The US and UK elected political hierarchy are currently doing
everything in their power to dismantle the institutions which they inhabit, for
their own reasons. We have opened our houses to vandals.
Donald Trump is doing it because he didn’t realise that the
Office of President of the United States didn’t just mean the actual office with the nice chairs & stuff – it meant having responsibilities to care for
and steer your country, and behave in a statesmanlike and sensible way.
Sadly the words “responsibilities”, “statesmanlike” and “care” (unlike “bigly”, “covfefe” and “unpresidented”) have never been in Trump’s
vocabulary.
Donald Trump is Al Czervik
in Caddyshack – a brash, rich, rude golf-player who doesn’t give a toss about the
niceties of polite society. Except in this remake he’s also racist, mean-spirited,
not at all funny and can’t dance.
When a President refers to a senator as “Pocahontas” at a
ceremony honouring Navajo veterans, you know it’s all gone wrong. Try to imagine Barack Obama making a joke about “Red Indians” at an event when
he was president - the GOP would be marching on the White House. They criticised
Obama for wearing a light suit, for God’s sake.
Trump has also decided the famous
Access Hollywood tape may not actually be him (but he has form as a bullshitter).
And on Twitter today he promoted video from a UK far-right anti-Muslim group. But his outrageous actions are actually less damaging
than the changes taking place behind the scenes in government.
Trump is in the process of filling judicial vacancies
including in the Supreme Court, with GOP picks, and systematically filling the top posts at large government bodies with people whose livelihoods have
depended on defeating the same institutions. International relations are
conducted by Trump relations, mainly Ivanka (for contacts outside of Russia of
course). Public health care is being gutted to help billionaires with tax cuts.
To be fair, the Republican Party’s raison d'être is
the reduction/dismantling of government and reduction of taxes, and they are implementing
their plan using Trump as their useful idiot. The UK government on the other
hand doesn’t even have a plan and is populated entirely by useless idiots.
The UK government have manoeuvred themselves into an
impossible position over Brexit, and now they can’t do anything about it without
either the public or their own MPs revolting. So they have to destroy any
mechanism which can challenge, impede or scrutinise them. This dismantling of checks
and balances has taken the shackles off ministers in an unprecedented way.
This, coupled with a Prime Minister who is so weakened she couldn't put out the Downing Street
cat without bringing down government, has resulted in ministers running wild.
The list of actions and statements by UK ministers in recent
weeks which would previously have resulted in instant sacking is almost endless
:–
The Foreign Secretary writing his job application to be next Prime Minister in the national press and undermining Brexit negotiations in
the process;
The same minister making a
statement to a committee of MPs which could result in Iran increasing a UKwoman’s jail term by 5 years;
The Minister for exiting the EU
repeatedly lying to and ignoring Parliament, using every trick in the book to
avoid letting MPs/the public have any knowledge of Brexit plans or the likely
impact on our country, to the point that he could soon be found in Contempt of Parliament (which used to result in the culprit actually being held in dungeons
below Big Ben);
The International Development
secretary running shadow Foreign policy unknown to the Foreign Office or Prime
Minister, meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister and suggesting our aid budgetcould help to fund the Israeli army. (Though at least she got the sack for
that. Oh, hang on, she didn’t, she was
allowed to resign and immediately make speeches sniping at the Prime Minister and
government);
And today (29th
November), standing in for the Prime Minister was
someone who is currently under investigation for sexual impropriety and having
“extreme porn” on his computer at work. It should be stressed of course that this is an
ongoing investigation and nothing is proven, but in any other place of work an investigation
like this would probably result in suspension from duty pending an outcome rather
than being lined up as the spokesman for Her Majesty's Government.
The problem with knocking down a house of cards is that it’s
difficult to rebuild. When these vandals
have finished doing their damage to the US and UK government systems, those responsible will move on to lucrative positions elsewhere. But the public
view of, and faith in, politics will be shattered. Rules of normality for how governments
and public officials should behave will have been torn up. When the next party
comes into power, there will be no rules, they’ll be able to do anything using
the excuse that it’s the New Normal. Fortunately the next change in government in the US and UK are likely
to be to the Democrats and the Labour party respectively – for now.
We had better hope that future governments on both sides of
the Atlantic are kinder and more reasonable than the current bunch. Because if
they’re more unreasonable, harsher or more nationalist that at present then we’re in real
trouble, and the control mechanisms will be dust by then.
Comments
Post a Comment