ELECTION DAY AFTER

 
Something has shifted radically in the morals of the American psyche. Here is the man whom Robert De Niro decried as a pig and a dog. They said that he was essentially mad, that he hadn't paid his taxes and that he had molested women. He is Donald Trump. Today we hear that he is the new President of the United States. The enthusiasm that surrounded his predecessor's victory in 2008 now rings so hollow. On the day of Obama's inauguration in January 2009, I wrote this poem:

The Inauguration

If such a man can make so much difference,
Why has it taken so long to find him?
Does time really move in a circumference
Filling the milk of kindness to the brim?

All the world's red ink will go tomorrow
Down River Jordan, so cool and handsome
Is the son of the Kilimanjaro 
With proverbs to pronounce for those who come.

What mandated governments can do
Depends on the hands moving to order
More than wearing for a time someone's shoe
Pretending to be busy and older,

The substantial aspects of leadership
Are about making plans for things to happen,
Choosing what to whip, what bad deals to skip,
And how to disarm atomic weapons.

On a frosty dawn he holds the mantle
Full of good intentions and all the rest.
Promising to be tough and yet gentle,
A philosopher king begins the test.

In the eight years since, if Obama has not been inept he has certainly been inadequate. He had set up such high expectations that there was no way he was going to fulfil them. If anything it was clear from day one that, without any real solutions in mind, he had instrumentalised all the difficult issues of the day as an election strategy. "Every problem and every complaint were smoothly synthesised into that one feel-good slogan, "Yes, we can!" He never seemed comfortable once ensconced into power, not as a king and much less as the philosopher that he made out to be with his consumate skill as an orator during campaigning. So inert his presidency has been, there's even a vague suspicion that someone else has been running the agenda behind the scenes. Interestingly the stock markets are drastically down today suggesting that Trump is genuinely an unknown quantity to the movers and shakers of this world. I presume many of these people will be wanting to speak to him soon but I wonder whether he will continue to be asked about those unpaid taxes and the women he is supposed to have abused along the way. For a man who has triggered off something radical, at least he seems to be what he is - himself.