Trump: A Gross, Uncouth Man of Little Learning With Much to be Modest About: Or, An Afternoon at the Opera!

 A Sunday afternoon at the opera! Another visit to the Broadway Cinema here in Nottingham to see a live stream from the New York Met. This time it was The Marriage of Figaro - a work we have seen so many times that I swear we could act as stand-ins should any of the stars be indisposed! But of course, as with all Mozart, no matter how many times one hears a work or sees an opera each one is different - there are new themes to explore, new "takes" on characters, new interpretations of music and narrative to enjoy - and this performance from the Met was no different; original, inspiring, innovative, exquisite, enriching and hugely enjoyable. And when the final curtain came we, like the rest of the audience, both applauded and sat back breathless and emotionally drained.

Mozart's great work is not just a silly, humorous romp - although it is that! It has, running through it, a profound and serious message. When, almost three centuries ago, the great man composed it, its message of equality and revolution, of the little man and woman fighting back and overcoming the aristocracy was not lost on those who watched and heard it. And, in that spirit, this production from the Met was just as relevant for today's divided world; a work that was born in and in part gave birth to the Enlightenment brought home the contradictions and ills of our modern world and reminded us that even today with cleverness, faith and forgiveness the Goliath like demagogues of the 21st century can be overthrown by the little David.

As an incidental opening of the live stream we were shown a video of the Met cast singing the Ukrainian National Anthem before a performance and I wondered if there was any intention on the part of the Casting Director when we saw that the part of Susanna (around whom the whole plot is focused) was to be sung by the stunning Ukrainian soprano Olga Kulchynska. I hope it was a considered choice and not simply a happy coincidence. It was a choice, I hope, made to reflect our divided times and send a powerful message of castigation to Trump and Putin whilst at the same time, and in the spirit of the opera, honouring the little nation struggling against the mighty wrongs of contemporary of Moscow and Washington. And if, perhaps, the Presidents of America and Russia watched the live stream then I trust that they were suitably shamed - although somehow I doubt that. I'm sure that Russia's President Putin is a regular and well versed visitor to the opera and would understand (but probably ignore) the message(s) of Figaro. I fear, however, that they would be lost on the intellect and moral compass of Trump, a gross, uncouth and bombastic man of little learning or understanding and with much to be modest about - most of all his intellect, morality and, if his behaviour at the Pope's recent funeral is any guide, his ability to act appropriately or even stay awake.

As we watched the opening credits I noticed that the opera was produced by Richard Eyre, and my thoughts went back 50 or 60 years. When Pat and I first came to live in Nottingham in the early 1960s the "in place" to go was (and still is) Nottingham Playhouse then, undoubtedly, the premier repertory company in the land. Every month or so we would attend the "Student Preview Night " of each new production. These were effectively the dress rehearsal performances but cheap nights out for us poor students. In those long gone days the Playhouse was under the stewardship of the great John Neville and then a young Richard Eyre. We saw young actors who would become the great actors of our nation: a youthful Ian McKellen, a diminutive and wonderful Judi Dench, the superb Eileen Atkins, and the hugely talented Jonathan Pryce...and many others - all taking their first steps on the road to national and international stardom. As I saw Richard Eyre's name on the Broadway screen I was taken back to those magical nights and times and pondered that now, as I near the end of my life, I was seeing his name again coming all the way from one of the world's great opera houses - all the way back to me here in Nottingham. A lot of water has passed under the bridge for both of us in these intervening years!

So, here we were in Nottingham watching something occurring in New York. The music, was composed for an audience three centuries ago by an Austrian - Mozart - and the words written by Lorenzo da Ponte, an Italian. The lead soprano was Ukrainian, the producer English, and the hero of the opera, Figaro, was a black American. The part of the Countess, one of the great operatic roles and whose aria "Dove sono" is one of the great operatic works all sopranos aspire to sing was Federica Lombardi, an Italian. The Count was a Canadian and Cherubino a Chinese American. And conducting the Met Orchestra was a German - Joana Mallwitz. And if one looked at the lesser roles: singing, orchestral, stage production etc then many, many more nations, beliefs and ideas are represented. A real cast of nations and cultures telling a tale that in its day not only entertained but formed opinions and influenced national and international events. Composed in 1786 the opera is inextricably linked with the French Revolution and the development of our modern western democratic world.

I do hope that Donald Trump found the time to get along to his local cinema to watch this live stream or, if he was in New York, that he nipped down the road from his pad in Trump Tower to the Met to see the action live. If he did then he might have learned something about bringing people of all nations together and of the ideas that were the very basis of the establishment of his own country, America - its ideals, its politics and its belief in democracy - for they are at the very heart of Figaro and the early American Founding Fathers would have got Mozart's message as they drew up their Constitution and arranged an infant democratic society - a constitution and democarcy that Donald Trump is hell bent on holding to ridicule and ultimately destroying.

We live in an age where technology can and does take us to the far reaches of the world and enables us to understand people and places. We live in a world where we can jump on a plane or pick up our mobile or surf the internet and be instantly connected to far off loved ones or to people very different from us. And if all this teaches us anything and if great opera like Figaro has a message it is that whatever and wherever we are we are all human and we all feel, bleed, laugh, cry, fear, love and despair of the same things - whether we live in New York, Nottingham, Ukraine, Moscow, Austria, Italy, Germany, or Canada, or whether we are black, white, Chinese, Muslim, Christian, or no faith at all. All opera, whether it be a light hearted romp as is Figaro or a tale of stirring, overwhelming emotions and gravitas like Madame Butterfly is concerned with the important things of life, of human existence: love, death, hate, loss, desire, integrity, fear, joy, life, regret, forgiveness.......... and Figaro explores all these themes through Mozart's glorious music and da Ponte's wonderful libretto.

In a world where Trump wishes to divide and sow discontent for his own insouciant self satisfaction and perceived solipsistic glory he needs to learn the message of love, brother and sisterhood, fraternity, humanity and forgiveness that are at the heart the music, the words and the plot of Figaro.

"Kissing My Ass": Tells Us All We Need To Know About Trump & His Supporters

Mmmmm! The headline tells us all we need to know about Donald Trump. "Kissing my ass" is about as good as it gets with Trump's use of language. Meanwhile, in Rome today, King Charles (and I'm no great supporter of the monarchy) gave a speech to the Italian Parliament much of his speech in Italian.

Is this "class"? Is it "breeding"? How come King Charles speaks Italian to his hosts but the high spot of Trump's stumbling parody of the English language is "Kissing my ass". No, it's neither class or breeding. It's simple respect for the feelings and intellect of one's audience, and respect for other people. At the moment, and sadly, the whole world is Donald Trump's audience and he chooses to address it with expletives and mind numbingly poor use of the English language - the language that Trump recently proclaimed was the national language of America. It's a shame, therefore, that Trump himself (and many of his followers and supporters) are quite incapable of speaking, spelling or writing any kind of acceptable approximation of English. Clearly Trump et al have not come across the concept of irony - and if they have they clearly didn't understand it!

That, however, is a side issue. The central point and give away is that his poor use of language betrays him; it shows him to not only have a limited language facility but also, to put it politely, to be significantly and worryingly intellectually challenged - a frightening diagnosis given the power that this man holds and can wield. It is through language that we think and understand and hIs paucity of linguistic skills shows him to be a man of poor thought and even less understanding - but we all knew that didn't we!

Sadly, half of the electorate of America voted for him and seem not to be bothered by these failings - which says much about them too: little class, low breeding, a total lack of respect for those he and they communicate with, functionally illiterate and of severely limited intellectual powers. That seems to sum up the man and his followers.

King Charles on the other hand..........

Leering, Lascivious, & Lecherous; But America Looks the Other Way

Of the many awful things that we have witnessed on TV, read, or lost sleep about in the continuing nightmare that is Trump's America this, for me, is one of the most telling. It speaks volumes about the man and his supporters, and the fact that there has been so little reaction from ordinary, right thinking, Americans says much about how America has learned to live with and no longer express outrage at the stuff that is spewing from the mouths of Trump and his acolytes. In 2016 Hilary Clinton was vilified by supporters of Trump when she described them as a "basket of deplorables" because of their misogynistic, racist and morally repugnant policies and beliefs. She was not wrong then or now, but today, only nine years later and a little more than 2 months into Trump's presidency, America has forgotten her warning and submissively accepted and normalised evil, no longer registering its crude vulgarity, lies, extremism and moral vacuity. Now, it is accepted as "just Trump sounding off". "Let it go", "Move on", “Look the other way” America whispers - and in so whispering abdicates itself of all responsibility.

I grew up (as did most of the world) on a diet of Hollywood where the good guy stands up to be counted and ultimately beats the bad guys; westerns like "Shane" or "High Noon" or "The Magnificent Seven" and war films where John Wayne or Audie Murphy or more recently Tom Cruise single headedly overcame insurmountable odds to ensure that the little good guy won over the big bad guy. By implication America and Americans were and are a force for good; that was Hollywood’s message and the raison d'être  of successive American administrations. In the musical “Miss Saigon” and in a moment of high emotion ex-Marine Chris says to his wife Ellen “Christ, Ellen, I’m American.....How can I fail to do good?” – and we all knew what he meant; it was what we all understood of America, part of the evangelical spirit to bring freedom and goodness to the world.

Of course, we knew it was all fiction, America promoting itself, Hollywood dreaming and rewriting history. But we didn't mind, it was exciting and reassuring that the bad guys always lose and America will always stand up for what is right - in short it was a deeply moralistic message. But today we know it was all a myth. America now, it seems can no longer police itself and protect its much vaunted moral high ground, no longer able or wishing to stand up and be counted, and in so doing keep the bad guys from taking all the prizes and doing their worst. The best it can do is post its disapproval on Twitter or Facebook; it has lost its moral compass. It's too easy for Americans to simply vent their spleen on Trump - he would be nothing without their votes and their lack of support. Let's be clear, he is in power because America allowed him to be and Americans did not and do not stand up and be counted when they had to or have to. Where, in contemporary America, are the John Waynes, the Shanes played by Alan Ladd who faced down the unscrupulous Rufus Ryker and his henchmen and fought to the death the evil gunslinger Jack Wilson, where are the Marshal Kanes played by Gary Cooper in "High Noon" who, on his wedding day, single handedly fought Frank Miller and his gunslingers? Who now, in contemporary America, will act and say to Trump and his basket of deplorables "This shall not be?" As Einstein famously said: "If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity" - and America remains silent while the bad guys take over.

A couple of days ago Trump spoke at a Women's History Month Event and this clip shows a little of what he said. It's not the words - if I push myself I can believe that they were just about acceptable although appropriate is quite another thing. No, it's the way he said them and the leering expression on his face, the innuendo, the "dirty old man" self promotion; the "unspeakable" being hinted at; and behind it all is a lascivious message of power: "I am a man and I can/will/am able to force myself onto any woman; that is my role and my right, and it is the role and duty of women to submit to my will, my lust".

This was Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" made real; the Republic of Gilead alive and well in the Oval Office, and it is a frightening measure of contemporary America that few seem to think this is not totally unacceptable from any man let alone the nation's elected leader. Trump promised to make America great again - that frightening project still under construction and may, or may not, materialise - but what he undoubtedly has succeeded in doing is creating a nation of the cowed and the quiet, unable or unwilling to stand up for what is right . Hardly the stuff of greatness.

  

Empathy: What Separates Us From the Animals; or "Ballet Trumps Trump".

Our trip last night to the local cinema to see a live stream from the Royal Opera House of the ballet Romeo & Juliet was sublime – a high spot of my year so far. I’m no ballet aficionado but was simply swept away by the beauty and skill of it all – the dancers, the music, the sets, the costumes – everything. And of course, it was Shakespeare. I haven’t the words to sufficiently express how wonderfully uplifting and at the same time humbling it all was.

Principal dancers Fumi Kaneko and Vadim Muntagirov were magical, their dancing superb to my eyes but just as important, their ability to tell by movement and expression the great tale of love and tragedy that is Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This was ballet – not Shakespeare’s mighty words – but as curtain went up to reveal a Verona street scene I could not help reciting silently to myself the wonderful first words of Shakespeare’s masterpiece: “Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean………” . And three hours later as the lovers lay dead on the stage, their families distraught and Verona’s Prince standing angry and saddened by the events in his city I remembered again the sombre final words of the play spoken by the Prince: “A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things: Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished; For never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo”.As we left the cinema and drove home along Nottingham’s Ring Road I reflected upon what we had been privileged to be part of. During the intervals, and with the power of technology, text messages appeared on the screen praising the performance and the wonder of it from people all over the world who like us were watching the live stream: Berlin, Cardiff, Croatia, the Philippines, Lille, Madrid and hundreds more – their texts running along the bottom of the screen as they poured in from cyberspace. And as I drove I marvelled at the power of technology to bring us together – the world is indeed becoming smaller. What an opportunity we have to become a better, more united world.

And, following this line of thought I mused on something else. The performance was in London, I was watching in Nottingham. Juliet was performed by a dancer born and raised in Japan and Romeo a Russian born and raised in a city in the depths of that vast country. The orchestra was conducted by Koen Kessels - a Belgian and the ballet choreographed by Sir Kenneth Macmillan – a Scot. The musical score was composed by another Russian Sergey Prokofiev – and of course the whole thing was based upon the words of an Englishman, William Shakespeare. We are, indeed, all interlinked and intertwined across world – all reliant upon everyone else’s talents, ideas, skills, resources, aspirations, dream, hopes and fears. There are words for this: “mankind” or “humanity”. We are all part of humanity whether we like it or not; and as humans, all of us who enjoyed last night’s performance – wherever we were – recognised and understood and related to the very human emotions and events that were set out before us precisely because we are human – it’s called “empathy” - it's one of the attributes that separates us from the animal kingdom.

So, as I reversed the car onto our drive late last night the inhuman, divisive, hateful racist and ethnic rhetoric that we have heard from the American President and his henchmen in recent weeks seemed even more unacceptable. The awful dismissal of empathy as a valid human emotion by Elon Musk a week or two ago says far more about him and his crippled perverted view of humanity than it does about empathy. Musk's comment that "Empathy is the fundamental weakness of western civilisation" not only displays his ignorance of a basic human instinct, it calls in to question his understanding of people and the defining qualities in a "civilisation". But Musk is not alone. Equally depressing and damning is the ill considered, vulgar, crude and violent outbursts from the mindless supporters of these would be tyrants. The actions, too, of alleged “strong men” like Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin (no they’re not "strongmen", they are childish thugs who have mistakenly been given, by their mindless supporters, expensive and dangerous toys to play their perverted games with) and their inhumane bombing into oblivion of innocents becomes to me even more of a crime against humanity.

Romeo and Juliet is a story about love being thwarted and it becomes a tragedy. It seems to me that in this hate filled world we need to ensure love and togetherness are victorious. The alternative as we see daily on our TV screens and in our newspapers doesn’t bear thinking about. It's commonly said - and I believe to be true - that Shakespeare's works encompass all it is to be human - all mankind's dreams, failings, misdeeds and triumphs can be found in the Bard's works. Last night's ballet of his mighty tale took that one stage further and brought a beauty and magic to it all - and in doing so showed up the horror of what is happening and being promoted by so many in our modern world.

"ADOLESCENCE" - A Story For Our Times

Good art, it is said, should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I don’t know if that is true but I suspect it is – and furthermore, I suspect, that in our mad and worrying modern world never has ”good art” been more needed to provide succour and support for the soul or guidance and awareness in our moral and social responsibilities. And of all art forms literature and poetry are often the most powerful means of comforting or disturbing our sensibilities. The works of Dickens increasingly pricked the consciousness of his Victorian age, and amongst many others, John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” and his “Of Mice and Men” profoundly impacted upon my own beliefs about the nature of society and our moral responsibilities within it.

From the earliest times mankind has used stories and verse to pass on its great truths, to make “good societies” and “good human beings”. A hundred years ago the greatest of the First World War poets, Wilfred Owen, and days before his tragic death on the battle fields of France wrote: “All a poet can do is warn. That is why the poets must be truthful.” And more recently author Salman Rushdie commented “A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep…...A poem cannot stop a bullet. A novel can't defuse a bomb. But we are not helpless. We can sing the truth and name the liars.” Indeed, “Comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”.

In today’s societies it is television and films that carry many of mankind’s messages, reflections and truths that can, or must, mould or change opinions for better or for worse. It is TV and films that bring the world in all its glories and failings into our living rooms and our lives and occasionally – very occasionally – it doesn’t just entertain but crashes into our consciousness, "disturbs our comfort." And as Rushdie said “stops the world going to sleep”.

Sadly, although Dickens, Steinbeck, Owen and Rushdie and the rest have produced numerous books and poems to awaken us to mankind’s discontents and failings TV and films do so only rarely – but when they do, they can be both life affirming and life changing in a way that perhaps books and poems can never be.

As I sit here writing this I can recall vividly the impact that the BBC play “Cathy Come Home” - a tale of a young couple’s descent into poverty and homelessness - had on “swinging 60s” Britain. The outcry didn’t solve the problems highlighted in the play; in many ways they are still with us – but it changed the game, opened up discussions – in short, disturbed our comfortable mindset. A few years later another BBC offering in the early 1970s pricked the nation’s conscience as we followed the travails of “Edna, the Inebriate Woman” as poor, elderly, vulnerable and alcoholic Edna was shuffled through the Kafkaesque Social Services system in an endless downward spiral. Ten years later in the early 80s not only did the nation get another wake up call, it got a new catchphrase for the national vocabulary. “I can do that…Giz us a job” – Yosser Hughes’ plaintive and achingly desperate plea for work so that he could feed and keep his crumbling family together became a national cri de cœur heard on street corners, in pubs, school playgrounds and football stadiums. The series “Boys from the Blackstuff” touched a nerve as few programmes have ever done and brought home to the comfortable - people like me - the impact and desperation being felt by many in Thatcher’s 1980s Britain. Yosser Hughes and his fellow out of work and desperate tarmac layers became alternative and unlikely national heroes. Such was the power of that series, and such is the power of a story; not only retelling a narrative but in moulding the national consciousness by, as Wilfred Owen reminded us just before he died, "telling the truth". Last year the long running UK scandal involving Post Office employees wrongly accused of theft by their employers suddenly became a front page event and forced government, the Post Office and the legal profession to examine their collective consciences and responsibilities after the ITV series "Mr Bates and the Post Office" was broadcast. The outcry at the exposures about faulty computer systems and potentially criminal actions of the part of the Post Office, Fujitsu and others put the government on the back foot and within weeks an issue that had dragged on for years was suddenly acted upon by those in power.

And so to the latest – and for me the most compelling and worrying. A story for our times. “Adolescence”, a series produced by Netflix is harrowing in the extreme, desperately worrying and above all important. [‘The younger me would have sat up and nodded’: Adolescence writer Jack Thorne on the insidious appeal of incel culture | Television | The Guardian ] The story of teenage boy, Jamie, accused of murdering Katie, a teenage girl, it tracks Jamie's arrest, the police investigation, the work of psychiatrists and the disintegration of a family. It pulls no punches but has a grim inevitable everyday reality about it that we can all recognise and in doing so dread. We can feel for all the characters, and we can fear for them because underpinning and running through it is a message, both overt and covert – "This is us, this is you, your family, this is your son, this is your daughter now – today, in the 21st century"; it holds a mirror up to contemporary Britain. It made my wife and I shiver and wipe tears from our eyes. After each episode we were in bits, silent, embarrassed to say what we felt and to feel what we wanted to say - as we thought of our own children and grandchildren and the “underworld” of teenage social media. Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and the rest, filled with twisted "Internet Influencers" backed up by the sordid and faux philosophies of pseudo/self proclaimed intellectuals like Jordan Peterson spewing their perverted messages and regurgitating ill informed fake facts and hate; perniciously eating into the lives, thoughts and actions of our young people. We learned about the world of the insidious and mind corrupting Incel culture, of Andrew Tate and his evil messages. And we were afraid; finding it impossible to get the words, images and messages out of our minds as we lay in bed at night after each episode, looking at the ceiling in the dark. The series is grim, hard hitting, a desperate watch - but never sensational – and that is its power: it reflects back at us, our children and our society, forcing us to acknowledge what we knew was there all the time but refused to accept, believing that it could not happen to us, to our family, to our children……. except, except......it could.

In the final episode the sobbing, well meaning, frightened and regret filled parents cling to each other, as we all would to gain some respite, consolation or virtue from the horror that they find themselves in, “We did our best….we were not bad parents,…..you can’t watch your kids all the time can you……?” they sobbed. And it’s true – but that doesn’t alter the reality of what is. In days past when a child misbehaved he or she might have been stood on the “naughty step” or sent to his/her bedroom where they can calm down, think about their actions in solitude and perhaps regret. We like to think that we are being good, enlightened parents by giving our children responsibility and independence - be grown up and go with their mates into town, have a room of their own where they can "chill", listen to their awful music and do their homework in a quiet, secure and safe atmosphere - but we were wrong. Our well meaning and, enlightened actions were and are false Gods. The secure welcoming bedroom just right for chilling, the naughty step, the lounge, the street, school, or the school bus are not, in 2025, private and secure, nor are they now safe. Creeping, insidious technology is always there, intruding, always available,  ever with them; in their pocket ready at the flick of a finger on the touch screen to open up different and dangerous worlds with worryingly, frighteningly different values, vocabularies, and ideologies; threats to young immature minds. As I sit writing this it is late afternoon and passing my office window in our quiet little road the village's teenagers are walking past my window on their way home from the school bus. These are “good kids” from “good families” and every one (yes I mean every one) is walking gazing into their mobile phones furiously texting, perhaps soaking up – or sending - the bile, the misogyny, the racist comments and the emojis prevalent on Snapchat, Instagram and the rest. Emojis, not as I previously thought, fun childish things, little innocent cartoons to brighten a text message but each one in the sub culture inhabited by many on Snapchat and Instagram carrying a subtle but clear and frightening meaning, a pernicious and demeaning message, to worm its way into the subconscious of its immature and pliable recipient.

We cannot turn the clock back, we cannot unsee what is here. The world of mobiles, laptops, tablets, social media, fake news, AI, and the rest is today’s reality; they cannot be undone. But within them there is another reality potentially making all of our young people victims. Katie, the girl murdered in the play was a victim but so, too, was the murderer – and by association his and her families - his mind, reason and virtue (what a quaint and twee word that sounds in this harsh, modern age!) twisted by the hidden sub culture of the cyberworld made possible by the Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs of this world and driven by Andrew Tate and Hamza Ahmed and other high priests of the smartphone and YouTube "Manosphere", all pushing their divisive and dangerous agendas and hate filled  ideologies: envy, rage, violence, misogyny, fear, retribution, lies, and evil dysfunction to their millions of young followers. And all largely hidden from parents, teachers and other responsible adults. We cannot change the world that we have built but as adults we have the responsibility to ensure that the young do not fall prey to it. Jamie’s father so agonisingly sobbed “We can't watch our kids all the time, can we?” but as adults we have a greater imperative – to take care of our children and young people no matter what. But taking care of our children to ensure only their physical safety is not enough. As this series illustrates so tragically we must, too, ensure their emotional and mental well being - their virtue; none of us want our children to turn out to become emotionally crippled monsters with no awareness of basic humanities like empathy, sympathy and simple goodness. Anything less is a dereliction of our duty as adults.

The other important plays that I mentioned at the top of this post – “Cathy Come Home”, “Boys From the Blackstuff” etc. were vital in raising society's awareness and in changing attitudes. But for most of us they were removed from our worlds. I watched “Cathy” and was angry, upset. But it wasn’t my world, I had a good job and nice house – "Not me" I breathed as I watched. I followed Yosser Hughes and the unemployed tarmac layers in 1980s Liverpool and ranted and wrote letters to The Guardian newspaper haranguing Thatcher and her evil policies. But, again, it wasn’t me or my family - it was somebody else, somewhere else. I watched the Post Office scandal and was delighted when it had such an impact. But then, I had never been falsely accused of theft - it was interesting, worrying even, but removed.
“Adolescence” is different – it’s about us, about the way in which technology is impacting upon all our lives and in the case of young people their vulnerabilities. If you haven’t watched “Adolescence” then you should. You might not have children, you might (and you would be completely wrong) think “My kids aren’t like this”. You might not use social media but whether you like it or not, use it or not, social media now frames and in many respects forms our world; it's a play for our troubled times. It's a hard watch because it spells out in big bold letters the world we are living in; to coin Wilfred Owen's phrase, it "tells the truth" and, sadly, the truth, when we are in denial or unaware is tough to accept and acknowledge - and that is why it's so powerful and important.

"I saw Satan laughing with delight......"

In 1972 Don McLean released his iconic, and at over eight minutes long, epic, song “American Pie” (click on link below to watch McLean performing his epic in 1972). There have been many interpretations and suggestions as to the meaning of McLean’s words but what is not in doubt is that they struck a chord then, and still do today. The words and the “message” if there be a message suggest the demise or death of something of worth – many think it was the tragic early death of Buddy Holly and his music; others suggest the death of American innocence; maybe the death of the American dream, and some posit that the song is a paean or maybe a requiem to JFK and all that he represented to America and the world. Who knows? But whatever McLean’s intentions with his song, its message and theme have stuck – it still has huge popularity and resonates more today than ever before.

Amongst the most powerful words and metaphors in the song are these:

“……….. and as I watched him on the stage

My hands were clenched in fists of rage

No angel born in Hell

Could break that Satan spell

And as the flames climbed high into the night

To light the sacrificial rite

I saw Satan laughing with delight……..

……..And in the streets, the children screamed

The lovers cried and the poets dreamed

But not a word was spoken

The church bells all were broken

And the three men I admire most

The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost

They caught the last train for the coast

The day the music died…..”

McLean could have had no knowledge of what the future might bring but, I for one, cannot read or hear these words without thinking of America 2025 under the monstrous Trump and his grubby minions. “Satan laughing with delight" seems an apt metaphor for Trump, Vance and Musk – and the “good old boys" of the GOP. Nor can I see or hear the words without also seeing the face of Trump with his malevolent and malignant twisted grin seeming to personify George Orwell’s terrifying comment in his dystopian tale “1984” that “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face….” Is that America's future - and maybe the world? It's a terrifying thought but given the new world order promoted by Trump one that we must consider.

But what of those other words “And in the streets the children screamed…..”? America, allegedly a “Christian country,” seems to me and I think, many more, to be anything but. The perverted “Christianity” that I have witnessed spilling from the mouths of Trump supporters and the hateful legislation being enacted by Trump (abortion clamp downs, reducing social programmes, vilifying other human beings, hateful rhetoric……the list goes on) all strongly suggest to me that in Trump’s America, within the Republican Party, and in the minds of millions of moronic Trump supporters the Good Samaritan would get short shrift. In the transactional world of Trump, Vance and Musk nothing, not even kindness or Christian compassion or empathy, is free – we saw that in the Oval Office when President Zelenskyy visited - "I will only give you this if you give me that" underpins the new morality. The law of the jungle operates, dog eats dog, man eats man; the basic courtesies, dignities and humanities cease to exist, nothing is for free - the new "Christianity" of America is a post-humane society. The Good Samaritan when he found the injured traveller on the road didn’t look down at the injured man and say “You don’t have many good cards in your hand, Mister……so what’s in it for me if you want my help” as Donald Trump and JD Vance would undoubtedly have done. But, to return to McLean’s song, in America 2025 “The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost” truly have “Caught the last train for the coast".

America – and by association – the rest of the world has become in the last two months a terrifying place. French author and philosopher Albert Camus would have recognised what has happened in America since Trump’s Inauguration; “When a democracy is sick” warned Camus, “Fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.” Much of America 2025 cannot imagine anything better than their own perverted self indulgences. Shakespeare put it well when he reminded us in King Lear: “Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind”.

Indeed!

What Trump and the Republican Party have wrought in America is, as I suggested above, a post-humane society, They offer neither food nor drink — neither intellectual or spiritual consolation - to sustain the individual. the society or the soul. They lead nowhere and satisfy no ideal. They conform to no intellectual standard or any degree of civilisation which America might have achieved or prized. Trump has brought to Washington an anti-Camelot, an inversion of the mythical, majestic and virtuous citadel that became synonymous with Kennedy. While Kennedy inspired with his movie-star looks, his culture, his eloquence, his intelligence and his wit, Trump has turned all on its head. Trump was, and is, born from a culture that relentlessly deconstructs ideals; he sneers at the very notion of idealism or virtue or truth. In his embrace of wealth and power, Trump is enacting another ugly truth that today so much of America and its “culture” is rooted in lies, money, and corruption. The 19th and early 20th century’s ruthless multimillionaires, the “robber barons” – Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan and the rest - at least built museums, libraries, universities and hospitals to improve society’s lot. But they have now given way to ruthless multibillionaires - Trump, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg et al - who build nothing but Bitcoin server farms and space rockets to fulfil their own perverted self-indulgences.

Seven hundred years ago in Renaissance Italy Dante Alighieri wrote his “Commedia” (or “Divine Comedy” often commonly referred to as “Dante’s Inferno”) one of the world's most important and profound works – an epic poem leading us, in turn, through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise and emphasising the splendour and dignity of the human soul. In arguably the best known line in the work the Greek hero Ulysses, condemned to spending eternity in Hell, cries out “You were not made to live your lives as brutes,” and in doing so emphasises the importance of human potential for growth, learning, virtue and striving for something higher than mere animalistic existence. Dante would have recognised the brutality of Trump, his administration and America in 2025 for what they represent – to use Don McLean’s 1971 analogy “Satan laughing with delight”. Dante, however described Satan differently from McLean; he pictured “….a silent frozen Lucifer, eternally masticating the bodies of sinners with tears of ice on his cheeks”. Three hundred years later in England, poet John Milton saw a different Satan in his epic poem “Paradise Lost”; Milton’s vision was of a furious, manically talkative, feverishly resentful Satan. Both descriptions seem to me to sum up Donald Trump and his acolytes, men of no virtue, brutal and displaying the basest of animal instincts - inhumane, sub-human devoid of the very characteristics that define mankind.

Seventy years ago this year the great American novelist Jack Kerouac published his iconic and seminal work "On the Road" - a book that arguably changed the world (including me when I read it as a nineteen year old). In that book he posed the question "Whither goest thou America in thy shiny car in the night....". America and Americans need to ask that same hard question now in 2025. For just as McLean sang over half a century ago "Satan is laughing with delight" and as Dante’s writing suggested it is well on the pathway to Hell for it has lost its soul.