds, usually utilised to herald the limits (or non-limits) for political , saw a swift to the exterior with the humbug excuse offered 

How much, it must now be asked, has this sloping roof cost the Biden campaign, perhaps undeservingly. Notwithstanding, as some have observed, elements in the Democratic party have rallied to legislate away the once and future president's already questioned security detail, 

Day of Liberty - and Death

 

The supposed juxtaposition, or very real in verbal terms, of "liberty" and "democracy", sometimes with "peace" and "co-operation" juxtaposed just as much against a menacing "division" (begging, yet again, the qeustion the frontier between opposition and division lies within this healthy democracy) are seldom taken to the extreme so much, and perhaps so earnestly, as with the flying of lead and passing of steel. I myself wrote, now nearly six years past and near half the lifespan of this publication, of the attempt on the Brazilian "Trump's" life, the lugubrious and since-convicted (following a proud Brazilian tradition, or perhaps - or not - of its judiciary)