Stalemate in the wee hours
My past 24 hours was somewhat dominated by the second US presidential election (Donald Trump v Hillary Clinton) TV debate which took place from 2.00am this morning.
After having a relatively quiet Sunday – reading the papers, watching the Andrew Marr Show and then then Sunday Politics, snoozing after a light lunch – specifically because, unusually, I had been invited to a dinner party for eight on the other side of town in the evening, said summons being issued with the advance warning “Don’t have too heavy a lunch, we’re preparing a roast dinner!”
You know how it is. When you know you have a commitment outside your normal operating zone, your body somehow miraculously prepares itself for the ordeal. I knew that I was going out to a function, possibly one that would last past midnight (as it happened it broke up at 11.30pm with a 45-minute drive home to come on top), this against a backdrop in which I traditionally hit the sack about 8.00pm on a Sunday and possibly earlier than that if I can.
Both UK political programmes carried pieces on the forthcoming Trump/Clinton debate and I was figuring that, with a fair wind, it might produce one of the TV events of the year if not the decade.
I approached all with what I imagine was/is a similar attitude to many Brits looking on with bemusement from this side of the Pond. In other words, whilst I am neutral on Hillary Clinton – not exactly the most exciting or charismatic biscuit in the tin and yet I don’t ‘get’ why quite so many Americans seem to view her as the Devil Incarnate – Donald Trump has definitely come straight from the Central Casting section on ‘thick, white, American redneck fascist loony buffoons’ and should have failed some sort of basic qualitative US constitutional test for prospective presidential candidates long before even winning the Republican nomination.
Last night’s dinner party was relaxed, entertaining and fun, and boasted one guest that I had last met over twenty years’ previously. The hostess was of American origin and – this the type of thing that you find many American tend to do – belonged to a group that at presidential election times rings up registered US voters living overseas, encouraging them to vote. She does this ostensibly on the basis that she is just being a responsible US citizen (and that, of course, voting is a good thing), but de facto she is also a registered Democrat and hoping by her efforts to help elect a Democrat to the White House.
Back home and with the time marginally closer to 1.00am than midnight I faced a difficult decision.
To make myself a coffee and stay up … or go to bed and hope to wake up in an hour?
To be honest, I was totally bushwhacked. I decided that – even if it meant that I failed to surface for the debate – more than anything, at this point I’d rather get some sort of shut-eye, however inadequate.
In the event I woke up at eight minutes to 2.00am and watched all but the last fifteen minutes of the contest – for that quarter of an hour I had begun fading in and out of consciousness.
Frankly, I’d give the experience a ranking of about 5 out of 10. It was fun watching politicians knocking six bells out of each other in a manner you’d never get in the UK, but by the same token overall the debate added nothing to the sum of my knowledge and understanding. I came into it with my aforementioned stance upon both candidates – probably then inevitably viewed what I saw from the perspective I already possessed – and found nothing to alter my opinion of either of them.
I don’t know why I expected that things would be any different. And if (as a Brit) I came out with that view, how can you expect any American voter to do anything other than also emerge with their previously-formed prejudices intact – or maybe that should read ‘reinforced’?
