Patrick Carlyon: Crazy election highlights wild world of US politics
Donald Trump’s chronic crimes against English offer context for what has been the oddest election in democracy’s history. Australia’s political leaders have never looked smarter, writes Patrick Carlyon.
Patrick Carlyon
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The good people of Poland were surprised to hear about their critical place in an election on the other side of the world.
When Donald Trump tweeted that “the Poles are closed”, was he racial stereotyping, or had he tackled his message with the same lack of care of his pandemic response?
His chronic crimes against English offer context for what has been the oddest election in democracy’s history.
Australia’s political leaders have never looked smarter.
They may lose their pants or eat raw onions from time to time, but they are unlikely to tweet that “I am Hungary for victory” and “Biden is a Turkey”.
Which, to be fair, Trump has not said. Not yet.
THE SPEECH:
Only Trump can scuttle the linchpins of democracy in nursery rhyme cadences. His long-awaited election night speech borrowed from the logic of his tweets.
In rejecting accepted political custom, he did not don a North Face jacket and ask if everyone was “right to go”. Trump declared he had won, even though he had not won. He declared he would take legal action against the result, even thought there was no result.
He wanted the vote counting to stop, even though it was not finished. Trump also announced that the delays had ruined his celebration night plans.
Was he reducing the future of the free world to a cancelled restaurant booking?
Was the “very sad moment”, to which he referred, the realisation that the most powerful man in the world didn’t understand how he got the job in the first place?
Then again, if Trump’s performance was actually an audition to play a James Bond villain in a kindergarten theatre production, it went quite well.
THE OTHER SPEECH:
Aspirant Joe Biden looked like someone who kind of knew what ought to be said, as opposed to saying what he wanted to say.
Inspired by health protocols, and the movie Footloose, he addressed Delaware fans in their cars, which they honked whenever they approved.
Tractor-drivers were not invited, maybe because some tractors don’t have horns. Biden was last spotted wandering off the stage in a southerly direction, until Mrs Biden gently steered him towards the White House.
TO BOTOX OR NOT TO BOTOX:
As the hours passed, and the TV presenters began to sag, something strange happened. They were animated, the fabulous men and women of American TV land. But the poor sods did not, or could not, frown.
They soldiered on, startled eyes all, by rationing the use of muscles south of their noses.
Knock You Down:
Political aspirant and occasional musician, Kanye West, conceded defeat after he received fewer votes than a One Nation candidate in Brunswick. “Welp”, he declared, in a Kanye-speak statement which was one word longer than anyone needed to hear.
His poor polling prompted questions. Did his own wife even vote for him? And will West now come to Australia and stand for Clive Palmer’s United Party?
MORE TWEETS:
Like a child who screams for a cookie until he is presented with a cookie, Trump and his people re-engaged Twitter as the election news worsened.
They announced that Trump had won Pennsylvania, even though the counting there will go on on Friday. Trump said his lead in some states had “started to magically disappear”, a claim which also described his political career.
THE PREDICTIONS:
Biden was supposed to win easily. He was meant to snare Florida.
But the safest bet for any political poll — from Australian elections to Brexit to a fight between old men for the White House — is to assume the opposite of what it finds.
Polls are the wasabi of punditry, best pushed to the side of the political plate and avoided.
THE (MIS)COUNTING:
Our country is blessed with the Australian Electoral Commission, which diligently counts all election votes — until it’s time for nigh-nigh.
Sometimes, we wait weeks for a result because AEC officials have to get home before they turn into pumpkins.
In the US, some states counted postal votes before voting day, and some did not. One election over 50 states meant up to 50 separate sets of protocols.
Could the AEC help out next time, if only to ensure that the entire United States is uniformly paralysed until Gazza and Shazza return from their rostered days off?
HYENAS AT THE GATE:
Promising to dispute the honest count of the people’s vote, lawyers have inserted themselves in democracy’s outcomes.
Trump’s legal team have presented as white knights for freedom, as if they are unaware that the unwelcome appearance of lawyers has never fixed anything, ever.
Patrick Carlyon is a Herald Sun columnist