America stares into the abyss

The only place that makes you pathetically grateful for the level of political debate in the UK is America.

It’s an extraordinary comment you might think, but viewing things from the perspective of a business trip to New York, politics is dire over here. Two presidential candidates almost nobody wants; one a convicted felon, the other feebly tottering through public life, resting heavily on cue cards.

Two candidates few voters want but Trump is the real danger to America’s future…

The real difference, however, is that Biden is a decent man who has actually had a successful presidency, with the exception of the lack of border controls that might do for him in the end. The economy is booming, partly powered by green investment initiatives, and much needed infrastructure rebuilding is finally happening. He is also managing the Middle East crisis and Ukraine as best he can.

But Biden gets no credit. The impact of inflation, not his fault, still lingers, and illegal immigration dominates public discourse even with Democrat voters I have spoken to. This is now being addressed through an executive order, but it should have been a priority from day one. Biden looks and sounds too old for a second term, and moderates are in despair at the gamble Democrats are taking with him that may let Trump triumph.

As for Trump. He is a grotesque. Nothing truthful comes out of his mouth. He is a narcissist who doesn’t care a jot for the institutions of state or, for that matter, democracy and the voters who vote for him.  He is setting community against community and voter against voter. Think an extreme version of Brexit. Yet he is marginally ahead of Biden in the polls and has just raised US$140m in donations on the back of his conviction.

You just despair for the future of this amazing country. Voters are taking for granted all they have, and it feels we are witnessing the start of the collapse of an empire. cAD400 all-over again…

Trump and Biden need each other as they only have a chance of winning against each other. But it comes at the expense of the extreme polarisation of public discourse and the fracturing of American society.

Democrats are campaigning weakly, Republicans have shamefully been taken over by the cult of Trump’s personality.

America is looking into the abyss and there is only one way, at least in the short-term, for the country to save itself from itself.

For all Biden’s faults, America must reject Trump in November.