After the deluge of tweets by Donald Trump after the New Year one can’t help but questioning not only his qualification as the leader of U.S. presidency, but his sanity. Those so called serious people in DC no longer call out President Xi as authoritarian, and U.S. president as symbol of democracy, but avoid the comparison totally. Foreign leaders are now embarrassed and frightened to be associated with him and hoping Mueller will save the day. The situation reminded me of a movie I saw from 1979, “Being There”, starring Peter Sellers so much, that I ordered from On Demand and watched it again.
The movie was a satire of American politics and politicians, that people in poverty as the camera panned across downtown Washington DC of the homeless and jobless young African Americans, while Chauncey Gardner, an imbecile former gardener walked among them with the background music of “2001, A Space Odyssey”, signaling the dawning of a new age. He accidentally became avatar of the rich, his utterances became pearls of wisdom, with a blank page which people wrote their own biases and desires. The black humor of him being unable to read or write but relied on TV for wisdom is peerless now that we have Trump being essentially the same except the contrast of innocence with evil today. It is life imitates art with an evil twist that no one could have predicted it became reality, except probably what the black maid Louise said in the movie, “What white people with no brain can do, maybe become president”. The movie ends with Mr. Gardner walking away over the water as if he’s Christ.
I was saying before the election that Trump if elected will be a disaster and accelerate the decline of American empire. Events since then has validated my view. Yet while this has been good for China, we should not underestimate the danger it poses for the world. After all, 1/3 of U.S. wants the nuclear preemption war against North Korea, it’s probably higher in the military, with Trump in desperation and senility we may see it yet. I myself have no sympathy for the Kim Dynasty, and China probably has no more danger beyond the radiation fallout and refugee camps, but still the thought of millions dead nauseates me.
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