Talking politics with strangers in bars is dumb, and not only because it probably won’t get you laid. The thing is that most here people agree with most other people. Go back to apartheid South Africa, try saying “surely they’re not all that bad”, and see what happens – it’s the same, just without the necklacing.
The political landscape here is different here, which is a bit backwards given that Donald Trump owns so much of the actual landscape. I work in – well, it’s an office building, which at the moment is clad in a huge banner for the new NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton. Remember what NWA stands for? Remember what they suggested we do to the police? There’s no irony here – or if there is, Dre has invented a machine that turns it into dollars. Which of course he has, because he hasn’t written any of his own material in over a decade.
So Hillary wins, right? Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Poor Clinton, a woman who, after four years in the State Department, still manages to have no foreign policy agenda, has had greatness thrust upon her – in much the same way that, erm, Monica did.
And in terms of passive-aggressive marital revenge for a workplace indiscretion, running for president is up there with getting your driver drunk and having him plow you and your lover into a tunnel pillar – except that at least Princess Di’s husband managed to hush her up before she caused too much of a fuss.
So Trump – a man who constantly looks confused, as though someone once stole one of his shoes and he’s never quite figured out why – is the frontrunner! He’s actually – I mean. He… He might actually be the president. Someone should tell him that his name means “fart”.
In the UK people used to say silly things like “if the Labour Party wins I’m off to Spain”, to which the only appropriate answer was “can I get mates rates on your lawnmower?” – but with Trump as a serious candidate it might be time to invest in SpaceX and jump ship to Mars or somewhere less hospitable to lizards.
I never believed that Bush was dumb because I didn’t think that you can rise to the top of a complex adversarial political system and still lick windows in your spare time – but I’m softening to the idea. People must get lost on those White House tours all the time, right? And once he’d sat down in the big chair and dribbled his way through Meet The Press once or twice, maybe issued an executive order or two – it’s not too much of a stretch to guess that they’d let him keep the job.
I always felt sorry for his scriptwriters – I imagined them as a group of stern men dressed in grey suits, stood in a smoky room watching a crackling monitor, their foreheads red, tender and lined with fingermarks. “It’s written right there, in front of him,” they’d say. “Surely the man can read?”
Some people think the Trump platform is a democrat ploy – but the dems can’t get their shit together for long enough to keep their own house in order, never mind hacking the other party’s. That’s a conspiracy theory up there with the moon landings and the existence of New Zealand.
So what’s the alternative? A well-known face, well liked, strong foreign policy, strong leadership? Bartlett for President!