“He watched the play with great intensity,” wrote Cormac McCarthy in All the Pretty Horses. “He’d the notion that there would be something in the story itself to tell him about the way the world was or was becoming but …
Trumpism won’t save Middle America
Grey squirrels don’t command much love, here in the 51st state. When Brits make memes about them, it’s usually a visual shorthand for strong views on immigration. But in their native North America they’re firmly associated with Disney princesses, and …
JD Vance: prince of the MAGA movement
The nomination of J.D. Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate has already proved controversial. With Trump leading in the polls, it means the 39-year-old is likely to become the next vice president of the United States. Perhaps more importantly, it …
America is tortured by demons
The United States is the land of conspiracy theories, not least when it’s busy electing a president. Such theories are a secular version of the idea of a malevolent God, for which the world is a sinister place but at …
Is Trump right to fear election fraud?
When I visited Mar-a-Lago in spring 2021 to see Donald Trump, his aides asked me not to raise the matter of the 2020 election. They wanted him forward looking and optimistic, not grousing about a past defeat. I didn’t raise …
America’s destiny lies in the New South
Every morning, just as the sun rises, Charleston Harbor hosts a scene of stirring patriotism. There, in the courtyard of Fort Sumter, tourists raise a huge American flag, helped along by a National Park Service ranger. And why not? This, …
Will Sin City decide America’s fate?
Just days before the election, America’s destiny rests on that Valhalla of oddsmakers, Las Vegas. “If we win Nevada, we’re going to win the whole thing,” vowed Trump, and for once he was not exaggerating. Nevada not only holds the …
America’s future isn’t fascist
“Weird” does not begin to describe the American atmosphere at this moment. The media and internet seethe with talk of civil war; but everyone is going about their daily business. The weather is uncanny: temperatures in the Northeast, where I …
Donald Trump’s strange sincerity
The faster American culture spreads, the less foreigners seem to understand it. In October, the Irish novelist Anne Enright shared a few thoughts about the US elections. “[T]hese politics are playing out in some secret part of the American psyche,” …
When Trump fed the press a nothingburger
In his 1991 song “New Jack Hustler”, Ice T tells a tale that was already a gangsta rap cliche when the song was released — a narrator’s first-person story of his career as a successful seller of drugs, a busy …
Trump senses British weakness
It must be all-so familiar to Theresa May. There she was in 2017, holding hands with The Donald, walking in the White House as the first foreign leader invited to see the new Caesar after his inauguration. Poised to assume …
America’s decline is inevitable
In 1968, the film Planet Of The Apes ended with the then-shocking shot of a half-submerged Statue of Liberty, revealing that the future dystopian world was none other than our own. The revelation has been part of Western consciousness for …
The tragedy of American blues
After President Biden’s farewell debate I had a problem. It was evident that Donald Trump would win. I fantasised that he would offer me the post of Poet Laureate, and I wondered if I would accept. Washington DC is hot …
How Trump is tearing Erie apart
Joy Division is the depressingly appropriate house band for America’s 2024 election, and “Love Will Tear Us Apart” its soundtrack.
A generation ago, party affiliation played almost no role in American relationships. Today, only half of Republicans and one-third of …
Donald Trump: new media king
It’s a tender, almost touching moment — not at all something you’d expect to see at the height of a presidential campaign and far out-of-keeping with the general perception of Donald Trump’s character. At the start of an interview, a …