Trump unable to take charge and unite America

Donald Trump holds a Bible outside St John's Church in Washington on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

More than 150 years ago the American Civil War proved to be one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had seen. Americans massacred Americans in huge numbers at a frightening rate. The determination of Abraham Lincoln to end slavery split the country down the middle and the conflict was sickening.

Black Americans are still fighting for economic rights all these years later. Demands for murder charges to be brought against the policeman who knelt on the neck of George Floyd are fair enough, but I am not so sure about the campaign to have other police who were in the immediate vicinity at the time also face charges. With so much happening around that intersection, I am not sure you could blame them.

US President Donald Trump cannot be criticised for his rhetoric in trying to calm the protagonists, but you would have to wonder why he didn’t hop on Air Force One and fly to Minneapolis to personally take charge.

I get the impression Trump will never be comfortable playing the role of healer. He has no faith in the Bob Hawke method of establish constructive dialogue between warring parties and talking through the issues. Trump is an impatient man.

But for all his faults, Trump may well win a second term. America is not excited by Joe Biden. At 77, he looks and sounds like a bumbling old fool because that is exactly what he has become.

All the other Democrats who had been in the race have pulled out and advised their followers to support Biden. This gaffe-prone old man has a 50-50 chance of beating Trump and becoming the most powerful man in world. It is an indictment on the Democrats that out of the millions of Americans who have signed up to be one of them, Biden is the best they can do for a presidential candidate.

At the G7, Biden could only ever be a minnow. Someone there to make up the numbers. It was embarrassing enough when George W. Bush struggled to put a coherent sentence together but Biden represents a new low. If this is all that America has to offer then God help them and God help us as well.

When both the Democrats and the Republicans fail to come up with the goods, there is no third force ready to step up and taken command. The late billionaire Ross Perot, famous for getting his employees out of Iran, tried to establish a third force and polled well for a time before failing dismally.

Third forces don’t have a great record in modern democracies. The Social Democrats limped along in Britain for an election or two but ran out of puff. President Emmanuel Macron of France broke the rules of politics by nominating himself as a third force and gave a real drubbing to the Gaullists and the Socialists.

Macron began with great gusto but with demonstrations in the streets of Paris now a common occurrence his future looks shaky.

When the major parties have a solid record, a bulging bank account and a half decent leader, they are still the ones to beat.