Permit me to break from the current program. We are receiving disturbing reports from the United States of America concerning the presidential election. American voters have decided that because they think they felt better during Trump's first term, they should give him another go.
Under Trump's first administration, they felt good because he gave them a small tax break. He then gave the wealthy a bigger tax break, which will now be renewed. Covid hit the U.S. very hard because Trump ignored it until it started to kill thousands of people - and possibly almost killed him. The necessary lockdown was longer than it needed to be. It hit the economy hard and then dipped into recession, and ...oh, that's right, trump narrowly lost the 2020 election.
So Biden fixes the economy, but voters are left with high inflation, which gives people a real sense that they are worse off now. No problem. Harris planned to finish the job and sort out inflation with sensible growth-based policies. But no. America has had enough of all this talk of an economy that is the world's envy. Stuff still costs too much, so give control of the country back to the man who speculated that bleach might be the wide-spectrum anti-viral treatment the world has been looking for...
The year 2025 will be very interesting. That is, if you think the rapid disassembly of America's liberal democracy is interesting. Short of some deus ex machina, America is going to make inflation worse, turf out the army of experts that makes the federal government function and replace them with MAGA zealots. I don't think America will leave NATO, but it can stop supporting all efforts to resist Russia and China. Millions of voters who depend on medical cover will have it removed as Trump can finally pull the Affordable Care Act. This is all going to take a year or two. Women, Trans people and anyone who looks like they might be Mexican are probably going to have a bad time before the big stuff happens.
There will almost certainly be something completely unexpected—something that emerges from the chaos and disruption and shocks the new administration. The US's enormous power to resist the situation will have been laid off or defunded. Trump will try to blame Biden, the Democrats, or people who happen to have brown skin. That blaming will sound increasingly hollow. Not quickly, but quite inexorably, buyer's remorse will start to seep in. America's "fact desert" will ensure that most voters won't know what's happening or what's causing the bad thing until it's tossing their car down the street.
This rant is over for now. We have two months of relative calm. Possibly, in the next couple of months, voters will see Trump and suddenly realise that he might not be the stable genius he claimed to be.
Sketches from the last few days:
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| Space Station |
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| Random Flow practice |
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| Starport background |
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| Wild Mountains |
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