Wednesday, September 30, 2020

DEBATABLE

The Trump ascendancy to power has turned the USA into a caricature of itself. All the worst tropes about America and Americans you've ever heard or thought are outlined in blazing neon lights and shouted from the rooftops at deafening volume. That this seems like a television show gone haywire only makes it more dangerous because it's so much easier to laugh than to take in that it's actually happening in reality and infects the whole of this planet.

The best of America now seems to be in shadow, in chiaroscuro, while Trump and his cohorts prance around in ominously hypnotic technicolour. The Trump-Biden "debate" was another illustration of an unbelievable yet factual state of affairs. Biden isn't the ideal opponent but at present he's the only alternative to catastrophe. He urgently needs to get out of the shadows and inspire voters to stop the Trump ascendancy.

2 comments:

Vincent said...

Thanks for this, Natalie. As ever you speak with grace and truth in words and images. I feel so strongly about the state of America that I cannot speak openly. Its electory procedures, its Constitution, whatever has produced such a shameful spectable. How can they blame the old man Trump? They knew who he was and is. I wrote a post the other day "Where We Stand", which doesn't mention the US directly, but points an accusing finger all the same, like the combatants you depict.

Natalie d'Arbeloff said...

Thanks Vincent. In my view Trump (and he's not old, as public figures go) deserves all the blame he gets and much more. He is a self-created monster and happens to live in a time and an environment which facilitates and feeds his monstrosity. The America that nurtures him and and his supporters or wannabe trumps is not the whole America. There are millions of Americans who are desperate, horrified, outraged by what Trumpism has done and is doing to the country and they are working hard to try and stop further disaster by not letting him back in power. Whatever happens in this election, it's not going to be easy.