The old man laughed indulgently, holding in check a deeper, more explosive delight. His goading remained gentle. “Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so.

Nately squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, forever is a long time, I guess.”

“A million years?” persisted the old man with keen, sadistic zest. “A half million? The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with it’s fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is the highest in the world, will last as long as the… frog?”

Joseph Heller ‘Catch-22’

There was a meme about whether Liz Truss could last as PM as long as the lettuce in the photo. There is no actual photo of the lettuce on the day that Liz resigned/was pushed/gave up, so we don’t have verification but the general consensus is that the lettuce lasted longer…

I hope it doesn’t sound sexist when I refer to that failure of Prime Minister as “Liz” when I don’t refer to other male leaders by their first names. For example, I don’t call Trump “Donald”… I usually just refer to him as that pathetic piece of shit…

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because these people have conservative views that upsets me. I respect their right to hold whatever opinion they choose because isn’t that what freedom is all about? It’s their total inability to stick to anything that could be considered an opinion.

If I sound a little bit harsh it’s because I can’t understand the rhetoric from the media…

For example:

• Kamala Harris has to battle precedent because the US has never elected a female, let alone a black one… (I presume that PPOS will allow me to refer to her as black ever if she’s not allowed to call herself that!)
• On the other hand, nobody points out that Trump has to defy precedent because no convicted felon has ever been elected… no person of his age… no person who “allegedly” tried to mount an insurrection… no person who’s been caught on tape taking about sexually assaulting women (yes, it was just “locker talk” even though there wasn’t a locker in sight)…

I could go on, but I may find myself getting distracted from my original point about taking the long view.

There are many times when we get distracted about how events affect us personally. The result of the US election will undoubtedly cause a lot of grief for people, but will it be good for other people in the long run? After all, if Marie Antoinette had actually let the people eat cake, maybe the French would still be oppressed by unelected rulers and if the British hadn’t beheaded Charles the First then maybe Charles the Third (say that with an Irish accent) would still be in charge and they’d be doing more about climate change… We don’t know about the long term.

Whatever happens in this coming election, it’s pretty clear that the orderly transfer of power where everyone accepts the result because the United States isn’t one of those countries where dictators rig elections is now gone…and once you no longer believe in the idea that elections are free and fair, well, you don’t know what to believe and you’re victim of whichever demagogue can convince you to die for them so that they can rule you in a fairer way than the guy who didn’t care whether you lived or died, so die for me because I’m the one who will mourn you!

While I’m pretty sure that the USA won’t last longer than the frog, I suspect that it will last longer than a lettuce. However, Trump is possibly taking the proverbial lettuce out of the fridge and that means that it may not last as long as it could have.

Perhaps, I should have called this: “TRUMP AIN’T KISSING NO FROG BECAUSE HE DON’T NEED NO PRINCE”!