Taki Taki

The roots of America’s unhappiness

Moses Ezekiel’s Confederate Monument was unveiled in 1914 by Woodrow Wilson as an emblem of unity, reconciliation and happiness. [Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images]

New York

An American columnist whose writing I used to enjoy until his bosses signalled to him that activism is more important than journalism recently reported that Americans are unhappier now than they have ever been. Especially in places that voted for The Donald. Apparently, a pollster found that Trump got the most votes in places where people felt the unhappiest. But that makes sense, doesn’t it? Don’t people vote against the status quo when misery levels are rising? Mind you, it could also be that those who ask the questions have a vested interest in the answers they get. Invent a misery level where voters are for Trump, then pour it on and predict strikes, crime and anti-government demonstrations.

By the time you read this, the American midterm results will be in, and boring pundits will be telling us why people voted the way they did. What they will not be doing is telling us why they mostly got it wrong, because sitting and talking with thinkalikes does not a Delphic Oracle make. I am no longer for The Donald because I do not wish to see ratings and subscriptions of left-wing rags such as the Bagel Times augment. Nor do I wish to see a media backlash against The Donald obscure stories that actually matter. Trump hogs the headlines and dominates all news. Knowing hacks, if a fully dressed Trump fell into the White House swimming pool, it would lead the news even if Russia unleashed a nuclear bomb that same evening. The trouble is that there are more than 70 million voters who love The Donald, the so-called ‘Deplorables’ according to the poet Hillary Clinton. Last but not least, Trump is to presidential dignity what Harpo Marx was to speech. But the fact that the Justice Department may appoint a prosecutor to go after Trump makes 75 million of them not best pleased.

Never mind.

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