Juan Perón once said, "a country is like playing a guitar: you pick it up with your left and play it with the right." The quote, from the former Argentinian dictator, reminded me of Tony Blair, but more pertinently of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Hillary Clinton, in an attempt to win over the millennial and progressive vote, increasingly seeks to appear to the left of centre, echoing socialist Bernie Sanders in condemning corporate influence: "People rightly believe corporations and the powerful have stacked the deck in their favour and against everyone else," Clinton has said. "The Koch brothers are some of the biggest deck stackers you'll ever find."
A nice sentiment, but one compromised as Clinton continues to receive campaign donations from big money and Wall Street. In this way, Clinton looks to appeal to the progressives with beguiling acoustic riffs - think Tom Waits - before rising to power and returning to more familiar renditions of old Status Quo songs.
I'm still hoping the US sees sense and elects Bernie Sanders, the man on Main Street. But that'll mean Hillary supporters seeing past her beguiling melodies, appreciating she's a compromised candidate in the pocket of big money & Wall Street with little genuine enthusiasm to radically change American politics. When X Factor gets the audience, there's little need to nurture more soulful talent.
Donald Trump on the other hand is a whole other proposition. Fear and panic is mounting as sane Americans, and disbelieving citizens of the world, contemplate what planet Earth would be like if the "Drumpf" actually won. Personally, I still think it highly unlikely he'll get elected. I just don't believe enough Americans want to set the match and watch it burn. Of course, if they do and if Trump does win, I also suspect he won't do very much at all. In my eyes, he's playing to the crowd: an all-white, all-seater stadium in middle-America with their lighters held aloft as Donald rants more than sings.
Again, to paraphrase Juan Perón, Trump is picking the guitar up with his right, but once elected will realise he doesn't actually know how, or even want to play their songs. Indeed, I predict once in office Trump will simply fob off the nuts he's pandering to now, and enjoy the prestige of power - not building walls and not committing genocide, but instead bloatedly pontificating at every available opportunity, while ruining the economy for everyone. After all the man is a total narcissist, a buffoon selling snake oil without true courage or convictions and without the anger or hunger of dictators in the past. For me, Trump's end goal is to show what a "winner" he is; to gain himself a figurative platinum record; to garner the applause and adulation of the world at large, and not create a proto-fascist state.
I could be wrong, but in that case God bless us all.