Twitteretter

Donald Trump has issued his outgoing presidential pardons. Categorising the pardons can be quite informative about the mind of this president and his acolytes. A few rappers for illegal possession of firearms, I guess pandering for sympathy from their many followers. Many other black people incarcerated for the same crime remain unpardoned. Several fraudsters and embezzlers. Understandable, as this kind of behaviour is standard fayre for Trump himself. One pardon to a proven industrial secrets thief. In Trump’s mind, business is war, and in love and war, everything is allowed. Therefore, this is fair enough, if Google allowed this secret to be stolen from them, that is their problem and they should be afforded no legal protection. And finally, one for acting as an agent for a foreign government which, on the basis of significant evidence, Mr. Trump has done himself. You certainly cannot fault the guy for consistency, he pardons as he acts, which is his equivalent to do as you preach Le...

The coronavirus pandemic has, it seems to me, exacerbated some tendencies already shown by governments previously. What is particularly worrying, at least from my perspective, is watching what is going on in the US, where the president seems to be touting unproven medicines, inciting citizens to armed rebellion and civil disobedience, fighting his expert advisors and waging a budgetary war on beleaguered, underfunded US states to put them under pressure to restart economic activity. This observation has got me thinking that, whilst electorates can get away with practically any voting choice, however idiotic, in normal times, when a crisis comes, who you have in charge can quickly become life critical. The catch is, of course, that most crises come unannounced. Therefore, when going to the polls, it would be sensible to think: ‘If a global, life threatening crisis comes, who would I rather have in charge, a Churchill, von der Leyen, Merkel, Abe or a Qi Jinping, Trump, Kim Jong-un?’...