Essays in Idleness

The world turns, or rather, it rotates, which is a less dramatic thing than, say, an iceberg flipping over. Even less dramatically, the ice freezes, or melts away; or there is the spectacle of the livid paint of our rhetoric, gradually drying. Most of what can be seen in our “environment” is undramatic; the rest cannot be seen. It is a blank rhetorical colouring book, for our verbs and adjectives.

As today is the sixth, my rhetoric will be on Donald Trump. Readers through the years since he became the news have easily misjudged my views on him. I am against politics, by disposition, and as Trump’s disposition is against that part of politics I am most against, I often seem to be among his fans. But I am not, because he is not reliable.

The 6th of January 2021 was, as all intelligent observers have had time to discern, a “set-up.” It was a fairly peaceful demonstration by some Republicans which some Democrats used to distract from having twisted the election. Progressive media routinely spun or suppressed information favourable to Mr Trump, who nevertheless received what would have been a record number of votes. But his lazy and undistinguished opponent scored more votes still, against known statistical principles, and won all the tight races by results which changed overnight. But the fraudulent effects made possible by mail-in voting and machine tabulation were dwarfed by the effect of a smearing campaign of lies in the progressive media.

Let’s say, I don’t like Trump because of the way he handled the Batflu. He accepted false claims by the World Health Organization, and the American public health bureaucracies aligned with it; he gave power to Anthony Fauci and others like him; he let Americans be exploited for the profit of Big Pharma; and he failed to launch investigations that could have quickly exposed the truth about the “Covid pandemic.” Most outrageously, Trump allowed the lockdowns to proceed.

So how could I like him? … Other than for his style, which is an affront to progressives.

I wouldn’t have voted for Hitler, in that season of disgrace, ninety years ago, but then, I wouldn’t have voted for the “social democrats,” either, or for Thälmann, the Communist. I think I would just have thrown my vote away on Heinrich Held, the Catholic Bavarian. More likely, I wouldn’t vote. In this way, in the German Reich, 5th of March 1933, I would have reduced my influence over the national destiny, from one in forty million votes for the moment, to zero, tops.

Trump is entirely unlike Hitler, by the way. He is loud and vulgar, but quick, and he has an agreeable sense of humour. He is also entirely unlike Herr Held, but I might vote for him anyway. This would be for the personal satisfaction of annoying leftish people. But so far as I can see, the Democrats will win the election, regardless of the way that people vote.