Shot with the X-Pro 2 and the 35mm f/1.4r
I felt I'd give anything for it to be the middle of next week. The middle of next week with all the results in, all this horrible waiting over, the easing of that sick tight little fist of fear clenched in my gut. I've never seen an election like this and I hope never to see one like this again. I'm not a terribly political person, I believe both sides have policies right and wrong and I speak my mind only on invitation. But the events and dialogue happening in America of late has had a deep effect upon me, and it would be a lie for me to just cruise along with this blog without mentioning it. Feel free to tune out now, I wouldn't blame you. I've been unable to watch the news the last few days, I'm just counting time until I can breathe again. What's worse is that it isn't even something I can cast a vote on here in the UK, though the ripples of the coming decision will have a profound effect on my country, and set the tone for political discourse in an increasingly fraught Europe as well. Yeah, these definitely feel like dark times and I've been finding it hard keeping a straight head without welcome distraction.
And well, Christ, I love America. What can I say? North and South, East and West, small town and big city. There's a reason I keep going back. This is why I can't just carry on blogging without getting this out of my system. Because this isn't about the usual red and blue, right and centre-right of American politics. This isn't about the struggles of small businesses and the excesses of Wall Street, or the flawed mercies of Obamacare or the right to bear arms. This is about deciding how you want your elections to be conducted from now on.
If you want a land where people are encouraged to scream traitor at those who hold a different opinion...
If you want a land where facts are denounced as lies and lies touted as facts...
If you want a land where people are encouraged to picket the voting booth...
If you want a land where violence of thought, dialogue and action are seen as laudable...
If you want a land where the established, closely scrutinised and independently verified voting system is undermined, where the very constitutional foundations of American democracy are mocked and discredited, where incitement to revolt lace a candidate's pep-talk...
If you want lie after lie, monstrous and grand in scale - demonstrable lies repeated so loudly and often that they become sword and shield - lies so thick in volume that they smother rational discourse...
If you want four years and more of mockery, denunciation, paranoia, violence and sick sarcasm from your President, then sure, vote for the guy.
Those who are voting for him to effect change, believe me, he won't. He'll get a few good ideas passed on the economy, he'll get a few bad ideas passed on everything else, and he'll probably quietly drop a few very, very bad big ideas as things are privately explained to him. But he won't change the system, no matter how rife with special interests and lobbying. Why would he? He's President now and safely in, the Wall Street kid made good, rubbing it in the fact of the blue-bloods. He's won, and there'll be lots of new deals to cut for when he's out. In the meantime he'll rant and rave and rail against the journalists and the scientists and the foreign policy experts, against those who gainsay him in the chambers and the house, against any who speak against him - and all the while he'll do his damnedest to mock and undermine faith in the foundations of the system he's supposed to be defending.
And after that it'll be more lies, lies and damned lies told with his oh-so-honest-on-the-nose 'insider's perspective' as he sets up his news channel with Breitbart and works all the harder to ruin democracy.
Jeez, I don't know. I've had to re-edit this slightly, sounded a bit hysterical from my initial hungover blogging on Saturday morning. I've never been freaked out by an election before, but this one is unlike any in my lifetime. And it sucks. All I can say is that this man encourages hate and paranoia and for that, please, please don't vote for him. He's the antithesis of every Lincoln stood for.
This blog was edited subsequent to it's original post, for clarity, relevant images, a slight reduction in over-done rhetoric and in response to a perceptive comment. Apropos of nothing, Brexit meant that during my recent trip I saw the value of the pound against the dollar plummet from a dollar sixty-something to a dollar and twenty cents. So why he keeps on calling himself Mr Brexit when the majority of my country now agree it was actually a really bad idea and all the savings we were meant to have made have actually shifted into even more debt, I've no idea.
