I don’t really want to write about Trump, but when I try to do one of my mildly ironic slice-of-Japanese-life vignettes, I find myself thinking through how we got to this stage where a bigoted buffoon is America’s chosen leader. Like retracing my steps from divorce to the original days of courtship, how did it get to this level of hate when once there was only mirth? Like the good novelist I aspire to be, I don’t have any definitive answers, just thoughts and questions to explore. Like these:
The conservative paranoia of the World Against America was more compelling than the liberal ideal of Benign Multi-Culturism. How much of this fear is strictly down to media moguls spreading hate and conspiracy theories for the last 30-odd years? How much is self-sown?
Trump had a message — Vote for me and I will shake things up. You want (the impossible) days of yore? I’ll make them happen, or at least piss off the elites in the process. You wanna watch?
Clinton had nothing so compelling as much as she wasn’t Trump (which, frankly was good enough for me, but I don’t get my news from Breitbart). The whole first woman president thing felt like an addendum. Frankly, other countries have competent female leaders in various feminine-lite business attire and it isn’t any better (or worse, that’s the thing about equality) than blokes in suits running the show.
Now what? Does Trump deserve our respect as Our President or can liberals turn their backs like conservatives did on Barack and Bill, huffing “He’s not my president.”
Is the fear that Trump will rip up the Constitution valid? Or are those fears as absurd as the conspiracy theories on the other side of UN troop invasions, Obama concentration camps and all the rest? And on a real note, maybe Obama should have dismantled the global surveillance state he’s quietly allowed to grow, now that a mentally unstable man will be at the controls.
What happens to Japan? And the rest of the planet? And its climate? Is there any place for reality in this brave new world?
I don’t know.
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