Never has Political Melodrama, cliche and understatement been so successfully wedded? Mr. Ganesh’s opening paragraph: 

Addressing a traumatised nation, the US president fumbled. His Oval Office speech lacked command and old doubts resurfaced about his fitness for the role. Much of Washington sensed that a man elected in good times (while losing the popular vote) was out of his element in a crisis.

The video of the revered Anthony Fauchi’s almost laughter, during the Trump Press Conference, and  him covering his face, with his free hand, speaks louder than any exclamation.

Mr. Ganesh widens his melodramatic frame with the additions of political actors, Boris Johnson is not absent, but is obliquely referred to by his place holder ‘Britain’s ruling Conservatives’, followed by Neo-Liberal under siege Emmanuel Macron. 

Much of it is a nervous public’s reflexive deference to authority. In a crisis, there is no solace in the thought that one’s leaders are derelict, even if the facts invite exactly that conclusion. Note that Britain’s ruling Conservatives are also scoring well with voters. So is President Emmanuel Macron of France. Given their divergent response to the virus (in timing, if not content), all that links these governments is the fact of being governments.

What follows is Mr. Ganesh’s speculations on, and citations of Trump’s political missteps,   that fails to address the ebbing away of the credibility of The New Democrats: first Mrs. Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ , then its wholesale investment in the fictional  ‘Russia-Gate’ followed by ‘UkraineGate’ , both  simply collapsed, and then were promptly forgotten. Except the clear demonstration of Joe Biden’s corruption. The purchase of sinecures for his son Hunter, lie fallow, for the political moment. 

Those years of MSNBC propaganda, and its hysterical mouthpiece Rachael Maddow, have now found a new compelling obsession, that is fact based, The Pandemic. With Carnival Barker Trump as the villain, they midwifed. The New Democrats and their ‘fake news’ has cost them dearly, yet the cognitively impaired Biden is the presumptive candidate for president. Could my selective history of the New Democrats help to explain Trump’s high ratings? Yet it is a contributing factor, that Mr. Ganesh doesn’t even allude too. There is no need for overt historical revisionism, the News Cycle is just a endless repetition of imprint and erasure.   

Political Observer

https://www.ft.com/content/296f2c82-6e86-11ea-9bca-bf503995cd6f