Donald trump

Rome’s collegiate system was more logical than America’s

So Humpty Trumpty has had his great fall. But how democratic or logical was his election in the first place since, thanks to the USA’s ‘collegiate’ system, he became POTUS even though he lost by three million votes? Romans, too, used an undemocratic collegiate system for appointing their consuls, but at least there was a certain logic to it. The logic arose from the Roman ‘class’ system. This defined both how much tax you paid, and in which ‘college’ you were placed for voting purposes. To these ends, regular property censuses divided citizens into seven bands by wealth. The top band (equites) consisted of the richest in society, from which

I was the only Trump supporter among the olive-pickers

We bums find ourselves sought after at this time of year to lend a hand with the olive harvest. So this week I’ve been standing on a tarpaulin in a sunny field combing olives off olive branches. It’s a good year for olives. The trees are laden and the work is pleasantly monotonous. The minimal level of thought needed to accomplish the task shuts down the internal Red Army choir of negative thoughts that normally drowns out the competition, offering the mind a holiday. In the mornings we combed to the sound of birds twittering in the trees; after lunch to Fip music radio, state-financed, eclectic. On Thursday the smoky-voiced

Lionel Shriver

What the three types of Trump supporter really want

As Democrats’ colossal collective sigh of relief drives wind turbines even over in Britain, let’s not lose sight of the big story. However welcome, Joe Biden’s win was supposedly a dead cert. Even conservative commentators like Andrew Sullivan were hoping for a landslide. The real big story is that Donald Trump came within about 73,000 votes of winning the Electoral College. Democrats have celebrated the fact that their man got more votes than any other presidential candidate in history. But who got the second largest number of votes in history? Donald Trump. Of all people. And a 75 million vs 71 million popular vote gap is hardly yawning. Had a

Trump may have lost, but his agenda is here to stay

Donald Trump is now showing exactly why he had to be defeated. Well after the votes have been counted, with no evidence of anything but the usual minor glitches — none of which is sufficient to dent Joe Biden’s margin of victory — the President of the United States is doing what he did for four years: sabotaging American democracy because of his pathological narcissism. Trump remains what he has long been — a purely destructive force, a vandaliser, not a builder. But Trumpism? It did far better than anyone expected. The polls were off — again — missing Republican strength. Down-ballot, many Republicans seriously outperformed their nominal leader. During

Who cares whether Trump accepts that Biden won?

Three days after statisticians called the 2020 US presidential election for Joe Biden, the loser of that contest continues to sulk in the White House like a spoiled eight-year-old kid and is brooding about the result. Trump’s campaign may still be holding meetings and convincing themselves that the race isn’t over – Trump’s political advisers are reportedly discussing a series of television ads and rallies to sow doubt about Biden’s victory – but back on planet earth, the math is the math: whether or not you liked the result, Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. Even some of Trump’s own family members, including his wife, Melania,

Joe Biden wins the election

Four days after a (much closer than predicted) election, American networks have called the race for Joe Biden, who has secured more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the race. CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News (and now the BBC) project Joe Biden will become the 46th President of the United States, as vote counting in Pennsylvania gave the Vice President a big enough lead for them to say with confidence he had won. The additional 20 electoral votes from the swing state bring Biden to a total of 273. Based on current projections, Biden only needed one of the outstanding states (including Georgia or Nevada) to cross the finish line. In addition

The Republicans’ nightmare in Georgia

Joe Biden is the President elect. His lead in Pennsylvania is unassailable, such that even if he somehow slipped behind in Arizona, Nevada or Georgia, he will still receive the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. President Trump, however, at the time of writing, continues to dig in. With lawsuits filed in several key states and the President making increasingly deranged statements around ‘illegal votes’ and the illegitimacy of late-counted mail-in ballots, it seems possible that he’ll refuse to leave the White House quietly. Some in Trump World have even made the outlandish suggestion that the Pennsylvania state legislature, controlled by Republicans, should override the election result

Trump doubles down on unfounded election claims

Tensions over the election outcome are escalating in the United States, as President Donald Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. Nearly a day and a half after Trump prematurely declared victory, he took to the stage at a press conference held in the White House and did so again, arguing ‘if you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.’ He also used the opportunity to double down on his assertions of foul play: ‘they’re trying to rig an election. They’re trying to steal an election,’ he said. Team Trump has not provided evidence for these serious allegations. The claims remain unfounded,

Trumpism hasn’t been defeated

It’s all over, bar the litigation. Without some mind-blowing legal reversal in the coming days, Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States of America. Donald Trump must be extracted from the White House in the coming weeks, though if he is unwilling to leave nobody is quite sure how he’ll be removed. Trump believes the election has been stolen from him — so do many of the 70 million Americans who voted for him. Trust is a vanishingly rare commodity in American democracy. But Trump started crying foul weeks, even months ago. ‘This is a fraud on the American public,’ he declared in the early hours

The good and bad news for Trump about the US economy

With voting day finally here, what can the state of the US economy tell us about tonight’s result? While the United States has been hit hard by Covid-19, the country’s economy is showing signs of improvement – and the latest stats could be good news for Donald Trump in his bid to defy the odds and win re-election. GDP figures for the third quarter of 2020 (published last week) show a spectacular rebound for annualised GDP: 33.1 per cent between July and September. This amounts to a 7.4 per cent increase from the previous quarter, the fastest growth the US has seen in its post-war history. According to Capital Economics, the recovery can be

Trump is flawed but he got one thing right

By tomorrow morning, he should be back on one of his golf courses. Or prepping for a new series of the Apprentice. Or quite possibly spending more time with his lawyers. Either way, if the polls and bookmakers are to be trusted, Donald Trump will be the first sitting president to be ejected from office since George Bush Senior, way back in 1992. In truth, he won’t be much missed. His bullying, narcissistic manner demeaned the office. His estranged relationship with the truth made him an unreliable ally. And his lack of empathy made him a poor leader at a time of crisis. But in one respect at least he

Why the Democrats are still haunted by Florida

As we get closer to the American election, Democrats in swing states like Pennsylvania and Arizona are sounding notes of cautious optimism. Others, in Texas and Georgia, are daring to dream that Joe Biden’s national poll lead (mainly driven by suburban women) might flip those consistently red states to their column. In Florida, on the other hand, the mood is one of cautious pessimism. As it always is. Democrats are still haunted by Al Gore’s loss in 2000, when the Supreme Court halted a recount in Florida, delivering the presidency to George W Bush. In 2018, the polls showed that Democrats were on course to win Senate and Governor candidates

A Biden victory would be no great boon for Britain

It is remarkably uncommon for a US president to fail to be re-elected. It has happened just twice in the long lifetime of Joe Biden: with Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992. On Tuesday, however, it looks likely that it will happen again. It is not just that Donald Trump is trailing badly and consistently in the national polls — he was behind in 2016 but won nonetheless — it is that his support seems to be draining most in his own heartlands. Biden appears to be well ahead in industrial ‘rustbelt’ states like Michigan and Wisconsin where Trump’s protectionist message gave him victory four years

Michael Cohen: ‘I lied for Trump, but that doesn’t make me a liar’

When I met Michael Cohen in New York two years ago, he was a man visibly crushed by what life had done to him. His whole face sagged: he could have defined the word ‘hangdog’, a beagle caught peeing on the Persian rug. We stood outside his apartment building, which was Trump Park Avenue, Trump’s name bearing down on Cohen’s head in gold letters three feet high. We’d already had a long lunch and I was trying to say goodbye but as he spoke about one injustice or humiliation he remembered another, a torrent of self-pity. Everyone had treated Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer unfairly: the Feds, Congress, the

Lionel Shriver

I’m voting to make America boring again

I just spent £2.50 in postage to bring about one of the last things I want. Specifically, the next-to-last thing I want. If the polls are right (and how should I know?), my absentee ballot will help leave Trump behind as a one-term historical aberration and install as US president an elderly Democratic lifer whose cognitive capacities remain uncertain. Many an ambivalent Biden voter will share my concerns about victory: Covid. Who is that masked man? Biden often flaunts his face coverings even when nowhere near another human being, while his party has embraced the mask as a badge of nobility, righteousness and partisan unity. Obliging computer modellers now posit

This was Donald Trump’s best debate performance yet

Donald Trump had arguably his best debate performance ever on Thursday night, for which he owes a big ‘thank you’ to the Commission on Presidential Debates. The CPD instituted a new rule for the debate in Nashville: each candidate would have their microphone turned off while their opponent was giving their initial two-minute response. This was intended to prevent the consistent interruptions that occurred during the first debate, which were primarily blamed on Trump but were started by former vice president Joe Biden. I suspect that the CPD, which has proved itself to be very biased, thought this would harm the President most. People who don’t like Trump tend to

Trump tried to bribe my daughter-in-law

You have to give it to Donald Trump: he never stops trying. In a letter dated 25 September, he wrote to our daughter-in-law, who is an American citizen living in Britain (‘United Kingdom Englan’, it said on the envelope) to tell her he was giving her $1,700 under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act ‘which I proudly signed into law’. It is a pretty impressive bribe, and it pays out, I believe, to every American who earns less than $50,000 a year. In Hannah’s case, however, it might not work for the President at the coming poll. In the National Trust’s recent interim report, ‘Addressing our histories of

Trump won’t admit it, but he’s in trouble

President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden were supposed to debate in front of the American public last night. The debate, however, was called off after Trump refused to do it via video link. So instead, Americans were treated to two different town-halls on two different U.S. television networks. While Trump was talking about conspiracy theories on NBC, Biden was talking policy on ABC. The former was part-absurd, part-therapy session. The latter was boring and frankly what you would think a typical presidential town-hall would look like. Trump won’t admit it, but he’s in trouble. As the coronavirus count gets higher, his poll numbers are getting lower and

Portrait of the week: new alerts, birthday honours and fires on Kilimanjaro

Home ‘The weeks and months ahead will continue to be difficult and will test the mettle of this country,’ Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said in the Commons. In a complicated new system meant to be a simplification, English regions were put into one of three tiers of alert level: 1, medium; 2, high; or 3, very high, according to the proportion of coronavirus cases there. In tier 3, further local restrictions could be added. Liverpool was selected for tier 3, in which betting shops and libraries would close and pubs too, unless they sold main meals. Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, called for a two- or

Why isn’t the germaphobe President afraid of coronavirus?

The weird thing about Donald Trump’s handling of Covid-19, alongside all the other weird things, is that he has always been a near-pathological germaphobe. He likes fast food, we’ve been told, in part because it is barely touched by human hands; he prefers not to press the lowest button on an elevator; he asks Oval Office visitors to wash their hands in a nearby bathroom; he routinely has a bottle of Purell sanitiser available whenever he has to touch hoi polloi; he lost some real estate deals in the past because he wouldn’t shake hands. Last year, Politico called him ‘the most germ-conscious man to ever lead the free world’.