Power tools for beginners

Yup, this seems to be how it works

Are you still breathing? I am, but only just. I feel at that point in the disaster movie where we’re all exhausted after the car chases and the fights and the just-in-time escapes and we’re waiting for the hero to stride in and press the button that will save us from the villain who’s about to blow up the world.

Will she? Well, she has fought a pretty good fight. It’s not entirely clear what she believes in or what she hopes to do with power if she gets it, but these seem like red herrings so tiny that they’re barely visible to the naked eye. She has one quality that should make every single citizen of the United States of America battle through plagues, fire and yes, hurricanes to put a cross in her box.

She is not a convicted felon who has sexually assaulted dozens of women and (allegedly) raped a few,  forced women who have been raped to have their rapist’s babies, announced plans to deport people who are legally in the country, insulted and demonised entire communities, announced plans to be a dictator - oh, and tried to overthrow democracy.

You’d have thought that was enough, but apparently it isn’t. Apparently about half the population is currently planning to vote for the guy described by his own former chief of staff as a fascist. Yes, the guy who blames Ukraine for Russia’s invasion of it and plans to end the war “in 24 hours” by giving great chunks of it away. The guy who thinks Netanyahu is doing “a great job” and sees Gaza as a potential source of excellent beachfront property.

(And yes, of course Israel had the right to defend itself after the horrific attacks on it a year ago. But like this? There are not enough words for the scale of the horror. No, not like this.)

This is the guy, remember, who thinks climate change is “a hoax”. As Bernie Sanders said in a column in the Guardian this week, if this man wins, “the struggle against the climate crisis is over”. This man does not believe in stepping away from the fossil fuels that are causing the shifts that almost certainly led to the devastation in Spain this week. If he stops the biggest economy in the world from leading the fight, do we really think that China, India and the Middle East will take it over?

Nope, nor do I.

There are about 170 million people registered to vote in the United States. About half of them are planning to vote for this guy. That’s about the same as the entire population of Germany.

And yes, these people know exactly who they’re voting for.

To call them “garbage” seems generous to me.

Here, we have our own little horror show. In a few hours, we’ll know who’s going to be leading the Conservative party. Will it be “Kamikaze Kemi”, famed for her ability to “start a fight in an empty room”? Or “Generic Jenrick” who, after several incarnations, now appears to have gone the full Trump? In five years, one of them could well be representing Britain on the world stage.

Sure, Starmer has been a bit disappointing. I think we’ve all heard enough about his suits, glasses and contortions over “working people”. It’s not yet clear whether this week’s Budget, costly for so many, will foster growth or hinder it. But I do believe that he, and most of his colleagues, are in their jobs because they want to try to make life better for most of us. They’re finding it difficult, because it is, but at least they’re trying.

A quick glance at the global stage will indicate that this is quite rare. What I see, in the broad headlines, is a lot of men – and I do mean men – who seem hellbent on making the world worse.

Have you seen The Apprentice? It’s brilliant. It’s chilling. Jeremy Strong, who won several awards for his performance as Kendal Roy in Succession (probably my favourite TV series ever), plays Roy Cohn, the lawyer who apparently taught Trump almost everything he knows about power.

The first rule, he tells Trump, brilliantly played by Sebastian Stan, is: “attack, attack, attack”. The second is “admit nothing, deny everything”. The third is “no matter what happens… you claim victory and never admit defeat”.

Hmm. Does that remind you of anything?

Those rules come across as a grotesque parody of the Ten Commandments, which are summed up in just one. The summary, in the New Testament, is one short phrase: “love thy neighbour as thyself”.  

In The Apprentice, the summary is slightly longer. “You have to be willing to do anything to anyone to win.”

Just take that in.

It certainly applies to Trump. It applies to Putin. It applies to Netanyahu. It applies to the Taliban. It applies to Hezbollah. It applies to Hamas. (Did you see, by the way, the video footage of Yahya Sinwar and his wife hiding in the tunnels the night before the 7^th October murders, kidnaps and rapes? She was smiling happily and clutching a handbag apparently worth $32,000.)

You’d have thought, after more than 20 years of writing and speaking about this stuff, that I’d get used to the realities of geopolitics and power. I don’t. I can’t. There’s a part of me that just wants to switch off from the news and spend the rest of my days cultivating my (largely metaphorical) garden.

I don’t believe that’s the right thing to do. If people are paying with their lives for some of these horrors, it can’t be right just to block our ears and whistle a happy tune.

But what is right? And what can we do? Apart from howl in frustration and rage?

I can’t vote in the American election. If you can, please do. Please try to save us from this – well, what can we call it? Apocalypse sounds about right to me. Please try to save us from this apocalypse. This is not a movie and the ticking bomb is real.

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From next week, this newsletter will look a bit different and have a different name. I’m aiming to send at least something out every week. It may not make any difference to anyone, but I feel that the least I can do, when the world is burning, is to keep my eyes open and try to capture what it feels like to be alive at this time. I will do my best to offer some shafts of light.