Us politics

As so often, The Simpsons were years in advance of actual political facts. In the programme about ten years ago, Lisa Simpson, for reasons I have now forgotten, becomes President of the United States. She sits in the Oval Office and is briefed by aides on the mess she has inherited from one President Trump. Trump made the great mistake, she is informed, of ‘investing in our nation’s children’. The country is bust and ‘Our free breakfast program merely created a generation of super-criminals.’ Among commentators on either side of the Atlantic, one of the few to see the coming of Trump was the former owner of this paper, Conrad Black, who knows the man. Now Conrad has a vision.

It is recognised that the era of television has made it well-nigh impossible in Britain and the United States for a balding leader to win an election if pitted against one with more hair — Callaghan/Foot/Kinnock v. Thatcher, George H.W. Bush v. Clinton, Hague/Howard v. Blair, McCain v. Obama. (The only exceptions I can think of derive from the power of incumbency — George W. Bush v. Kerry, Obama v. Romney.) Now the voters’ jaded palate seems to be no longer content with a full head of hair alone, but wants it to be strikingly memorable as well, not to say strange. Hence the rise of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. Obviously Boris would beat Jeremy Corbyn on this account.

Badda Bing. Chris Christie has just endorsed Donald Trump for president, and suddenly Republican politics looks like a particularly nasty episode of the Sopranos. As he paid homage to the new capo di tutti capi, Chris Christie called Trump 'the person who will do exactly what needs to be done to make America a leader around the world again'. He talked about his 'long friendship' with Donald Trump, and said that Trump was 'the last person' Hillary and Bill Clinton wanted to face in the presidential election. The scene had a certain gangster atmosphere. The endorsement might explain a few things. It explains why, to the surprise of many, Christie refused to go after Trump even as his candidacy failed.

Tonight’s Republican CNN debate should be, to use the Donald Trump word, yuuge. I don’t mean to sound like a boxing promoter; I know that TV debates, especially Republican ones, are overhyped. They often turn out to be little more than soundbites and fury, signifying nothing. But anybody who thinks a bad debate can't harm a political candidate should see what happened in New Hampshire, when Marco’s Rubio hilariously robotic performance in the Saturday night TV showdown helped push him down to fifth place. Since Donald Trump looks increasingly certain to be the Republican nominee, his rivals, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, desperately need to do something special to hurt him. The CNN debate tonight is surely their last chance.

A few nights ago, my missus and I were walking along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, minding our own business while trying not to think about Donald Trump — or Ted Cruz, or Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders. Presently we passed the Old Post Office Building, a venerable pile dating to 1899. It looks a bit like Big Ben atop a ten-storey Romanesque atrium. There in front was a billboard the size of Montana proclaiming ‘TRUMP’. It is to be — shudder — a hotel. Clutching my beloved’s arm, I gasped: ‘A drink — quickly. For the love of God, a drink.’ She rushed us to the restaurant, where a martini revived my colour and vital functions. But my depression remained.

It's pretty extraordinary that a leading contender for the American presidency has just effectively threatened the Pope with terrorism. But then, Donald J. Trump is no ordinary Republican frontrunner. Everything about his campaign is outrageous -- and that's why he is winning. Today, the Pope, returning home from Mexico, told reporters that he thought Trump's intention to build a wall between America and Mexico was unChristian.

If Jeb Bush is to have any chance of winning the Republican nomination in 2016, he needs a 'media moment'. He needs an exchange of arguments or insults with Donald J. Trump in which he indisputably comes out on top. If you listen to Team Bush's boosters, that moment happened last night. But they would say that. Trump and Bush clashed fiercely over foreign policy and the legacy of Jeb's brother, George W. Bush. And the crowd booed Trump. Trump said that the Bush II administration had lied over Iraq. 'They said there were weapons of mass destruction,' he said. 'There were none and they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.

While browsing in Barter Books, the wonderful secondhand bookshop in Alnwick that is fast becoming a national institution, I came across a volume of Piers Morgan’s diaries, covering his two years in the United States, judging America’s Got Talent and taking part in Celebrity Apprentice (the Alan Sugar role being played by one Donald Trump). I cannot claim to have been all that keen on Morgan ever since I discovered that in the mid-1990s, when he was an agent of Murdoch, he penned a note to Tony Blair demanding that he silence ‘idiots like Mullin shouting their mouths off about “loathsome tabloids” and my owner’.