What actually occurs in our minds when we use language with the intention of meaning something by it? What is the relation subsisting between thoughts, words, or sentences, and that which they refer to or mean? What relation must one fact (such as a sentence) have to another in order to be capable of being a symbol for that other? Using sentences so as to convey truth rather than falsehood?
One of the best 42 minutes I have spent this month was listening to a Start the Week broadcast on Radio 4, presented by Adam Rutherford on 29 September 2025 - herewith is link:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002k37y
It is definitely worth spending 42 minutes of your time.
Quite apart from that the world we currently live in seems to have taken a rather large step backward. The old adage (a word that would come under the category of common knowledge) of moving two steps forward and one step backward, to indicate slow progress, no longer applies. Since the advent of Trump and Putin as buddies, and others of their ilk we have moved backwards at least a millennium to the dark ages. To paraphrase Ernest Borgnine’s comment about John Wayne in response to the movie Brokeback Mountain in 2006, I would say “If Petrarch were alive today he’d be turning over in is grave”. You may recall the film was an American western portraying gay cowboys. In any event there are very few indications that the 21st century is anything like a renaissance, which is what it should be.
The skills are literally at our fingertips. With smart phones we can find any reference and communicate in any language on earth with simple translation software. We can buy and sell our wares at the tap of a screen. We can organise transport and delivery without leaving our homes or not as the case may be. The freedom that technology has brought us is phenomenal. What we appear to lack is the education and the knowledge that should go with it. It has also opened itself up to scams and frauds of all kinds and proliferated mendacious behaviour on a grand scale.
The control of that technology and the abuse it can allow is frightening, and because of the poorly educated and gullible it is being used to further ignorance rather than knowledge and consequently it is taking us backward to a dark age of dictatorships, nationalism and isolationist regimes. We have a chance to move things forward in the most remarkable ways, yet the world seems intent on pissing it all away by catering to the whims of the likes of Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and any other narcissistic political scoundrels you care to name.
As each day goes by the insanity of Trump spreads around the globe like a miasmic mist. There appears to be no freshener at hand to make it go away. His address to the United Nations Assembly has clearly left the world stupefied. The continuing roundup of citizens by the ICE gestapo is camouflaged by face masks and ludicrous diversions, such as his advice on the prevention of autism, alongside his colossally incompetent Health Secretary. He is operating without restraint and is now pushing full steam with attacks on former associates who have called him out. His cohorts in the Department of Justice, FBI and the Department of Defence are allowing him free reign. The Congress of the United States and the Supreme Court appear unwilling to assert their constitutional duty. The astonishing number of young citizens who appear to worship him through the likes of Charlie Kirk, display an astonishing ignorance and inability to appreciate what is actually happening to their country. They are like the Eloi to Trumpian Morlocks as predicted by H.G. Wells.
This is not going unnoticed by the rest of the world. As the danger grows or become more apparent, the United States should be forcefully admonished by other world leaders. Who can say when they will develop the gumption to move away from placating Trump to outright slapping him down. It is an imperative. Action must be taken. His embarrassing display before the UN must surely provide the proof of his unfitness to govern or be anywhere near the seat of power. He is a disgrace not just to the United States but to the entire world.
Oddly there is a wonderful AI generated comment produced in the guise of the late Christopher Hitchens which is worth a listen:
Every now and again someone makes a speech that stands out and starts to make the rounds. On this occasion it was the President of Slovenia Nataša Pirc Musar. Part of her wikipedia entry reads as follows:
“Pirc Musar studied law at the University of Ljubljana’s's Faculty of Law in 1992, where Marko Ilešič, later a judge at the European Court of Justice, was her supervisor. In 1997, she passed the bar exam, and later started working at the Radio-Television Slovenia, where she worked for six years as a journalist and host of the central news program. Later, for five years, she was the presenter of the central news program 24UR on the commercial television channel POP TV. In 2001, she became the head of the corporate communication department at Aktiva Group, where her husband Aleš Musar worked. Pirc Musar completed additional training at CNN in Atlanta, Georgia. She then continued her studies for two semesters at the University of Salford in England, during which she did internships at the BBC, Granada TV, Sky News, Reuters TV and Border TV. In 2015 she obtained a PhD at the University of Vienna's Faculty of Law with a dissertation on a fair balance between privacy rights and the freedom of information.”
It should be noted that her studies in law began at the age of 24 and she obtained her doctorate 23 years later at the age of 47. Her life has been one of continuous employment as well as education. This speech has had over 1.4 millions views so far on YouTube. I’m sure it will make its way around the world.
How to react to the Reform Party in the UK and to Nigel Farage in particular? This is a question I hinted at in my blog about Keir Starmer’s current response to criticism and presumed concerns of the British public as expressed by Mr Farage and Ms Badenoch. The emphasis being put on “stopping the boats” as the foremost concern of the British public is misplaced. Yes, it is a problem, and yes, it has been given priority coverage in the media because of the activities of Tommy Robinson; but, that is not a reason for allowing these displays of bigotry and racism to dictate the government’s agenda on dealing with the problem. Nor should the Prime Minister be seen to be taking advice from the likes of Trump about using the armed services. Should the navy be shooting them out of the water? How insane is that?
The boats are one problem and the encouragement of right wing nationalism is another. They both have to be dealt with, but not by allowing the right wing to dictate the schedule. Once again Jonathan Freedland, in the Guardian, has stated the case in a piece entitled “Trump has dragged the US to the abyss and Nigel Farage would do the same to Britain. Here’s how to stop him”. I urge you to read the article which can be found at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/19/donald-trump-us-abyss-nigel-farage-britain
I realise that the Reform party seems to be gathering an extraordinary amount of support in certain polls and as a result has garnered more publicity in the media, but that is mere puff. It does not actually represent the majority of the British public’s view. At least I don’t believe it. That may be my problem; however, it is clearly not something that can be ignored and the current Labour government must find an effective way of dealing with it, and not scrabble around like headless chickens. Surely there must be informed political strategists within the party that can find a way. If there are not, then we are in serious trouble.
I guess I am just an elderly man, now only fit for the older persons assessment unit at Guy’s Hospital. Whatever political strategies I may have contemplated or even promoted are long past my use by date. I never really put them into practice in any event. I am a sideline critic. Nonetheless, speaking from the spectator’s stand is what remains. I have never been asked to participate in a poll. I have never been part of a sought after percentage of a point of view, but I can still be a minute part of the conversation.
Some You Gov polls to contemplate from August 2024:
It would seem that the main concerns all round are the environment,
feminism, liberalism and socialism. Most britons it would appear do not
favour Reform, or indeed the Conservative Party any longer. One would
have thought that would offer some measure of relief for the government
and they could react accordingly. Why are they therefore obsessed by
what Farage thinks or does, and why does the media have such a fixation
about asking what the Government thinks of Reform’s popularity in
the polls? What polls are favouring the Reform Party? Why is Nigel
Farage as the next Prime Minister even a question? It’s clearly
ludicrous. It must be coming from that over 65 classification. But no
one I know over 65 even thinks of him as a serious politician. He is a
blowhard and would be Trumpian stooge. He invents statistics and lies
about ‘the British people’s needs and wants’. It’s what he wants, not
the British people. Why is there no real pushback in the media?
In
effect, enough is enough. Is it not time to draw a line and get on with
reality and show some direction of thought? If one must respond to the
polls, why not respond to ones that matter? All I have left is
questions, like what on earth are Corbyn and Sultana up to? It’s clearly
no way to get the party started. Put away the champagne, this is not
the time.
I happened upon the Nicky Campbell talk-in show this morning. I have not tuned in before ‘but owing to a mistaken touch on my iPhone, I found myself listening to a few people talking about the shows theme question “Do you welcome president Trump”. Apparently an American resident in London and chair of some Republicans Party group in the UK was on, but I did not hear from her. She was apparently listening to the callers’ comments.
Most of what I heard was anti Trump, for all the usual reasons (mainly convicted felon, sex offender, liar, Epstein, narcissist etc..) but as to the matter of his imperial style welcome, there were mixed feelings. The fact of Trumps position as President of the United States must be accepted. The fact that because of his office he is able to affect world affairs, in particular economics, must be accepted. The manner in which he performs the office of President is distinctly his own and because of his extraordinary - shall we say - eccentricity, to have any dealings with him requires a specific kind of diplomacy. He is a bully and spoiled infant with a limited attention span, living behind a wall of sycophants and protectors. Not at all an easy subject.
The modern relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, eventually established by Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill from 1941, is a strong one. It has been difficult for any British Prime Minister to navigate its waverings over the last 80 plus years. It was most significant during the days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Bush and Blair had their moments. But Trump and anyone is a whole different ball game. We can only hope that Mr Starmer and, now Ms Cooper are up to it. The extraordinary occurrence and coincidence that the Epstein affair should also involve a British ambassador and member of the Royal family is hardly supportive of that relationship, but it is what it is. Helpful or unhelpful in dealing with Trump? Who knows? But it is inevitable that he visit the United Kingdom as President, just as he will other nations.
Keir Starmer appears to be a straightforward barrister with liberal leanings. In his professional life he has gone out of his way to do pro bono legal good works, defend human rights and generally represent his clients to the best of his ability. He has always sought to obtain his clients’ desired result. As to politics, he seems to be dealing with his office of Prime Minister much as he would as Head of Chambers. He has advisers and secretaries as his clerks, running his schedule and those of his cabinet of fellow KCs and Juniors, dispensing briefs, and relying on their expert opinions. I am sure he wishes his current client, the British people, will get their desired result.
Unfortunately the British electorate are not only clients, but they are also the prosecution, judge and jury as well as the victim. The Government is not a set of chambers, and more unfortunately for Mr Starmer, he, by contrast, is also the defendant who must represent himself. It is often quoted that Abraham Lincoln said “A man who defends himself has a fool for a client”. In Mr Starmer’s case, he has no choice. Is he a fool for having taken on the job? Were we fools to allow him to be put in office? Why would anyone consciously choose to be a defendant is such a case? The prospective indictment is extensive:
R -v- Prime Minister Failed to: 1- Improve the NHS, 2- Improve the defence of the realm, 3- Improve social care 4- improve the economy, 5- Improve the environment, 6- Stop criminality 7- Control Immigration 8- Establish world peace The list of offences goes on and on.
The expectations of the public and the electorate are extensive. Achieving any of these goals is an arduous task. Promising to achieve them is a grave responsibility. Making the attempt is at least laudable. Promising them, knowing full well you cannot possibly deliver, or having no intention of making good on the promises, is the crime.
Representative leadership in a democracy is as difficult as it gets. One cannot give the feeling that one is adrift. Although I am a great supporter of proportional representation, I pause at the possibility of right wing parties having a greater say in government legislation. That is my prejudice; however, proper representative democratic government is essential. There must also be positive leadership. There must be a feeling of a sense of direction.
It is difficult to describe. It is not so much strong leadership as decisive positivity. Strong leadership smacks of dictatorship, whereas decisive strikes a more collective note. It’s a kind of “I know where I’m going and I think you’d like to come with me, because I’m pretty sure we’ll all be better off”, That may be a bit wishy washy, but it starts with the positive knowledge of which way to go to make things better. It also allows for flexibility. Compromise is inevitable, but can be positive as it helps move things forward.
Being the Prime Minister of today’s Britain is not an easy task. Being pulled in a variety of directions relating to certain peoples impossible demands and the barrage of ludicrous attitudes staged by various so called ‘influencers’ and alleged leaders in opposition, is not at all just a mater of simple compromise. It is however difficult to ignore. Perhaps a more robust stance in one’s own agenda and dismissing some of the shower of critical comment from the isolationist right wing would be better than trying to take it all into account. I don’t know the answer but something is required to stop me and some of my friends (who agree) from feeling adrift. Nothing is actually completely out of control but it does sometime feel as if it’s about to be.
Getting back to Nicky Campbell’s question “Do you welcome president Trump?” For my part, no, and I never have. I still agree with Stevie Wonder’s comment before the 2016 Presidential election: “Voting for Trump, is like asking me to drive a car.”
Continuing on the matter of the assassination of Charles Kirk, I would refer you to the column of Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian dated Friday 12th September 2025:
It is worth reading. It presents an excellent perspective of what appears to be happening in the United States today. Some might say, it is what it has always been, a country built on and used to violence, in complete contradiction of what it purports to be, the dominant civilised free society on the planet. It claims to be the greatest country in the world endorsed by God.
I was a citizen of the United States for 33 years and I have now been a British citizen for 50 years. As to civilised free society, I believe I made the better choice 50 years ago. I can explain. I was living in Southern California in the 1950’s, initially in West Hollywood and then Beverly Hills. The weather was glorious and life was reasonably carefree and just as glorious as the weather. I was growing up in what was essentially a well to do white society that was, in reality, a million miles away from the problems faced by the rest of the world. Opinions were divided and the predominant political views favoured the Republican party. I can recall the 1952 presidential election when ‘I like Ike’ posters and buttons where just about everywhere.
Our house was practically the only house exhibiting a vote for Stevenson poster. It was also the only house on South Rodeo Drive to have cucumbers pickling in jars on the window sill to benefit from the sun. Be that as it may, the political conventions did not engender any violence or animosity between democrats and republicans. The joint bogey men were ‘communists’. Liberal thinking and some ‘social concerns’ were not seen as ‘the end of society as we know it’. There was a mutual respect and civility expressed towards others with different points of view, just so long as they did not express views that were ‘too far left’, whatever that meant.
Between 1953 and 1956 my family returned to France, during which time communist scare was in full bloom in the United States, and indeed atomic spies were exposed, including Ethel and Julius Rosenberg who were executed for espionage. In fact we left for Europe from New York on the Queen Elizabeth White Star Line at the end of June 1953. The Rosenbergs were executed on the 19th June 1953. I can remember, once we had arrived in France and I started back at school, riding my bike and seeing posters on walls and lamppost depicting Eisenhower looking like Nosferatu leaning over the figures of Julius and Ethel. There were also other posters refereeing to Ike as an assassin.
We returned to California in August of 1956 and I registered at Beverly Hills High School. A world of its own. In 1954 segregation had been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, yet in 1957 nine black students were prevented from attending Little Rock Central High School, in Arkansas by the then Governor Orval Faubus. This set off riots and violence against integration, despite President Eisenhower’s attempts at peaceful intervention. The unrest and brutal treatment of black people were all over the television news. The Civil Rights movement had truly begun in the southern states and by 1961 the Freedom Rides were in full swing, again plastered all over the television news. But these events were 1500 miles away from Beverly Hills. It was as if they were happening in another country. The south however was riddled with racial violence since before the civil war. This was nothing new and although it was happening before our eyes, for most white people it did not seem to carry the sense of urgency that it should have. Los Angeles carried on in its own way and the laid-back southern Californians with it. In the early sixties with the coming of John F Kennedy on the scene, with his brother Bobby, things grew more confrontational. The problems mouldering beneath were beginning to surface. I left the United States in July of 1965. I was sitting at a Cafe in Paris, near the Opera reading the Harold Tribune and its report on the Watts Riots in Los Angeles. The explosion I left behind me was astounding. I somehow found it difficult to process riots in Los Angeles on this scale, but of course I was late to appreciate the severity of what had been going on around me all the time. California was indeed a dream.
I arrived in the UK in November of 1965. I found a bedsit in Northwick House on the corner of St John’s Wood Road and Maida Vale, at £5 a week which was not cheap, being equivalent of £123 per week today. I soon moved to slightly cheaper quarters at £3 a week not far away in Warwick Ave. just north of the tube station. The bus fare on the Number 6 bus to the Haymarket was 8d. I kept shillings for the meters to light and heat my room, and pennies and threepenny bits for the geyser in the bathroom to get hot water. All very quaint and fun, a long way from the comforts of South Rodeo Drive. I was always apprehensive that I would set the entire place alight because of the rather dangerous electric fire heating the room and possibly causing a sever gas explosion lighting the geyser. I thought if I didn’t strike a match quick enough to light the pilot light it would all blow up. Believe it or not, London was not exactly a modern city with up to date facilities. The variety of plugs needed for just one room was extraordinary.
Racism on the other hand was very up front. The Evening Standard, which had loads of adverts to find rooms to let, overtly advertised “Europeans only need apply” and although that sort of advert was soon deemed illegal, landlords were still making choices. They still do. Nonetheless there was a certain kind of politeness about it all It wasn’t just “Fuck off” it was “Please, fuck off”. I once had a prospective landlady say to me, “You’re not English, are you?”, “No, I’m American”, “Oh well, I suppose none the worse for that”. On the whole however, it was the 60’s, and swinging London was in full swing. So far as I was concerned it knocked Beverly Hills out of the park. It was an absolutely fab time.
By now, of course, the United States was fully gearing up to Vietnam. I had turned 21 a month before President Kennedy was shot in Dallas Texas. The first and only American election I voted in was the 1964 general election between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. Even then, although there was a great deal of civil unrest, there was a degree of civility between the different political parties. Of course as the war in Vietnam took hold and University student unrest grew the situation changed dramatically. By 1968 and the Tet Offensive in January of that year the world was again on edge. Mr Dubcek was embroiled in the Prague spring. The May ‘evenements’ on the streets of Paris and indeed Grosvernor Square in London were momentous.
As for myself, between November 1965 and May 1968, I was having a lovely time living, learning and growing up as a young adult in London. Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the Labour Party were in Government. The world cup atmosphere of 1966 was very happy. Imagine a labour socialist government running the country, A far cry from the United States. The General Election of 1966 was a revelation. I went to a number of hustings to see and listen to Quentin Hogg, Joe Grimond and a few others. How civilised, I thought. A few hecklers, but it was all very good natured and a certain quality of speech that seemed to be more elevated than the rhetoric I had been hearing in the United States. On reflection though it was probably more the accents that seemed more erudite. Nonetheless despite the obvious racism and ridiculous class system there was a welcoming of the difference and the foreign where I was concerned. A lot of people were very good to me. I was taken in and made at home. I was entirely free to drift in whatever direction the wind blew. I was able to make decisions as they came up, and hardly ever hindered. I was very lucky, and overall this British history became important. The humanitarian values and respect for human rights and the duty of care are truly what makes this country Great Britain.
I know it is no longer the power it once was and its influence in the world has diminished a great deal, but it can still make the headlines on occasion. The sad part is that it seems to be falling apart at the rate of knots. Its headline news is no longer of the kind one wants to see. I have watched and been part of its decline for the last 50 years. I am not being nostalgic and claiming things were better in the old days. A lot of things were not better, but what was better were the attitudes of the citizens. The emergence of the Reform party and the backward thinking isolationist thick headed persons that are its leaders is bewildering. They are not anything like being British. They are thugs and primed with ignorance and arrogance. They still imagine that Britannia rules the waves. The British Navy has some 37,601 personnel and 63 commissioned ships and a few supporting vessels. The US Navy has some 336,000 active duty personnel and 101,500 in reserve. They have a vast fleet of combat vessels and thousands of aircraft. The United States has 11 nuclear powered aircraft carriers. China has more ships, but only three carriers in its navy. The United States effectively has carriers on every ocean across the globe, quite apart from its submarine fleet. However one counts, Britain has no claim on ruling the waves.
The long and short of this rant is that the United States in its present form is the most dangerous place on earth despite the wars in the middle east and middle Europe. I say that because of violence seemingly embedded in its society. Any country that has more than one armed weapon per household is insane. That the private citizen feels they must be personally armed to protect themselves does not say much about trust in their own values or society. That they are so alienated from each other that they require guns to protect themselves from themselves is without parallel. Praise be that the United Kingdom is not quite yet like that, but it appears to be going that way when thousands take to the streets to demand the deportation of refugees and displaced people caused by the mistakes of western democracy and tragically corrupt governments around the world.
So I am bewildered by the actions of the children of the people who gave me the support I needed as a refugee from the United States back in 1965. What the hell have they been taught all these years?
I have mixed emotions about the shooting of Charles Kirk. I know I am not alone. I misread a Guardian Opinion piece which stated, inter alia:
The shocking killing of the co-founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk, a hugely influential activist who rallied young people to Donald Trump’s cause and far-right ideology more broadly, has been widely and rightly condemned across the political spectrum. Leading Democrats and progressive activists made clear that such violence must not be tolerated.
I initially understood the phrase “widely and rightly condemned” to be a comment referring to Mr Kirk’s political views, rather than his killing. I thought that was a rather harsh but brave comment coming from the Guardian in the circumstances, until I re-read the paragraph for clarification, which of course was referring to the act of violence.
I later read another article on SUBSTACK by Ricky Hale of Council Estate Media which began:
When I heard that Charlie Kirk had been shot, my first feeling was sadness, and then as people reminded me of the terrible things he had said and done, I did not know what to feel. I had a mixture of emotions, I guess, same as I did when those billionaires took a submarine ride and we all laughed, but I still felt bad for them.
Here is the thing: you're not supposed to acknowledge the inner-conflict. You're supposed to mourn a dead father and say nice things about him, otherwise you're a terrible person. Also, you're supposed to not give a fuck about his passing, otherwise you're mourning a fascist. However you react, you will make someone mad.
The thing is, it's okay to feel sad that Charlie Kirk is dead, even though he was a terrible person, and it's okay to joke about him being dead, even though he was a family man. It's okay to feel mixed emotions because we're humans and so much about us is contradictory.
While I feel a tinge of sadness that a fellow human being has lost his life in such awful circumstances, this does not mean I will be shedding tears for him. Charlie Kirk does not deserve my tears. If you did not know much about him, the internet has been quick to remind us how horrendous his views were.
First of all, Kirk saw empathy as a weakness and joked about the attack on Paul Pelosi. He frequently denied there was starvation in Gaza and excused Israel's genocidal practices. He was a forced birther who said he would make his ten-year-old daughter carry a baby to term if she were raped. He was a horrendous racist who argued that black women were too stupid to be taken seriously. He called George Floyd a "scumbag" and said black people were better off in slavery. At one event, he kept referring to an Asian woman as "chink". He blamed transgender people for gun violence and called for the stoning of gay people. I could go on and on, but needless to say, Kirk was a person who stoked division and incited violence.
I confess Mr Hale’s point of view expresses more of what I feel about the incident. It is indeed very difficult for me not to have mixed feelings about the death of a man like Charlie Kirk whose views and influence I abhor. I am clearly not alone. I have frequently written about opposing points of view. It is important to be aware of other’s views and coming to grips with trying to understand them, however appalling they may seem. For those on the left of the political spectrum, it is necessary to make a distinction between genuine conservative political views and racist bigotry. Indeed, not all socialists are immune from being racist, homophobic or anti-transgender. Political views, philosophies and personal emotions are often not rational. To paraphrase Richard Rorty when referring to Martin Heidegger, author of Being and Time, ‘there are many great books written by very bad men, Heidegger is just a supreme example’.
Personal contemplation as to why we exist, or how we came to be, does not necessarily improve the way people interact with each other, particularly when what we come to believe as fact is false or delusional. Much depends on what and how we are taught, or what and how we learn. Again, there is a distinction between teaching and learning.
So, like Ricky Hale, I cannot shed a tear for ‘influencer’ Charlie Kirk, however I can shed a tear for the American citizens who have to live with the continuing and growing hostility that will be engendered by this particular act of violence. They are also having to deal with a President who will try to make capital out of the situation for his own personal benefit, and use it to deflect from his own personal responsibility for promoting and creating the climate of violence and division that exists in today’s United States of America, which has led to the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Lenny Bruce did a bit in one of his routines about cheating on your partner. “Deny it, don’t admit anything, even if they’ve got pictures, deny it ‘I was just lying down next to her to see which one of us was taller’. Deny it”. Advice Donald Trump seems to have adopted whole sale. In the face of the now published birthday card to Epstein, bearing his signature, he puts out a photo of his signature next to the signature on the card, claiming it is proof he didn’t sign the card, even though it is the same signature. He expects people to believe his denials despite the evidence of their own eyes. There must be another level of brazen we have never seen before, but Donald Trump has scaled the heights.
The great tragedy is that his acolytes still rally behind him, repeating and amplifying the lies, in the expectation that it will work and keep what is left of his base on side. And it seems to be working. What on earth is wrong with the congressional republican party members that they continue to prop up this man? The duplicity, chicanery and stupidity, coupled with the narcissistic persona is there for the world to see, and yet western world leaders seem to mollycoddle him because of the office he holds. Is it not time to put a stop to that and call him out? Why is he not putting the weight of his office into cutting off Putin’s regime through more severe sanctions? Why is he not putting more pressure on Netanyahu by withholding supplies of weapons and support in general?
From what I can gather from the reports I see and hear from many citizens in the United States he is reviled. They see him as a would be dictator and are taking to the streets and town halls in protest at his ‘regime’. What is sad is that the rigidity of the written constitution does not seem to allow for his immediate removal, save by way of an impeachment for so called high crimes and misdemeanours which requires a vote by two thirds of the Senate. We have already seen how that works. It doesn’t, due to the numbers of his republican supporters. It would require a defection of at least 22 Republican senators out of the 53 currently in office. Before that can even happen, the House Of Representatives has to pass a bill of impeachment, which is even more unlikely to happen given that the Republican Party holds 220 seats in the House to the Democrats 213.
It is clear that the founding fathers never anticipated a person in the shape of a Donald Trump would ever become President of the United States of America, primarily because they never anticipated that the American people would ever conceive of voting for such a person, nor did they ever conceive that the congress would so easily acquiesce to a would be dictator. At the time there was no reason for them to anticipate such an outcome. It will require some changes in legislation to deal with this development, and that does not look like happening any time soon. So the world is locked into Trump for the time being.
Yet again, history shows that societies have allowed atrocities to occur because they believe ‘it can’t happen here’. It clearly can happen and appears to be happening all over the world. Are we too bound up in our own daily travails to notice what is going on around us? How is it that our countries’ economies have allowed for the proliferation of shoplifting and thefts on such a scale as we now have? Why do we have so many world wide scams in operation on such a scale as to be able to blackmail major institutions and corporations? What has happened to us to allow isolationist populist bigoted nationalism to take hold, and elect such people as representatives of our lives? What has happened to concepts of integrity and duty of care? How is it that we allow some people to deny responsibility even after what we see and hear with our own eyes and ears? What good is mass media if it all amounts to nothing? We are surrounded daily with pictures and sounds of atrocities and some even take to the streets in protest, only to become part of the story, rather than lead to a solution.
I am full of questions and denials myself, so what is it that will make a difference? Is it another amendment to the constitution of the United States? Is it proportional representation in the United Kingdom? Is it more severe law enforcement? Is it more social constructionism? Or is it just down to “Deny it. Even if they’ve got pictures”?
Expanding one’s news gathering sources is never easy. I have to confess that I probably rely on the Guardian Newspaper and the BBC for overall information. I do watch a lot of YouTube stuff such as Occupy Democrats, Brian Tyler Cohen, Meidas Touch, Rachel Maddow, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, Late Night with Seth Meyers and other podcasts critical of Mr Trump’s Presidency. I believe that most of these Pod casts come up first when I log in because of google statistics on what I regularly watch. I am sure that if my obsessions were aligned with Fox News and friends, they would be the first to appear on screen. In that sense, it is clear that whatever algorithm monitors my access to the internet, it will continue to provide me with material it believes I would seek out in any event. It learns to feed me the food I seem to like. This is not good for diversity of thinking. It tends to narrow an already narrow point of view.
Celia brought in the Saturday edition of The Financial Times, offering another perspective, and one that should be taken into account. In its wikipedia entry it states “Since the late 20th century, its typical depth of coverage has linked the paper with a white-collar, educated, and financially literate readership. Because of this tendency, the FT has traditionally been regarded as a centrist to centre-right liberal, neo-liberal and conservative liberal newspaper. So perhaps not so far removed from The Guardian. In any event I perused the paper.
Trump touted Chinese troops for Kyiv. Donald Trump suggested deploying Chinese troops as peacekeepers in post war Ukraine leading support to a proposal first put forward by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, according to four people briefed on discussions.
EU antitrust chief urges defiance of US - The EU must be prepared to walk away from a trade deal with the US if Donald Trump acts on his threats to target the bloc unless it alters down its digital legislation.
Cook’s showdown with Trump likely to have broad implications for Fed - Central Bank economist’s defiance against removal threat is no surprise to those who know her. Lisa cook, the first black woman to serve as a Federal Reserve governor, is used to a fight. She has the scars on her eyebrow and leg to prove it.
White House removes secret service protection for Harris.
These are just four headline stories from pages 4 and 5 of the Financial Times Weekend section of the 30th August 2025. They represent the gullibility, stupidity, bullying, pettiness and general cupidity of Donald Trump. Three of which traits - bullying, pettiness and cupidity - he shares with Vladimir Putin. This is not a very different approach to stories emanating from the United States, in relation to its President, taken by quite a number of newspapers around the world. Although the articles do not specifically state that Trump is a stupid gullible petty bully, it is how, from my narrow point of view, I chose to interpret the articles. How much further afield must I go in order to develop a more equitable and considered point of view? I am clearly in a rut.
There is however a lengthy article about Trump’s interventions in the US financial system and in leading companies. He has apparently received little pushback and the article’s title is A calculated silence. Not being an economist or having any real understanding of financial systems or the ‘market’, I am not in a position to comment with any authority, but a couple of paragraphs in the piece caught my attention.
Joel Griffith, a senior fellow at Advancing American Freedom, wrote on X that the “partial nationalisation of Intel reflects disturbing reality: economic policy is increasingly a mix of ‘internationalist’ socialism on the Left and ‘nationalist’ socialism on the so called ‘New Right’.”
Ilya Somin, the law professor at George Mason, says that Trump has moved the Republican Party from being a relatively conservative, generally free market party, to be more like a European rightwing nationalist party that supports big government. “Nationalist have a long history of these sorts of interventionist policies that have a lot in common with sort of leftwing socialist policies” he says.
An interesting equation of x=y seems to be the formula; but, whilst the article indicates that most American business leaders claim that “the independence of the Fed is absolutely critical” and “playing around with the Fed can often have adverse consequences”, the big beautiful tax breaks have made their own financial position far more secure, and therefor richer, and so self interest keeps their mouths shut, hence the title A calculated silence.
Like Trump, they couldn't care less about what they leave behind them. The collective short term hedonism of this mob is typical as well as despicable. Trump’s interventions in all areas are already having adverse consequences, but it appears that for a few dollars more, the billionaires of the United Takes of America will stay silent and not intervene in his interventions.
