We live in a golden age of mediocre rich white men
These men now hold the keys to the anxious country (and the launch codes), these men whose entire lives have been shaped by privilege shielded from consequence.
These are men who live in a state of complete unreality because their great wealth has protected them from reality all their lives - even their ascendency to power has been handed to them.
One is a poor man's idea of a rich man, Donald Trump, and the other is bargain basement Winston Churchill impersonator, Boris Johnson.
Like a pair of puffed cockatiel parrots they both sport unruly blond manes, and they will say literally anything for attention, no matter how many times they're shouted at to stop. Who's a pretty boy they ask and their answer is always themselves.
Read more: Boris Johnson will bungle Britain and Brexit
Donald Trump said Boris Johnson will make a good prime minister https://t.co/xykKhvAwCR pic.twitter.com/YOkE81DCHl
— Ann Telnaes (@AnnTelnaes) June 25, 2016
Both men were elected by promising to lift up the common man, but no common man will ever get closer than a cow pen in a campaign rally to them or breathe the exclusive air of their $214,000 Florida resort fees or their gilded private member-only clubs in Kensington.
Both like to blast things they call “fake” yet they conspicuously leave themselves out of that equation. Trump for example regularly tweets stories that turn out to be untrue. His latest howler was about Ronald Reagan.
Tweeting a photograph of himself shaking Reagan's hand in the mid 1980s, the quote attributed to Regan reads: “For the life of me, and I'll never know how to explain it, when I met that young man, I felt like I was the one shaking hands with the president,” the quote reads. “Cute,” tweeted Trump in response.
But Reagan never said that and the truth is he would have been horrified to discover that some Republican voters had entrusted the nation to such a serial con-man and moral bankrupt like Trump.
Read more: The Trumps and Ireland - dissecting fake news
Ronald Reagan at the 40 anniversary of the Normandy landings.
So let's reflect for a minute. It's been over three and a half years of his presidency now. Can you remember a single time where Trump used a tweet or a campaign rally to do anything other than insult, threaten or target his very long, long list of enemies?
Has he ever used one to uplift the entire nation? Has he ever sent the world a message of cooperation or renewed focus? Has he ever showed respect for anyone but bullying dictators? No, he's been all about insult, belligerence and television drama since the first day, when he promised us American Carnage at his own inauguration.
Like Trump, Boris Johnson has also failed spectacularly over and over throughout his life to be rescued each time by social status and money. Consequences are only for the cash strapped, so Johnson has failed upwards in the UK the way Trump has in the US, failing all the way to the door of Number 10.
It does things to our idea of democracy, watching these blond himbos make a sorry mess of their nation's international standing and yet never take the fall for it themselves. Boris and Donald walk between the raindrops, shielded by cash and social status, so they will never feel the effects of their own incompetence.
Instead, we will. Did you know tourism to the United States has dropped dramatically? Whilst tourism numbers have been growing around the world, Brand USA has fallen sharply.
America’s share of the global travel market dropped from 13.7 percent in 2015 to just 11.7 percent in 2018, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Those are remarkably anemic numbers. Putting children in locked cages has discouraged more than just South American visitors, it turns out.
Equally Brexit Britain looks like a basket case to most foreign observers. Sending out a global message that Johnny Foreigner isn't welcome rebounds on your visitor numbers, it turns out. Now the UK’s “tourism deficit” is bigger than ever, estimated to be 22.5 billion. Look askance at Europe and it will look askance at you.
Chairman of the branding consultancy Landor, Peter Knapp, blamed the Brexit shambles for the plummeting numbers, telling the press: “The indecisiveness of politicians in handling the situation has damaged Britain’s standing in the world and we can see the tangible effect of this in the decline in the number of tourists visiting the country.”
It's an old, old law of the universe: elect clowns, expect a circus. Our two latest bozos may be entertaining us on Twitter, but have you noticed that we're the only ones still laughing? The rest of the world thinks we have lost the run of ourselves.
That'll bite us in the end.
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