HOW PRESIDENT TRUMP DEALT WITH THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

 

Lessons in wartime leadership

Now we can look back at the Zombie war as history, it's time to reassess the effectiveness of the last president of the United States

JANUARY

The outbreak as we know it began in Pittsburgh, thought at the time to be a result of returning samples from a NASA probe to Venus. The dead began rising from the graves and began to eat the flesh of the living.

Although briefed in private this was a major threat, in public, he urged US life and business to carry on as normal.

“Don’t be afraid of flesh eating ghouls. Don’t let them dominate your lives.”

FEBRUARY

In February, he said: “Zombie apocalypse? It’s going to disappear one day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

He also said in the same month: “A lot of people think that they go away in April, with the heat, as the heat comes in, typically they will go away in April. Maybe on holiday, in Florida"

MARCH

As the horde of undead overwhelmed Pennsylvania the President reassured the nation 

“I like this stuff. I really get it,” Trump boasted to reporters during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he met with actual doctors and scientists who were feverishly scrambling to contain and combat the plague of flesh eating undead. Citing a “great, super-genius uncle” who taught at MIT, Trump professed that it must run in the family genes.

“People are really surprised I understand this stuff,” he said. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”

Later in March he put aside his scientific credentials and accepted a suggestion he had become a Wartime President.  “I do, I actually do, I'm looking at it that way,” Trump told reporters during a press briefing at the White House when asked whether he considered the U.S. to be on a wartime footing. “I look at it, I view it as, in a sense, a wartime president. I mean, that's what we're fighting.“

His first, and only, direct action as a Wartime President to combat the zombie apocalypse was to completely restrict travel from Venus.

APRIL

In response to the mass outbreak of cannibalism in New York, President dismissed it as Venus Virus and withheld army and troops for use in states that supported him.

“It’s a two-way street,” Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. “They have to treat us well, also. They can’t say, ‘Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that.’”

After the disastrous Battle of Yonkers in which New York's military defenses were overwhelmed by the horde, the President questioned the motivation of the fallen heroes of the battle.

 “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

In late April, Mr Trump went back to his own scientific expertise. Backed by the White House's leading science advisor on the Zombie Virus, United States Marine Corps chiropodist Dr Ali Bongo, Trump wondered if Toilet Duck could be injected into humans to prevent the germs which return people from the dead as cannibals.

He said: “I see the Toilet Duck, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?

MAY

In May, he said: “This, Apocalypse, this is a flu. This is like a flu.

“It’s a little like a regular flu that we have flu shots for, and we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner. Or maybe we'll nuke some cities like I suggested with the hurricanes.”

Mr Trump said: “We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year.”

JUNE

After the Battle of Yonkers Mr Trump said he had found it difficult to socially distance while meeting members of the armed forces who had been exposed to the Army of The Undead.

He told Fox News : “It’s very hard when you’re with soldiers, when you’re with airmen, when you’re with the marines, and with the police officers, I’m with them so much.

“And when they come over to you it’s very hard to say ‘Stay back, stay back’, you know, it’s a tough kind of a situation. They could eat your face off at any minute. it’s a terrible thing.”

He added: “They come over to you and they want to hug you and they want to kiss you, and maybe bite you, because we really have done a good job for them and you get close and things happen.”

JULY

Following an early theory that the virus came from a NASA space probe which landed in Pittsburgh, in July Mr Trump claimed to have seen evidence that the zombie outbreak originated in a Venusian laboratory, and speculated that the virus was released by Venusian authorities.

He said: “It’s a terrible thing that happened.

“Whether they made a mistake or whether it started off as a mistake and then they made another one, or did somebody do something on purpose. Who knows. They are aliens, and I've heard, from a good person, pedophiles”

AUGUST

The US president speculated on the use of anti-flu drug Lemsip, which Oxford University researchers found to have no clinical benefit in the treatment of post mortem human flesh cravings.

Mr Trump said his doctor did not recommend Lemsip to him but he requested it from the White House physician. “I started taking it, because I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories,” Mr Trump said

SEPTEMBER

During a campaign rally in the swing state of Ohio on September 21, Mr Trump played down the scale of the virus.  He told supporters: “Now we know it. It affects elderly people. Elderly people with heart problems and other problems. Particularly tasty old people. But they have other problems, that’s what it really affects, that’s it.”

He added: “But being a zombie cannibal affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing.”

"Brain eating is not a problem for young people" he said later

Trump was able to demonstrate it's harmlessness, when at the end of September, he was bitten on his backside and infected with the zombie virus by celebrity carrier Ted Nugent. 24 hours later Walter Reed hospital brought the President back as first undead POTUS.

OCTOBER

White House finally embraced the idea of using Herd Immunuty to tackle the zombie outbreak.

"Current hiding from flesh eating zombie policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health,” stated a declaration with government backing, adding, “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives - or die and live again - normally, to build up immunity to the zombie virus through natural teeth based infection, while better protecting those who can afford private armies and fortified islands. We call this Focused Protection.”

"ZOMBIES.. ZOMBIES... ZOMBIES... ALL THE CROOKED MEDIA IS OBSESSED WITH" said the president as he gnawed the face off an ecstatic One America News Network reporter.

In his last statement Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said "We've given up handling the zombie outbreak", just before the boarded up windows of the Oval office caved in. Outside, the Trump supporters and the selfish, brain dead cold blooded creatures who only care about filling their stomach were now indistinguishable from each other.

Inspired by Keith Olberman

And remember, this weekend, spare a thought for the true spirit of the Samhain, and George Romero, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Wes Craven, Brian De Palma and John Landis

A FACE IN THE CROWD is classic Black Mirror... from 1957

Elia Kazan's unrecognised 1950s classic is That Waldo Moment via The Twilight Zone

There is a Black Mirror episode, That Waldo Moment, which fearsomely predicts the effects of social media on politics.

Several news reports, including one by Chris Cillizza, political reporter for The Washington Post, compared Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign to the episode. In September 2016, episode writer Charlie Brooker also compared the Trump campaign to "The Waldo Moment" and predicted Trump would win the 2016 election. ...... On the night of the election, at the hour when Trump's victory was becoming clear to the nation, Black Mirror sent out a tweet proclaiming: "This isn't an episode. This isn't marketing. This is reality."

A Face In The Crowd is a fantastically entertaining movie from the 1950s with a very similar premise, warning not about social media, but mass media. It's skipped recognition until recently for what was perceived to be a nauseatingly cynical tone. Post 2016 it looks like an absolute classic, with elements of contemporary movies such as Sweet Smell of Success and later classics such as Network. It is as sharp and acerbic and bitter as Fight Club, with a powerful ending weirdly reminiscent of Scarface.

"You gotta be a saint to stand all the power that little box can give you."

A Face in The Crowd been getting some long overdue recogntion over the pond (for reasons which will be obvious) but seems mostly unknown in the wider world. A shame as this could be a story about the rise of Jeremy Clarkson as anyone else.

A travelling radio show run by a roaming archivist/music producer finds herself in a jail in rural Arkansas where she comes a showman of the highest order in the form of a drunken folk guitarist. She takes him from small time radio, to television personality to the highest political circles before realising the monster she's unleashed.

I learned of this movie listening to a Slate podcast
that in an earlier article called it
The Best Movie About Television That You've Never Seen

"Is it possible for a movie to be selected for the National Film Registry and still be underrated? Everyone who owns a TV set needs to know that A Face in the Crowd is unsurpassed as the great American story about television. "


and that was in 2009.

The director, Elia Kazan, had a history of socially conscious movie making such as A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954) which brought him the attention of the McCarthyite anti communist witchhunt of the 50s. When making this movie he was filled with disillusionment, having seen so many of his ideals betrayed by Stalinist purges in the USSR. It shows.

Director Stanley Kubrick called him, "without question, the best director we have in America, capable of performing miracles with the actors he uses." For all it's non recognition in that year's awards ceremonies and since, this movie must have launched a thousand careers as all the acting parts have a familiar face.

In an era of perfectionist actors such as Marlon Brando, for the lead role A Face in The Crowd, as the mesmerizing con-man personality Lonesome Rhodes, Kazan picked a standup comedian. Andy Griffith is dynamite, and it's almost a tragedy that after this movie he become entombed in folksy straight version roles of the evil creep he plays in this movie. (I'm underplaying this because I'm the wrong generation to appreciate it... the truth is After A Face in The Crowd Andy Griffith became perhaps the most beloved tv personality on US tv for four decades.)

Patricia Neal plays the producer who discovers Rhodes, and who promotes him into the wider media world while being unable to keep him out of her bed. Neal was unforgettable as the Mary figure to Klaatu's Jesus in The Day The Earth Stood Still (she was also Mrs Ronald Dalh). She has to be tragic and smart and the character could have stepped straight from a modern drama set in the era such as Mad Men. Scenes where she is still covering and making a excuses for Rhode's, when he’s treated her and everyone she respects like dirt I'm sure will be familiar to many.

Along with the modern political signifance this is also a period #METOO story told with compassion. The scene when she is preparing for her marriage to Rhodes, only to be confronted with the first wife, is heartbreaking stuff

"... he thinks he has to take a bite out of every broad he comes across. Then he calls them a tramp, drops them, and there's all sort of psycho something-or-other, you know. I caught him red-handed with my best girlfriend. He broke my jaw."

Shortly after this Rhodes appears from a trip to Mexico with a completely different wife (played by a very young Lee Remick, yet another star making performance)

Walter Matthau fans should definitely check out what is effectively his his star maker role as Mel Miller, an initially mild mannered writer for Rhodes who comes to see him for what he is and hate him with everyone else. The loathing initialy includes himself, for not being yet another Alpha Male in Rhode's pack of jackals. As he unloads to Neal's character;

"Didn't you know? All mild men are vicious. They hate themselves for being mild, and they hate the windy extroverts whose violence seems to have a strange attraction for nice girls."

Mocked for his education as “Vanderbilt ‘44” by Rhodes, he eventually gets to deliver a delicious coup de gras.

But it's Andy Griffith's Lonesome Rhodes who will haunt you afterwards. On his journey towards "Secretary for National Morale" he utters a whole series of quotes which would thrill a MAGA crowd.
There is a whole internet industry drawing current political significance from this movie.

How Andy Griffith And Elia Kazan Predicted Donald Trump’s Rise (And Fall?) Way Back In 1957’s ‘A Face In The Crowd’

The movie that foretold the rise of Donald Trump

Not even a movie as cynical as A Face In The Crowd could predict Donald Trump

But for all the apparent similarities personally I think we may have gone beyond a point where this great movie is predictive.

<SPOILER>


Rhodes is brought down by a recording. This is difficult to imagine currently. With the knowledge we have now, we know Rhode's supporters would laugh off any recording as Fake and any opposition as Lonesome Rhodes Derangement Syndrome.

But A Face in The Crowd does have one final moment of relevance in it's minor Twilight Zone twist. At the end Patricia Neal's character actually apologises to Rhodes, coming to realise that she is the originator of the problem, as the person who took him from deserved obscurity into the homes of the nation.

I've been saying for a while now, the real problem isn't with the scumbag opportunist. It's with his enablers.

You can't call Trump a Traitor - but you can call him a Quisling

​​I’m reminded when watching the excellent Okupert  - you can’t call Trump a traitor - but you can call him a Quisling.

Trump loves some old timely references doesn't he?

Rod Rosenstein,  the United States Deputy Attorney General has been referred to as 'Peepers'
and
Jeff Sessions the, United States Attorney General, has been called Mr Magoo

Here’s an old word Trump might be aware of - Quisling
Quisling was the name of an infamous collaborator with the Nazis who helped undermine Norwegian Democracy in the run up to the Nazi takeover of the country in World War II.

Though you'd be a fool not to see Trump's outright treacherous behavior on behalf of Vladimir Putin, by the American definition of traitor you apparently you have to be at war, so in a strict legal sense 'Traitor' does not apply to Trump.. so 'Quisling' is more apt. (Though perhaps a future redefinition of war to include Active Measures might change this).

I guess we could add the US Republican party as a whole to that as well. If we consider the other party, which has won the popular vote in five of the last six US Presidential elections and is now completely powerless to stop the Supreme Court, Congress and Senate from being further rigged and gerrymandered against it, we can definitely conclude the Republican effort to undermine US democracy, with active help from a hostile foreign power, has been hugely successful example of collaboration.

Congressional Republicans' trip to Russia was a shameful fool's errand

Trump is lucky he’s a US citizen, because the UK definition of treason is different.  Based on our thousand year old 'constitution', which history teachers previous to 2016 argued a problematic series of bodges compared to the US version, if Trump was looking at these accusations of treason in a British court, up until 1998 at least, he'd facing the end of a rope.

The penalty for treason was changed from death to a maximum of imprisonment for life in 1998 under the Crime And Disorder Act. Before 1998, the death penalty was mandatory..

UKIP backer Aaron Banks, who 'met Russian ambassador 11 times' before EU vote perhaps also should be aware of this.

Interestingly Trump's actions perhaps relate more easily to Sedition. Perhaps the Mueller investigation will charge him with that, assuming there is anything left of the US Justice system when that finally happens.

Most horrifying political stat

"Something kind of crazy to think about.  If/When Trump gets this second Justice confirmed there will be 4 Justices on the Supreme Court appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote"

From comments here

https://jezebel.com

Pray for Dan Conner

From today's Politico

2018 - Brexit might soon be 'cat up a tree' news

This is what is keeping me awake at the moment

A timeline for 2018

May

Responding to 'provocation' Trump launches 'Bloody Nose' attack against North Korea

Within 48 hours Trump sacks Robert Mueller and shuts down the investigation into Russian collusion

North Korea responds with WMD attacks against South Korea and Japan, and (with Russian backing) cyber attacks against US Allies.

Mass loss of life seen throughout worlds media is later seen as a defining moment of the 21st century

UK is forced to veto UN security council vote condeming US and threatening sanctions


June

US forces invade North Korea

Chinese involvement prolongs fighting in North Korea

Japan threateans use of nuclear weapons

Brexit talks indefinitely suspended


July

Responding to 'provocation' Russia invades Baltic States, Georgia and Ukraine

With US demanding Allied involvement in North Korea NATO response is confused and ineffective

France and Germany pull out of NATO

Poland threateans use of nuclear weapons against Russian aggression

After cyber and threats of WMD attacks in US, Fox news calls on president Trump to declare a state of emergency and martial law


September

Largely blamed for the collapse of NATO and reaction to US actions UK government collapses, replaced by a Labour government or National Coalition depending on severity

United Nations is expelled from New York by Trump administration, UN relocates to Geneva but is now effectively defunct

Depending on the state of the polls, Trump declares Emergency Powers and suspends mid term elections in US. National Guard is deployed to quell widespread unrest.

China announces a Security/Peace conference and invites South China sea nations including Japan. Suggests expelling US forces from the area. Trump threatens use of .. whatever new weapons have been used by US so far, including nukes.


November

November mid term elections do not happen, Republican majority stays in place, Trump is not impeached.

​Trump​

and his family stay out of jail.

Darkest Hour (2017) vs Dunkirk (2017) & the Australian movie we need about the Abdication Crisis

Unlike Nolan’s Dunkirk, current Oscar bait Darkest Hour (2017) barely made a ripple in U.K. movie going conversation - I can see why. It's just embarrassing, and easily the worst film I’ve seen so far this year. This is awful Oscar bait by numbers, as many have said, and despite some good acting work makes Netflix's The Crown look like an edgy masterpiece of popular history.

Lets get the history out of the way first. I'm sure there is some detail in which this movie is very accurate. (I've read the book on which this screenplay appears to be based - Five Days in London, May 1940, by John Lukacs). Dates and timings appear to be spot on along with, some, of what was said.

Beyond that.. What will immediately annoy history buffs is the first scene in the House of Commons, which dumbs down and paraphrases one of the most dramatic and consequential debates in the entire 400 year history of the House of Commons; The Norway Debate.

An entire, brilliant movie could one day be made just covering this debate, as it results directly in the removal of Chamberlain, the final renunciation of appeasement and the installation of Churchill. But Darkest Hour really is only interested in Churchill, and as he is not present for this debate we a given a brief caricature of events. Clement Attlee would serve as the (first) Deputy Prime Minister throughout World War II and would defeat Churchill in the 1945 election. The film off-handledly admits in several places that Churchill is only considered at all for Prime Minister in 1940, against the ruling party, because of pressure from Attlee and the rest of the opposition. Attlee seen in the opening first few minutes of Darkest Hour and then barely mentioned later.

The Norwegians and the Norwegian Campaign which prompted this debate are barely featured, as it would confuse the Nazis-charging-through-the-collapsing-French narrative. Darkest Hour is not alone in disregarding the Norwegian Campaign and this is common to nearly every movie covering the period. Since a large portion of the German fleet ends up on the bottom of Norwegian fjords as a result of this campaign, making the subsequent sea invasion of Britain a virtual impossibility, you would think it would get more attention. The Norwegians have not forgotten it.

This paragraph below shows another another potentially brilliant scene dumbed down and pushed aside by this movie, in favour of a cut down paraphrased scene at an airport. Did they refuse permission to shoot in Paris? Christoper Nolan was allowed to use half the French Navy to shoot Dunkirk..

(From wiki)

Churchill flew to Paris on 16 May. He immediately recognised the gravity of the situation when he observed that the French government was already burning its archives and was preparing for an evacuation of the capital. In a sombre meeting with the French commanders, Churchill asked General Gamelin, "Où est la masse de manoeuvre?" ["Where is the strategic reserve?"] that had saved Paris in the First World War. 
"Aucune" ["There is none"] Gamelin replied. After the war, Gamelin claimed his response was "There is no longer any."
Churchill later described hearing this as the single most shocking moment in his life. Churchill asked Gamelin where and when the general proposed to launch a counterattack against the flanks of the German bulge. 
Gamelin simply replied "inferiority of numbers, inferiority of equipment, inferiority of methods".

There is vast tragedy in the nation which beat the Germans at Verdun succumbing to the Germans of 1940 but (as usual with this kind of movie) we only seem to get French resignation without any nuance beyond that. Similarly, the possibility of talks with Mussolini's Italian fascists looms large over the later stages of this movie, could it not drag itself out of Churchill's bunker for one scene showing an actual Italian?

My frustration here really comes down to missed potential. What a great conspiracy story could be made of this - instead we have an increasingly laughable human interest drama with a political dimension.

Again as usual for this kind of movie it makes no mention of Commonwealth and Empire forces  (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, British India - not inconsiderable) which declared war alongside the home country almost immediately without reservation.

I'm heavily into movie scores at the minute, still going back to Jerry Goldsmith's forgotten epic score to The Blue Max.  Dario Marianelli's score to Darkest Hour.. I wish I could say it's forgettable but it actually distractedly melodramatic; managing to overdramatise some of the most dramatic moments of the last century is really some feat. Try listening to this next to Hans Zimmer's incredible score for Nolan's Dunkirk. You'd struggle to believe they were written in the same century. Darkest Hour's soundtrack belongs in an Ealing Studios movie.

I am not by the way an unabashed worshiper of Dunkirk (2017), it has major major issues on a historical level as well but as just a movie event it makes Darkest Hour look quite laughable.

This is the first Joe Wright film I’ve seen and I’ll avoid the rest. Every flashy CGI camera moment and directorial flourish you can imagine and then some. Without wanting to be too harsh this is the nearest British equivalent I can think of  to Micheal Bay’s execrable Pearl Harbor. Darkest Hour  even has a similar CGI shot showing a bomb dropping off a plane and followed down to the target. Oh and for added fakeness, the glimpse of CGI Little Ships against the CGI White Cliffs of Dover  must have had Nolan's cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema absolutely rolling around with laughter.

Darkest Hour's now infamous Churchill on the tube scene is every bit as Disney-embarrassing-ridiculous as you’ve been led to expect. At a pivotal point in the movie the Grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough decides to take a tube train, alone, to get a Vox Pop of working class opinion. By far the most believable detail in this scene is the British Caribbean gent in the hat. That I can believe. Beyond him - Is that Dick Van Dyke's chimney sweep and Mary Poppins in the background?

There is no scene in Marvel’s Captain America : First Avenger less believable than Darkest Hour's tube scene, and for all the previous acting special effects the movie never recovers, simmering just above Comic Strip Presents : Operation Dynamo.   You certainly will get more of an idea of the real 1940s Britain watching Supersizers Go Wartime.

The positives :  The cast is obviously very good. I'm a massive fan of Gary Oldman, and just about everyone else  here, so writing this has not been easy. I’d rather watch a whole movie about Kristin Scott Thomas's Lady Churchill, or even Stephen Dillane's Halifax, than go into this subject matter again.

Ben Mendelsohn is fantastic again as George VI. With Guy Pearce's magnificent cameo as Edward VIII (and Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue) in The King's Speech , can we hope the Australian film industry is just a step away from the movie about the pivotal Abdication Crisis that we deserve? They'll push Kate Blanchett or Naomi Watts as Wallace Simpson but give Margot Robbie a go - she deserves it. (I recently saw I, Tonya three times in the space of a week.)

Perhaps let Gary Oldman redeem himself as Stanley Baldwin.
For those not aware of the Abdication Crisis featured briefly in The King's Speech , Stanley Baldwin is the British Prime Minister who essentially sacks the Head of State when members of his family are found to be colluding with a hostile foreign power. I would say this is probably a more relevant story right now than yet another bloody movie about Winston Churchill.

As someone with an education, not living in an old people's home, I'm probably the wrong demographic for Darkest Hour. It's a cosy Xmas drawing room drama written for Hollywood grandparents and uncomplaining Baby Boomers,  and such it's an almost diametric opposite to Nolan's Dunkirk which for all its issues does at least put to put you on the beaches and challenges your conceptions of storytelling.

Nolan's movie is a trans-national, inspirational story about survival which notably includes the French and the Dutch and is so aware of war mongering nonsense since 1945 it only refers to the Germans as 'The Enemy'. By contrast Darkest Hour is a laughably told, inward looking hagiography of a great man (and forgotten internationalist) already unfairly idolised by some of the most ignorant, backward looking people on Earth.

I saw the incredible Russian anti-war film Come and See (1985) the same day I saw Darkest Hour, which seems to exist in a different universe. Come and See has some valuable lessons in how to dig up the past.

Don't blame Trump, blame these people

Once upon a time, a woman was picking up firewood. She came upon a poisonous snake frozen in the snow. She took the snake home and nursed it back to health. One day the snake bit her on the cheek. As she lay dying, she asked the snake, "Why have you done this to me?" 
And the snake answered, "Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake."

How did  the worlds most famous liar, a man who brags about sleeping with the wives of his friends, and who is described by the Secretary of State he appointed as a 'Fucking Moron' end up as the most powerful man in Earth?

You can't hold Trump responsible for Trump. He's really not that special.
What fills people with disgust more than anything else is not his exceptional qualities but how familiar we are with his 'type'. The Scumbag Boss.  A grandiose low-life who preys on women, has all the empathy of a pile of dog excrement and is out for only himself. He got where he is on the work of other people and stays were he his by exploiting the people around him. We all work for the Scumbag Boss some day and wonder how Homo Sapiens ever crawled out of the cave and built civilisation with these parasites riding along on the back of the real achievers who co-operate successfully.

But, as Trump apologists know, and there are a surprising number of them even in my country, the planet is full of people bashing Donald Trump (for some reason). So what's the point here?

It occurs to me blaming an obviously incompetent, despicable piece of shit for becoming the President of the united States really is a waste of time. He sure wouldn't care, and I'm not 100% sure he's even responsible for his actions. Is Trump responsible for his own rise? If you were offered a run at the Presidency of the United States would you turn it down because you were unfit?

The blame for Trump rests with his enablers, the ones we can really hold responsible in a few years when we are sitting in an economic and perhaps literal radioactive warzone.

And they are not all Republicans.
But lets start with them anyway.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP : The Republican Party

A mystical organisation, able to materialise an army, The Tea Party, out of nothing to wreck bi-partisan attempts to deal with the last financial crisis, only then to have it dissolve like ghosts into nothing when the same issues appeared when they were in charge. (Dear media : where are all the Tea Party budget fanatics you gave such attention to in 2012?)

And they are in charge. President. Congress and Senate. And they rigged the Supreme Court. For all the lectures we used to have here in the UK on the superiority of the US constitution it seems to have become a One Party State with great ease. And that's even before Trump really gets to work.  I'll get to how this was allowed to happen when I get to The Party Whose Job It Is To Fail, but for the moment these are the people who directly enabled Trump's rise to control of the worlds largest nuclear arsenal and largest economy, and who should hold direct responsibility for it.

Principally:

• Mitch McConnell
• Paul Ryan
• Jeff Sessions

but also including lickspittle creeps such as Devin Nunes and Trey now-conveniently-retired-as-if-all this-never-happened Gowdy, who have been bending over to accommodate their new Leader with no thought for the future stability, security or integrity of the country they have sworn to uphold.

Don't blame Trump - THANK TRUMP - for at least now he gives us the spectacle of the Grand Old Party slowly morphing from history's most immoral opportunists to human history's most laughable political invertebrates.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP : Evangelical Christian voters

Centuries from now, when Religious Hypocrisy is mentioned, the Evangelical endorsement of Trump will surely be one of the first and finest examples of the type.

"everyone loves a sinner who has repented!" they whined in explanation, somehow able to apply this to three times wed serial adulterer, abuser, and seducer of married women but not to missing emails of Trumps opponent.

Evangelicals, know that in the short term you may have done Donald Trump a favour but in the long term you have done Richard Dawkins and the secularist movement a far bigger one. We all know that Hypocrisy and Religion go together like money and politics, but in this you've given us perfect example that will be remembered for all time.

Proverbs 1:32 “For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them."

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP : US Car workers

US voters in Michigan watched the car industry slide into crisis during the last Republican induced financial collapse in 2008. The Republican stance then was - "Market Forces! Let it fail!" Those Michigan voters were jubilant when Obama bailed their industry out at great expense. Some of the overconfidence in the disastrously complacent Democratic campaign of 2016 was down to the belief that Michigan would definitely go Democrat, because of the auto bailout.

When it came to it though, they voted for Trump in droves. The loss of Michigan was crucial in the Republican electoral college win.

That bail out might have been a temporary reprieve though.


Who do car industry workers think will be stupid enough to bail them out the next time?

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  American White Women voters

Next time you see a news item on the #METOO movement, remind yourself that most white women — 52 percent — voted for Trump.

I try and be sympathetic to the views of the Trump voters, particularly the older generations, but white women Trump voters seem to have a special level of utter spinelessness and transcendent airheaded stupidity that makes my jaw drop. 

They make masochism look bad.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  Julian Assange

“For what profits a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul”
What a strange tale this will be. Assange sets up an organisation which promotes the release of the truth, in Wikileaks. He then uses it as a weapon to strike back at an old foe in Hillary Clinton.
And by her defeat he puts the worlds most famous liar in the White House.

A year after Wikileaks started to expose the truth on the Clinton campaign, Trump's 'Fake News' has undermined the entire concept of  objective truth itself.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  Rupert Murdoch

After turning UK political debate into an ignorant nationalistic carnival, the Dirty Digger took his show across the Atlantic with even greater success. Fox News has been instrumental in the political careers of Trump and the previous Republican president, who for most of the last decade was widely regarded as one of the worst presidents in history. Bush Jnr, lets not forget, entered the US into two unwinnable wars while cutting taxes on the super rich. And only a few years later the shameless idiots on Fox News were blaming the next guy in the White House for the skyrocketing budget deficit.

That quote at the top is from Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS. It's a movie which still gets a lot of flak but in Robert Downey Jnr's insane character
W A Y N E   G A  L E 
you'll rarely see a more honest and accurate depiction of the Australian-American news machine.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP  : Bernie Bros and Jill Stein voters

Thanks guys. You made me see the light. I will be voting Labour in the next UK even if they put Piers Morgan in as leader. I would never want to explain why I put a bunch of dangerous incompetents in charge of the worlds largest nuclear arsenal because I voted with my 'conscience'.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  Putin

Putin, if there is any justice, will be blamed for turning the internet into a hate machine. The world wide communication tool which would bring us all together is hurtling us toward WW3. I can't see how that will be a positive for Russia.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP : Clinton campaign & the Democratic Party

Despite going into the 2016 election in a winning position, and outspending their opponents on the Trump campaign, who did not even 100% want or expect to win, the Democrats lost not only the Presidency but also both the Congress and Senate. I've been studying US politics since the mid 1980s and even I cannot fathom how this happened.

Trumps win, I can see now, is a long term consequence of the trauma of 9/11 and the crash of 2008. But.. "checks and balances" right? My A-Level history teacher drummed into us that the beauty of the system was that it could not be abused because one part could always hold the others in check. And if not that - you had the Electoral College as a final fail safe to prevent despotism.

This, I think, presumes that even when one party is not playing by the rules, the other one is at least doing it's job. I have no satisfactory explanation for 8 wasted years of fumbling attempts to do deals with people (like Mitch McConnell ) who patently didn't want to do anything but delay, or the rank incompetence of failing to appoint a Supreme Court judge when given the chance. What I do know is we can obviously see something seriously wrong with the Democratic Party merely by the fact that the people in charge of this historic ongoing display of incompetence are - amazingly - still there!

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, take a bow, you are almost as shameless as the reptiles in the party opposite. If you had an ounce of self awareness and responsibility you would have both resigned the morning of 09/11/16.

RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP :  ME

I worked on the Clinton campaign, No really. It was a fantastic experience with brilliant people, but I can't divorce myself from the outcome . Or the realisation that in four visits to the United States I've only been outside the coastal Blue states for one day, a trip to Reno.
I was as bought into the inevitability of Hillary's win as much as anyone, even when I had previously seen the serious possibility of a win for Leave in the Brexit vote.

I told worried friends in the UK that there was no way Trump would be elected as "Americans, really, honestly, are not that stupid". Elderly relatives were particularly worried but it was easier to reassure them as they remembered the country of Eisenhower and Kennedy still with enormous respect. Trump was to them frightening and surreal, like signs of dementia in one of their oldest and most reliable friends.

I told them all it would be OK.

Bitcoin explained using Star Trek

is Bitcoin the best candidate for 'disruptive technology from the future' ever?


from script of STAR TREK XIII

KIRK : Now the Romulan time agents have elected Trump the future of humanity is doomed

McCOY : If we could just go back before those events and introduce something that would cancel out the effects of the rise of the alt-right on economics and society...

SPOCK : An earlier introduction of Distributed Ledger Technology might accomplish that. Using the basis of the Federation's economic model might strain the processing speeds of primitive AI technology, but by my calculations early 21st century computing could rise to the challenge, if given sufficient motivation. 

McCOY (dismissively) And how does your great Vulcan intellect propose to explain the relevance and significance of DLT to the ignorant, materialistic barbarians of the early 21st century? 

KIRK : Easy! We hide it in something they understand and will embrace immediately  - FREE MONEY!

Inspired by an email exchange which featured the realisation
"satoshi nakamoto as an alien is more believable than satoshi nakamoto as satoshi nakamoto"

Who is going to hold Trump's hand now?

After latest UK general election Trump's leading international ally, Theresa May, is finished politically.
Nigel Farrage's UKIP party is completely wiped out.

I'm thinking Trump's schmoozing with Farrage and Theresa May might not have been great for UKIP and the Tories.

Picking a fight with London in the middle of a terror attack.. days before a general election.... He's a real strategic genius isn't he?

Republicans of 2017 (and Russians) should beware the Republicans of the 2020s

When the dust settles on the Trump administration a new McCarthyism could be next.

As I mentioned in an earlier blogpost there appears to be no limit to the opportunistic treason of the current Rep party, particularly in the wake of the sacking of the head of the FBI.

I feel sorry for the historians that will have to explain this Comey business,

HISTORY STUDENT FROM 2025 : "so.. just before an election Comey announced to the press that thousands of security risk emails had been forwarded to a private account.. 
.. but didn't announce to the press that the Russians were attacking the election..
...then it turned out that the emails weren't a security risk and there weren't thousands of them...
WWWHHHAATTT?!?
What was everyone on in 2016?"

The very least you would expect this to do to would be to call into question the fairness of the last election. Even for Republicans. Even if there was no Russian interference (see below) the FBI has obviously disastrously undermined the voting system.

But no
the current Republican thinking seems to be
"lets move on"

And since the Democrats have allowed them to control all branches of US government it would appear they will be able to do that, at least until next years mid term elections.

HISTORY STUDENT FROM 2025 : ".. so yeah...Trump fired the man who made him president...
 the head of the FBI...
to cover up the evidence of it ever happening 
WHHAATT?!"

Rather than ask current Republicans and supporters to be non partisan and consider the long term health of their own democracy
which, on current form, is laughable
I would ask them to consider their own self interest, because there is no way this is going down well in the long term for you.

I imagine the Democrats in the next few decades will be pretty much what they are now, trying to be non-partisan, trying to do the right thing and failing miserably at both.

In the bitter aftermath of Trump I see most of the serious reaction to be from future Republicans, who I'm sure will have been convinced by then that Trump and his fellow travelers, like Bush II, were never a real Republicans anyway. That way of thinking would insulate the future GOP from contagion with the current generation.
History won't paint you as Republicans - you will be
 'Trump supporters'
something else entirely.

Who should really be worried though, in the long term, are the Russians. A country economically the size of Italy who it would appear are earning the long lasting enmity of a scientific and economic super power​.

I have a lot of personal goodwill towards Russia and Russians. I studied their history intensely at school. It's my favourite classical music. Some of my favourite movies are Russian.
My grandfather served on Arctic convoys in WW2.

Putin might have looked like a political chessmaster last year, now he's starting to look like a midget cheating at cards with a powerful drunken paranoiac who is too focused on his drinking - right now - to realise what is happening.

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto   said this much more eloquently after December 7th 1941
"I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve"

Americans are lousy at getting over history - some of them even like to imagine the Revolutionary War was somehow equivalent to the Eastern Front 1941-45.

Even allowing for the fact that the United States has attempted to do similar (as has my own country)
I think we will all be long dead before the US gets over the history of 2016. The reaction in next couple of decades could make McCarthyism look mild. Intelligent Russians must be horrified as to where this could eventually go. They are going to be the conspiratorial boogeymen of the next 2 or 3 generations - even the Chinese might find dealing with them toxic.

One intelligence analyst on CNN suggested the Russians had only intended to empower Trump, not get him elected, making this one overly successful intelligence op that has run way out of control. Of the two Russian intelligence agencies that helped Trump into office "Fancy Bear" and "Cozy Bear" - which one was the Sorcerer and which one was the Sorcerers Apprentice?

Fantastic art from Matt Davies - Newsday and Andrews McMeel Syndicate & Politico's Cartoon Carousel

The White House's Ted Nugent : In his own lyrics

Jailbait you look so good to me
Jailbait won't you set me free
Jailbait you look fine fine fine
I know I've got to have you in a matter of time

Well I don't care if you're just thirteen
You look too good to be true
I just know that you're probably clean
There's one lil' thing I got do to you
She's young she's tender
Won't you please surrender
She's so fine she's mine
All the time, all mine mine
It's all right baby
It's quite all right I asked your mama
Wait a minute officer
Don't put those handcuffs on me
Put them on her and I'll share her with you

Jailbait, jailbait

---

Sarah Palin invited Ted as her guest to the White House apparently
"Because Jesus was booked"

White evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, exit polls show

The breathtaking, treasonous, self interest of the US Republican Party is probably unique in world history

You have to admire the Russian operation of 2016 - which perhaps in the long term has fatally damaged faith in both U.S. political parties,
and Wikileaks,
and the concept of truth itself.

But to achieve this it has had the help of what is perhaps a uniquely dedicated political institution, the Republican Party, an organisation which historically has risen above petty concerns like the good of its own country and citizens to embrace naked self interest in a way I don't think I've ever seen in any other historic example anywhere in the world.

I was shocked by the House Intelligence hearing into Russian hacking hearing a few days ago. I shouldn't have been.

Despite broad consensus of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Republican Trey Gowdy only wants to prosecute those 'leakers' trying to expose the extent of the conspiracy. Even the Russians must be embarrassed to watch this.


Treason is harsh dirty word not really used in UK politics since the Elizabethan era - but it seems inadequate now to describe the acts of politicians quite prepared to cover up and even encourage malign foreign influence if it helps them prosper politically. It is almost pantomime villain territory and would  be difficult to believe had not the Republican party been quite capable of similar in two previous historical examples.

In 1968 Republicans working behind the scenes sabotaged the Paris Peace talks to ensure the Democratic government at the time did not get credit for ending the Vietnam War. The war by then had already killed 30,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese.Thanks to Richard Nixon's successful electioneering tactics the Vietnam War would go on until the disastrous collapse in 1975.

In similar fashion - it is alleged (by many) - that Republicans prolonged the Iranian hostage crisis in 1981, again to ensure a Republican victory in the election of 1980.
 "Allegations that the Reagan administration negotiated a delay in the release of the hostages until after the 1980 presidential election have been numerous but unproven. Gary Sick, principal White House aide for Iran and the Persian Gulf on the Carter administration’s National Security Council, claimed in his book October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan that CIA Director William Casey and possibly Vice President George H. W. Bush went to Paris to negotiate such a delay. Many others have made the same allegations."

We could perhaps add the Southern Strategy to this. Though it does not include the collusion of a foreign power it does indicate the Republicans willingness to undermine social and racial cohesion within their own nation if it suits their political agenda.

And don't think that sacred constitution is safe either. More recently the Republicans, who routinely wave around the United States constitution as if it were personally handed to them from Mount Sinai,  have also sought to directly undermine that supremely sacred document to their own political ends. The Founding Fathers enshrined within the constitution checks and balances to moderate the influence of the Presidency, such as the Congress (the lower chamber) and the Senate (upper chamber) and the creation of a independent Supreme Court. Membership of the Supreme Court is for life and it is with the power of a president to replace Supreme Court members if one should pass away.
Or it was.
Until 2016, when a President elected with a substantial majority in 2012 was blocked from appointing his own choice of Supreme Court judge by Republican Congress, an act which directly undermines the obvious written intent of the US constitution.

It would seem, for the purposes of the Supreme Court at least, the United States is already a one party state.

Republicans are enabled in this by the other party, the Democrats, who have seemingly fallen off their high horse so many times now they have serious concussion. "We go high, they go low" might be a noble policy when dealing with normal political opponent but when dealing with an opposition quite happy to even collude with a hostile foreign  power and cover it up, ongoing Democratic ineptitude and weakness must hover around treason itself.

I'm not being naive about my own country. The Conservatives have rigged at least one UK election  and members of the Labour Party and the Unions that backed them in the 1970s have long been suspected to be under Russian influence. Perhaps Nazi influence on British society in the 1930s or German influence on the monarchy before that could also be cited as examples of recent political treachery in the UK.

But these are individuals, not an entire organisation with an established record of doing similar. There is nothing, I think historically in any nation which compares with the naked greed for power AT ANY COST which can be seen in the Republican Party right now. I'm sure in future they will defend themselves by hiding behind the breathtaking incompetence of the current occupant of the White House, but this is a much bigger issue than one man. He is a bumbling opportunist who was presented with the opportunity to become the most powerful man on Earth - can we really blame him for taking that opportunity?

The ones who will ultimately carry the can for this are the ones who enabled his rise - and somehow future historians will have to explain how they chose to do this at the expense of the country they swore an oath to protect.

A Brit inside the Clinton Ground Game Pt 2 : Tuesday, Election Day

Part 2 of 2

We thought we would win. WE. You would think any sensible bone in my body would be anxious to distance myself from what will go down as one of the most catastrophic political campaigns in modern history. Yet, I'm proud. perhaps the explanation for that is in one of these blog posts.

---

A Brit inside the Clinton Ground Game Pt 2 : Tuesday, Election Day

On the Tuesday, day of the actual election I thought all that would be left would be voting (as per UK) so instead went to a large department stores Sale just off Union Square. I needed to pick up a visitors voucher and found myself having a short chat with a shop assistant on the election.

It was surprising.
Based on the great high of yesterdays volunteering I rather proudly and naively said I was helping out the Dems, expecting her to be pleased. Instead she was instantly guarded and said only this

"You know, people just want change. There are lots of Chinese families in this city, businesses. That have been here centuries. They just don't want to be killed"

I'll cover the latest extent of the awful homeless problem in San Francisco in specially in another blogpost, but one of the striking things about it is that it buts up literally to Chinatown without appearing in it. Where the main street, Mission (the equivalent of London's Oxford Street) seems to have a resident homeless person at least every 10ft throughout its entire length I didn't spot a single homeless person in Chinatown, though one particularly resentful homeless guy, (and their frequent aggression is an issue as well), seems to like camping out on the actual historic Chinese gate leading in. But you never saw him past the gate.

Why is this relevant to the election? It's perception. If the main shopping street of San Francisco, capital of Silicon Valley, looks like Woodstock for homeless people I shudder to think what places Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore and Pittsburgh are like. Crime statistics in the US are actually really improving - but if this is what visitors actually see it's no wonder Trump is getting such support on law and order issues.

Republicans and right wingers love to present the Progressive Left as a soft touch (as evidenced by the performance of Democratic Party - they are). A total failure to deal with the highly visible  homelessness issue confirms all of those stereotypes and I'm sure further perpetuates the problem - much to the delight of racist, suburban Republicans who keep wining electoral votes on it.

Girl on 27th Mission singing beautiful Beatles songs

Anyway, I couldn't find luggage any better than the battered stuff I had so encouraged by FF's txts again I decided to head up to 1001 and at least see if I could bag myself one of the cool Hillary For Pres t-shirts. I'd written by now what I thought would be the story of the election (see Part 1) so I was really just going up to be supportive.

1001 Van Ness rather incongruously sat next to a very 21stC Tesla showroom

I soon found myself sucked in again by the air of fevered enthusiasm and the strange setting around us. I've never been in a tv studio before and the ambient sound proofing and archaic late 20thC fittings made it a fascinating place to hang out. It was like being a ghost from the previous Clinton era, or phantom extras from the classic movie NETWORK, echoing from that biting 1970s Trump campaign prophecy into 21st century reality.

Getting back into the txt campaign again I found myself on several different tables on floor 3, alongside various guys this time with cameras intending to document what we were all convinced would be Hillary's historic win. Four of the guys there were Norwegian, making the latest of several documentary's on the subject and helping out with the txt campaign at the same time.

San Franciscans around us were delighted at the international help but a little ashamed at how far Trump had got. "You must think we're all mad" and "What do they think of us in your country?" I heard several times. Thank god these poor people didn't have to see me later on. I tried to reassure them that in the UK election success for reality tv stars was only a matter of time (The Apprentice still very popular I'm told).

I was asked about Brexit. "It's not really happened over there yet has it?" someone asked. I said the car had gone off the cliff and we were still sailing through the air. Californians seemed to be able to relate to that.

Also set near me was a little old lady checked heavily in Democratic regalia who seem to be a local personality of some kind. She'd ding a bell every time there was some announcement of progress.

She had terrible eyesight and I helpted her change txt campaiugns when required (see part 1). For most of the time at the table she seemed not all there but when I met her on the way out to say goodbye later (when things were much more serious) she seemed a lot more on the ball.

So yes, during the day as we laughed at the responses to our texts and marvelled at the exotic names in Florida as the results slowly came in and were posted up on large screens and elaborately constructed white boards. And we cheered all the good results coming in.

There didn't seem that many.. but we aware all very upbeat, apart from one guy in his 20s with a laptop ("chris"?) who seemed to realise very very early on something was up. I almost had a dig at him for being such a downer, until his girl showed up, who obviously knew him well enough to be seriously disturbed about what was going on.  He wasn't worried about a Trump landslide. That wasn't happening. He was worried about Democratic turnout. Very worried. Like the Brexit vote, which I was doomed to relive again, the decider on this historic and critical election where the people who could just not drag their arse off the sofa because they thought their vote didn't matter.

Like an idiot I kept asking about Florida which everyone seemed to know intimately. "Don't wait for a result there", if it's good, the argument went, it will take maybe weeks to get a good result out of Florida. (Florida declared for Trump in the early part of the evening).

By the end of the day there was still no obvious result and bolstered by listening to two years of media coverage I still did not believe Trump could win. I was still waiting for the party. Late afternoon I only narrowly avoided paying $30 for a cool Hillary 'BADASS FOR PRESIDENT' poster because I didn't have the cash.

By about 4pm they'd stopped updating the newsboards and not long after that various tables started turning up the sound on their laptops turned to mainly CNN. I think it was the tone of panic in Wolf Blitzers voice at about 5pm that brought me to my senses. This wasn't just the bonfire of the centre left but the credibility of the news media and their polling resources as well. They had 6 months of warning from the Brexit vote and the results Trump pulled out in the Primaries and they were still  catastrophically wrong.

In the hot studio of floor 3 we were still getting free fresh water from smiling Dem volunteers and regularly told to stop and do stretching exercises. About 6pm delicious slices of pizza where handed out from a box by the most dejected person I have ever seen carrying slices of pizza.

The txt campaigns themselves had now become desperate requests to voters queueing in Pennsylvania, Florida and Colorado to stay in line until their poling stations closed. Far away across the rest if the country, where Texas had been discussed as a serious Dem target days before, Michigan - which only had a car industry at all because Obama had jumped in and saved it - went Republican. "Wisconsin" said Chris with the Laptop "she could still win if she gets that". He said it quietly, almost a desperate whisper.

By now it was starting to thin out at 1001 but only because volunteers were off to their own election parties. I had two offers myself but with no wifi, no phone data or even txts (5 failed to send that night for whatever reason) I didn't want to risk missing the drama so historical inevitability got the better of me and I decided to head up Van Ness to the official Dem event at the Holiday Inn.

But not before the txt campaign was slowly shut down and the laid back Dem volunteers where replaced by quite pushy, panicked and emotional people trying to talk us into other last minute campaigns. I gave a definite 3rd solid NO to a girl who expected a foreign national with a northern English accent to cold call people at home to tell them to vote for local candidates in states were the local polls were closing in 10-20 minutes. That's when the  optimistic hold-outs on my table all looked around at each other with a collective "WTF?"

Perhaps as a nudge to get me involved next door in the phone campaign I was moved from my table, which at least gave me  chance to explore the building.

When we were told to stop and move on and I half wondered if it was health and safety reasons.

Graveyard of nametags

After the charming grass roots nature of 1001 Van Ness, the Dem Party at the Holiday Inn looked much more professional. I say it 'looked'. Instant access to home made cakes and refreshments was gone, replaced by a long queue for expensive beer (so my Hunter S Thompson drug and alcohol story was off the agenda) while a flood of late arriving people in smart dress took all the seats. Exhausted, sweaty and emotional as I was, some sort breaking point was not far off. The actual breaking point was realising, after a day of bad comms, that there was no free wifi at the Dems official election party without providing a room number at the Holiday Inn. Democrats couldn't provide even free wifi for the people who'd spent days volunteering for them.

For years I'd been hyperconnected to US politics via great wifi in the UK and Prague, and worked desperately to stay in touch during an ill fated trip to Cuba. Now I was in the Capital of Silicon Valley and I couldn't even see the tv screen for news. I couldn't hear her but from one tv screen Rachel Maddow, who I listen to on my London commute every day, looked utterly crushed and professionally humiliated.

I went out into the lobby with a beer trying to pick up some network somewhere only to hear a huge cheer from back in the room.
"Wisconsin?"
I thought and raced back in with a few others to find the be-suited grandees cheering the election of a local senator who had apparently agreed to legalise pot. I looked around - the only people here from the text campaign that I recognised were the Norwegian documentary makers, similarly horrified and embarrassed as I was, to find ourselves in the ringside eat for the most horrifying and chaotic family funeral in US political history.

There was one mercy. This room this could have been heartbreaking, to see this happening on the faces of the wonderful people I worked hard for days to prevent Trump becoming President.. But I looked around...

And none of them were there 

No little old ladies

No cute dogs

No enthused smart kids full of beans and enthusiasm.

I looked around at the Democratic election party and it was just Suits. And media.

Eventually I found myself in Holiday Inn's restaurant, mainly because their tv's had subtitles and I couldn't get any decent news at the main venue. After another great local beer (Blue Moon) and the worst chicken wings ever, served by some very sympathetic and diplomatic staff I staggered, barely believing out onto the night on Van Ness, for a very long walk over a very big hill.

As I left for good I saw the Norwegians were still there, looking back with a disbelieving. "You? are still here?" That was surreal - It was like we were sharing each others nightmare.

Exactly a week before myself and FF had found ourselves by pure chance in Tommy's Joynt watching the pure joy of the Cubs winning the World Series. It was a different world now.

Throughout that day I never saw anyone cry. Away from the Holiday Inn, my fellow Brit Jez out on Day street had to console three women in floods of tears. FF was still crying the next day even after a dose of 3D Benedict Cumberbatch at the Alamo Draft House.

By then there was word of street protests all over the country and SF was already beginning to bounce back in it's own inimitable way.

And I heard the word 'CALEXIT' for the first time.