The media are reporting that anti-Trump protesters are outnumbering pro-Trump protesters at various places throughout the USA. This is being disputed by the Trump camp who argue that only protesters who’d been there since Election Day should be counted.
Of course, it’s not just this that some Trump supporters dispute. Apart from not believing in the idea that carbon dioxide could be harmful because it’s a natural gas while simultaneously believing that it’ll poison you when you wear a mask, they also refuse to believe that Democrat voters are capable of mailing their votes. “Don’t vote by mail,” says Trump. “We won’t!’ say his supporters. “Hey,” says Trump, “the mail-in votes are favouring the Democrats. This must be fraudulent.”
Yes, apparently there’s been widespread fraud in the US election. I know this because President Trump told us that there was. And he announced the fraud very early on. He announced on the night of the election. In fact, he announced it several months ago.
When one of his supporters was pressed about evidence, they said that they had sworn affidavits from people. The example they gave was that someone was aware that a dead person had registered to vote six days after their death and they had definitely voted.
Two things struck me about this immediately. For a start, how did they know to check that particular dead person and secondly, what was the evidence that this vote was for Joe Biden? Ok, maybe if you asked the person who signed the affidavit, he or she could tell you that they definitely voted for Biden.
However, with all the talk about Georgia I remembered that old Charlie Daniels song:
The devil went down to Georgia
He was lookin’ for a soul to steal
He was in a bind
‘Cause he was way behind
And he was willin’ to make a deal”
Revisiting the song and looking at the lyrics gave me a fresh understanding of American exceptionalism and Donald Trump. The basic storyline is that the devil bets a fiddle of gold against a young boy’s soul that he’s a better fiddle player. The boy takes the bet, channelling Trump with the lines:
The boy said, “my name’s Johnny
And it might be a sin
But I’ll take your bet, you’re gonna regret
‘Cause I’m the best there’s ever been.“
So the devil plays, and he’s pretty good, but Johnny outdoes him, wins the fiddle of gold and sends the devil on his way with:
“Devil, just come on back
If you ever wanna try again
I done told you once you son of a bitch
I’m the best that’s ever been.”
Now, this is particularly interesting from the point of view of the way most cautionary tales work. Basically, you shouldn’t take a bet with anyone, let alone the devil. Secondly, hubris usually brings people undone. However, in this story, Johnny not only sins, but he wins and is given the fiddle of gold.
Ok, I’m not about to give you a Sunday morning sermon on the dangers of fiddle-playing, but it is interesting to reflect on the Trump presidency through the eyes of this song. Rather than being punished, hubris is rewarded. Similarly, Trump’s supporters had no problem with Donald and his “Nobody knows more about construction//basis/technology/infrastructure/ISIS/the environment/women/Facebook than me”!
Donald had his fiddle of gold, so he must have been better than the devil and he was better than the devil then he must have been good and if he was good, then we should vote for him even if he uses words like “son of a bitch”!
Still politics is a funny business. I was listening to question time a couple of weeks ago and, when our own answer to Trump, Scott the Chicken Coop Builder, went to the microphone, he launched into an attack on Labor and heaped praise upon his own government and how great they were and how lucky everybody was that the Liberals were managing the economy because Labor would have mucked it all up.
Now I could ask the obvious and ask how much worse could things be than massive debt, the biggest deficit ever, high unemployment and no long term plan for jobs apart from we’d like more of them, however, what struck me was how absurd such behaviour would be in any other workplace.
Imagine that Scotty is working in almost any other workplace and he was asked to do a report on his area of responsibility and his plans for the next financial year.
“Thanks boss, for the question. I take this opportunity to remind everybody how well I’ve done since I was given the job and how great the company’s bottom line is. It’s only twelve months ago that I beat a group of applicants for the job and, I think that we can all say, how good that is. Imagine if someone else had the job what a mess we’d be in. It’s only thanks to my expert management that we’ll do an even better job next year and let’s just think back to when someone else last had the job and how glad we all were that I got the job and what a great sigh of relief we had. If it wasn’t for the couple of things that we didn’t plan for, this would have been the best year in the history of the company.”
Yeah, I can’t picture Scotty lasting too long in any other job…
Oh, that’s right.
He didn’t!
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