Just like me trying to catch the bus

Subject: Just like me trying to catch the bus.

One thing to understand as we purvey the American at the polling booth is that the American is not the same as us. We call them cousins but in fact they are many times removed, we speak a common tongue, English but the words we use come from a different root,  it's a source based on a very different interpretation of what it is to be a citizen.

Whilst we look to government for paternalistic protection the American looks at Government as getting in the way of their aspirations. The Wild West frontiersman is still buried deep in their psychic, they still stand by their gun ownership, ready to defend their property whilst we benignly expect that messy business to be handled by the police.

The individualism rooted in most Americans comes from a not too distant breed of men and women who packed their belongings and moved out to colonise the open tracts of land which needed, not centralised government but localised enforcement. This independence from an over reaching, some would say nanny state such as we have where discussions are held in the security of a parliament often isolated from the constituents who make up this countries population, who profess to speak for us all when we know they speak for a few and because we have become coddled  into believing our interests are theirs, so we have become politically benign. No need to look for a flamboyant leader, rather than a thoughtful one (we got it very wrong last time out) who's instincts may be miles away from ours but because we secure our faith in Parliament and not the leader of a Party and we assume the party will sort out our problems. In America the election is not for party but for the individual and the hope is by choosing him or her they will recognise our need and, if they don't, your expected to take matters into your own hands to solve your own problems anyway. In a land of winners and losers where the winner takes all, is it any wonder you need to be on a winning side. Perhaps the greatest disservice the Democrats did was to chose a man who didn't resemble a winner. He has never been a winner, he has always played second fiddle to someone else. His age, although not greatly different to Trump marks him as being frailer, he hasn't Trumps get up and go and it's this factor, above all else that the Americans cherish as a nation, the cavalry charging over the horrozon bugles blowing, demanding to be counted. Watching Biden run in a stage managed effort to dispel any thoughts he is not up to it is pathetic and really counter productive. Trumps energy comes from his persona, his vibrancy in front of an audience of acolytes.  Obama could skip onto the stage, Biden looks like me trying to catch the bus.