Trump or Biden? And the count goes on.

 Trump or Biden? And the count goes on. 

So it is that the plot thickens and the mystery is set to last for perhaps an eternity. Does anybody want to be the next President of the United States or will we have to draw lots, perhaps toss a coin, perhaps take it to a football penalty shoot out? There has to be a legal way of settling this ongoing dilemma since at this rate we could be here for some time and some of us believe that the year is just crawling towards its inevitable conclusion and surely it's bad enough that we've a global pandemic to contend with anyway. 

This morning the United States of America woke up to flatness and indecision, a complete funk, a genuine no man's land where nothing has happened and there are urgent issues to resolve. Nobody has won the American election yet which is rather like finding that your parents had forgotten your birthday when you were a kid. You were hoping to get that present you'd always wanted only to find that the day had passed by without any kind of recognition of the auspicious day in question. 

The world went to bed last night hoping that today the Land of the Free had just discovered the man they were hoping to be President would willingly accept the challenge of guiding his country to the land of milk and honey. And then there was one Donald Trump. So, in all likelihood, they switched off the lights, pulled the blankets towards them, settled their heads on their pillows and went to sleep. It would be a night quite unlike any they had experienced. They were then faced with the decision of whether to laugh or cry and you knew that it wouldn't be easy for one moment. 

The current incumbent is Donald Trump and it does seem possible that the whole of America possessed a heavy heart and really didn't care which way the result had gone. Just let the result be announced as soon as possible because a deadly virus has to be addressed and that has to take priority to any political bunfight. Of course the United States is full of reservations about the direction their country is heading. On the one hand is a man who has been declared bankrupt as a businessman three times and a man so vain that his bedroom mirror may one day crack under the strain. 

For the last four years Donald Trump has been very much his own comedy club routine, a man so arrogant, bumptious and conceited that he may find that one day America will be able to see straight through him and hold up their hands in horror. Trump is the man of a thousand daft finger and hand gestures, a man who summarily dismisses and then attacks the media for something he's either denied or never really felt any need to apologise for at all. The supposed deficiencies or shortcomings just don't exist.  

When all around him are attempting to stab him metaphorically in the back, Trump threw back the flak and bullets aimed directly at them. He accused the Press of being shallow, sham, two-faced, wrong on every count. He said it was all fake and made up and those slanderous comments were just bunkum and so there. Trump loves a conspiracy theory because he knows that everybody either hates him or just doesn't believe him any more. So he gets all hot and bothered, throwing his toys out of his pram, getting ever so tetchy, grouchy, irritable and irascible because everybody thinks he's crazy or just incapable of doing the job he was elected to do. 

So last night Trump went on the defensive because he loves doing that doesn't he? He would seem to revel in his own persecution complex because that's what he's succeeded in doing for so many years now. It's him against the world and he thinks he's the greatest President of all time. Unquestioningly so. Now what'll happen if Trump does lose which he won't because Trump is convinced that defeat isn't in his vocabulary and the man is just flawless, a perfect specimen, a paragon of virtue. 

Trump is now threatening to take this to the highest court in the land should he lose. He believes quite emphatically that Joe Biden and his charming helpers are ganging up against Trump and trying desperately to undermine and humiliate him in any way they can. Now take out that court injunction Donald because nobody dares challenge your authority. At the moment anyway he's in charge so move aside buster. 

And then there's Joe Biden's Trump's opponent, a man both restrained and laid back at one moment and then verbally aggressive in the next breath. This is not to suppose that Biden is all Jekyll and Hyde but he does want Trump to take the high road as soon as possible. There is obviously no love lost between the two men and the sooner this is over the better it'll be for all of us. There is the hint of the rotweiller about Biden in as much that he does growl and does know how to bite when the occasion warrants it.

For the next couple of days this contest could go on and on with none of us knowing anything that we already know about either Trump or Biden. The votes are being re-counted over and over again and Trump can almost smell litigation. Something of course will give because it has to and the suspense is simply wearing us down. You suspect Trump is on the phone to a million lawyers and legal firms, bending their ears constantly with sob stories about the whole thing being rigged against him. 

Eventually though America will one day rise from its bed, with gleaming white teeth before opening their curtains, throwing their windows wide open and telling the whole of New York, Los Angeles, Florida, Las Vegas, Michigan, Chicago, California, Texas, Detroit and Pittsburgh to name but a few of the 50 states who Trump so regularly celebrates that their new President is the best of any generation. 

Here in Britain we look on events in America with a wry detachment if only because none of us can really help either Trump or Biden. We may sympathise and empathise with both men but there's not a lot we can do. Here Prime Ministers are normally appointed in the time it takes us to get our head down at night until the following morning. There can be no hesitation or deviation though there are some parts of the country that take an age to count votes and some of us are snoring our heads off by then. 

We hear rumours of riots on the streets of the USA, running battles between the police and gangs of knuckle duster fighters who just want a good, old fashioned punch up. Shop windows are being threatened with, cars will be burnt and utter mayhem will ensue. At the moment America is divided, distraught and disillusioned with everybody and everything around them. We have been down this road on innumerable occasions only this time we hope to reach the right destination. The world is thinking of you America. We always will.