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What Is Trump?
A humane society would have treated him early on, not displayed him as an amusing one-man freak show
I’ve never been a big enthusiast when it comes to the US holiday Thanksgiving. It’s based on a total fabrication (“the first Thanksgiving was when the Pilgrims sat down with the Indians for a feast…”) and it is all about over-eating and high-fructose corn syrup.
Nevertheless, in a spirit of irony and a desire to spend time with some of the people I’ve met since living here in Lausanne, I held a quasi-Thanksgiving dinner. It was heavily modified so as to avoid giving everyone indigestion, but the general concept was to sit around the table and, with the majestic Alps visible through the windows, be truly thankful for the ability to live in one of the few countries that hasn’t fallen prey to the tsunami of mindless populism that’s swamped the world over the last few years.
It’s difficult for educated intelligent people to understand why the Age of Morons has arrived so swiftly and so completely. Although US citizens know little of the world because the US media is totally US-centric, the reality is that creatures like Trump are prancing and blustering all across the world stage. In the Philippines we have the repellent Duterte; in Brazil the cretinous Bolsonaro. In Germany the Alternative für Deutschland and in Poland PiS peddles their own toxic brands of right-wing…