Freddy Gray

Dear Reader, There isn’t much to be cheerful about in this world of plague anxiety. Yet one comfort is that, locked down as we all are, we may have more opportunities to read. That’s where The Spectator can help. We’ve got a flash sale on, and there are many reasons you'll want to take it up: We have now put our June edition to bed and it looks great. The subject — ‘how to tame the dragon’, ie China — couldn’t be more important. Get your copy here Each month we produce a similarly stunning print issue. As well as great essays on politics, we have brilliant arts, books and life sections, edited by Dominic Green, with reviews and essays by some of the best writers in the English language.

‘We are the United States of Amnesia,’ said Gore Vidal in 2004. These days, it’s more the United States of Dementia. In 2020, the country seems determined to choose between two elderly men who, it is fair to say, are some distance from sanity. Joe Biden, the 77-year-old who even aides admit has lost his ‘cognitive fastball’, has somehow emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Assuming that his candidacy or health don’t implode somehow between now and the party convention in July, Biden will face Donald Trump at the ballot on 3 November. America’s choice, then, is between two kinds of crazy.

Everybody knows that Joe Biden’s mental health is a concern. We all understand that he is not the Democratic party’s ideal candidate. We appreciate that his nomination could leave a huge numbers of anti-Trump voters feeling apathetic. But tonight’s results suggest it is time to consider something else: Joe Biden may be quite a formidable presidential candidate in 2020. Biden has won in Michigan, Missouri, and Mississippi. He can win across America. It’s not just that the establishment has quickly rallied behind him. It’s not just that the African American vote seems to be solidly in his favor — although his numbers tonight suggest his appeal to black voters is extraordinary.

‘Hubris is one of the great renewable resources,’  said P.J. O’Rourke, and American politicians have a habit of proving him right.In 2016, Hillary Clinton became hubristic. ‘Happy Birthday to this future president,’ she (or one of her minions) tweeted, famously, on October 26 that year. Barack Obama also stupidly ignored the ancient wisdom and invited nemesis. ‘At least I will go down as a president,’ he taunted Trump on TV, just a few weeks before Donald Trump won the election. What foolish pride!In 2020, however, it is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who seem to be tempting fate. Trump always toys with excessive arrogance and has a habit of getting away with it.

I met Joe Biden last month, after one of his town hall events in New Hampshire. His team had turned the music up loud, presumably so that 77-year-old Joe — the gaffe machine from Scranton, Pennsylvania — would not be recorded saying something stupid as he mingled with the fans and reporters. I shook Biden’s hand and — limey hack that I am — asked: ‘Mr Vice President, how, as President, would you approach Brexit Britain and Boris Johnson?’ ‘What?’ he said. I repeated the question, shouting this time. ‘What?’ he said again, smiling. His dentures were brilliant; his eyes mad blue. He had no idea what I was talking about. I tried one last time, screaming ‘Boris Johnson!’ in his ear.

‘Bernie beats Trump! Bernie beats Trump!’ That’s what Bernie Sanders’s fans keep chanting, and they have the polls to prove it. Survey after survey suggests that, of all the leading candidates for the Democratic party’s nomination, Sanders is most likely to defeat Donald Trump in the election in November. Voters like Bernie. Some 46 per cent of voters say they admire him. Only 26 per cent say the same of President Trump. Still, most political experts think Sanders will be a disaster for the Democratic party. He may be popular with the base, they say, but he is far too left-wing for the general electorate: 2020 would be a repeat of 1972, when the radical leftie George McGovern lost to Richard Nixon in a landslide.

‘There are two things that are important in politics,’ said Mark Hanna, the American senator, in 1895. ‘The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.’ In 2020, Hanna’s maxim could be updated: the second thing is being an old white guy from New York. The presidential election is 36 weeks away and it looks as if the winner will be one of three men. There’s the Manhattan billionaire incumbent, Donald Trump, 73, whose fortune is estimated at $3 billion (he claims eight). There’s the socialist outsider from Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders, who is 78 and worth $2.5 million. And last but not least is 78-year-old Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the richest fruit in the Big Apple, weighing in at a whopping $64 billion. Money, money, money.