Americans vote for a racist, British move to bar foreigners! Is it time to leave planet?

Bear with me for a moment and read this: “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.

We move towards a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts’ desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

That was written on July 26, 1920 by the American columnist H.L. Mencken. It was sent to me by a friend on the great and glorious day of November 8, 2016, when Donald J. Trump was elected to be the next President of the United States of America.

This column normally tries to avoid politics, the world is miserable enough, but it is impossible to ignore what one American commentator called “the most tragic, appalling and cataclysmic event in modern American political history.”

In place of the suave, cerebral, eloquent, socially conscious Barack Obama, Americans have chosen to lead them a thuggish, foul-mouthed, woman-despising, racist bully. What is in prospect?

A Trump-appointed deeply conservative supreme court, the repeal in whole or part of Obamacare for the less fortunate, the gutting of Medicaid and destruction of the social safety net, indifference to environmental issues, a cosying up to Russia’s Putin and the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants?

There are reckoned to be 70,000-90,000 Kenyans in the United States, of whom about 30,000 are thought to be illegal. Will they be hunted down, along with Trump’s hated Mexicans, and shipped back home? Will authorised aid and grants to students be stopped or undercut? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

SERIOUS ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

Not that we Brits are any better. On the great and glorious day of June 23, 2016, a slim majority voted to take us out of the European Union, exposing our country to serious economic problems and the astonished ridicule of our continental neighbours. And all because – let’s not pretend otherwise – a lot of British people don’t like foreigners.

Looking in despair at these two results, which one has to admit were arrived at fairly, naughty thoughts creep in about this business of democracy: Is it right that that dumb, work-shy racist down the street has the same vote as me? But this is dangerous territory. As Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.”

After Britain’s Brexit, as it is now known, Ravi Palanisamy, a Londoner, said, “I’m really worried about the UK and the US. I’m contemplating moving to Sweden or somewhere that feels more progressive, more how it seems to me the world should be.”

Judging by messages I am getting from friends, Sweden is not the preferred destination. What most of them are asking is: “Has the spaceship to Mars left yet?”

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Dementia, including Alzheimer’s Disease, has overtaken heart problems as the leading cause of death in England and Wales.

Last year, more than 61,000 people died of dementia, that is 11.6 per cent of all recorded deaths. Experts say the change is largely because people are living longer. Right now, there are 850,000 living with dementia in the UK.

You see or hear about it all the time. An old man I know turned up at church at six in the morning for 10 am Mass. He had entered the realm of dementia. An elderly lady disappeared from her care home and was found a week later in the river. Suicide or accident, it was dementia that took her life.

Specialists say a person should seek medical advice if memory loss is causing problems regularly. For instance: if you struggle to remember recent events although you can easily recall things of the past; if you find it hard to follow TV programmes; if you lose the thread of what you are saying or forget the names of friends; if you get lost out of doors on a familiar journey.

Hilary Kane of Alzheimer’s Research UK said, “These figures call attention again to the reality that no-one survives a diagnosis of dementia.” But she added, “Dementia is not an inevitable part of ageing, it is caused by diseases that can be fought through research.”

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Sorry about the downbeat nature of this week’s column, folks. Even the jokes are feeble. But for what they are worth: Three contractors are called to estimate a job for the government. Contractor A says £1,000, Contractor B says £2,000 and Contractor C says £5,000.

The government official who gives out contracts is astonished at this last quote. “How can you charge so much?” he asks. The man replies, “Two thousand for me, two thousand for you and Contractor A gets the job.”

* America used to have Obama, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. Now they have Trump, no cash and no hope.

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