Tuesday 26 December 2023

Who will rule the roost



Will the fate of the US presidential elections, which take place in 11 months time be decided by the Gaza war. Will Joe Biden’s support of Benjamin Netanyahu be a turning point in Donald Trumps campaign for the White House.
There was always the assumption that the so called democratic make up of the US constitution to provide significant checks and balances in the decision making process to filter out the bad boys but the opposite seems to be the truth as the checks and balances cancel each other out and one is left with a stalemate.
Contrasted with the political dictatorship in China or Russia the voting procedure in America seems much better at providing a democratic result than either of the US’s main rivals but clearly the process is under attack when Trump refused to accept the election result and the on going polarisation of the main parties in Congress stymy the voting process. The electorate are so polarised that sound bites provide sufficient fodder to feed a great deal of dissent plunging the country into revolutionary conflict.
Political discourse is replaced by jingoistic slander and even the courts now seemingly are part of the partisanship.
The Founding Fathers had the idea of indemnifying the individual states from over weaning interference by the federal power of Congress such that they made each State partially automatous, each sovereign in terms of its interpretation of the law. Even the Supreme Court which is tainted by the fact that Supreme Court judges are nominated by the President, an immensely political figure such that the way the court reaches its decisions is potentially biased by the political leaning of the President, (conservative or liberal) and a judgement such the abortion, based on Roe v Wade has, since Donald Trumps insertion of 3 conservative Supreme Court judges, been reinterpreted and overturned in particular conservative States.
The Machiavellian intertwining at the top of British political patronage is a who’s who of the Carlton Club and Etonian Old Boys. As the plum positions arise so do the names of those who patronise the Tory Party. With the job, now well on its way to destabilise the Welfare State, the BBC and all voices who have critiqued the lack of transparency in appointing the powerful heads of quasi institutions which run our country.
I fear even a root and branch realignment will fail give the country back its institutions since the institutions themselves have become rotten by the use of patronage.

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