Come November, I suspect the rest of the world will have to adjust to a world without America. Well, not all of the rest of the world because Donald Trump’s return to the White House would be welcomed by the likes of Russia, North Korea and, who knows, maybe even India. The failed assassination of Trump will, I fear, virtually guarantee his election and condemn the west to four years of chaos, carnage and who knows what else.
I remember commenting back in 2016 what a laugh it would be if Trump won the presidential election. A hot-headed buffoon, for sure but generally a harmless one. No one is laughing now.
Just as the UK seems to have returned to some kind of sanity, America appears to be about to collectively lose its mind and elect an actual fascist who, there is no doubt, would like to trample over the US constitution and trash democracy. Oh, and make its people, other than the mega-rich, much poorer.
And there’s the effects on the rest of the world. Does anyone doubt whose side Trump will take over Russia’s murderous war against Ukraine? It is entirely likely that when and if Trump beats the ailing Joe Biden, he will effectively enable Vladimir Putin’s victory by withdrawing US support, possibly within days. Instead of parts of Ukraine being embodied within the Russian federation, all of it will be.
America will look inwards under Trump, a mass of protectionism will ensue, causing untold economic chaos. Yet here we are sleep-walking to disaster.
Some prominent Republicans have already blamed Joe Biden for the attempt on Trump’s life. Senator JD Vance declared that it was the rhetoric of the Biden campaign referring to Trump as an authoritarian fascist that directly led to the attack. Mike Collins of Georgia went further. “Joe Biden sent the orders,” he wrote. It’s nonsense, of course, but in a nation that in large part went along with Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) sloganeering, it will surely resonate among the hard of thinking. It’s conspiracy nonsense, for sure, but there’s quite a demand for conspiracies in the US of A.
Everything awful I fear about a Trump second term will surely come to be if he is re-elected. Political opponents will be rounded up, as Trump deals with his myriad grudges, he will doubtless appoint many more right wing judges, he may even wind up the FBI altogether. Isolationist America will still be strong but it will send shockwaves around the world.
I don’t even want to think about Trump having his finger on the nuclear trigger again, this time without being surrounded by officials who could curb his worst excesses.
I hope against hope that America will re-elect Joe Biden, despite his gaffes and blunders in recent weeks. It helps no one that Trump’s increasingly unhinged howlers don’t seem to attract the same attention as Bidens. So much for the hated MSM, which seems to be doing Trump’s bidding these days.
Should would we be that worried? I mean, it’s only one country. We could get by, couldn’t we? Probably, yes, albeit with a massive hit to the economy and a return to chaos politically and militarily. That’s the positive option. The negative version shows Trump setting fire to the world, quite literally given his denial of climate change.
And if you think no one in their right mind would restore Trump to power, look closer to home. It was less than five years ago our own country installed Boris Johnson in power. Johnson wasn’t as bad as Trump, but that’s nothing for us to crow about.
