Trump shots

Well, that was over quick. The 2024 US election campaign ended Sunday morning Australian time before either party had even held their convention. President Joe Biden was already more over than any person has ever been, but now the whole election is absolutely done regardless of who the Democrats choose to replace their flaking husk of a candidate. The alleged 20-year-old attempted assassin may not have made his shots but Donald Trump certainly got his — the images of a blood-streaked Trump rising triumphant from a wreath of Secret Service agents with upheld fist framed against the US flag are those of an instinctive savant. The man is a world-historical force, and the collapse of the centre is only just beginning. I watched Titanic 2 last night on Tubi and the CGI rendering of an iceberg shearing off from Greenland is nothing compared to the fissure cracking through America right now — a wave is looming in the night.

With friends like these…

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is out of it. His response to the shooting at a presser early this morning was coherent and lucid on paper but the damage is done — his speech sounds like the loose and garbled ramblings of a man who cannot quite hold onto the edges of his thoughts as they slip away from him. Part of this is a speech impediment, sure, but part of it is also the impact of a week in which he sought to rescue his debate disaster by holding back-to-back pressers in which he confused the names of his allies and colleagues with his national and international enemies. No amount of mechanical side-eye shade on Twitter, or leaning into his need for performance-enhancing drugs, can offset the fully-baked impression that this guy is not in command. Which makes it an intriguing call that, almost alone among Democrats, Bernie Sanders (and AOC and the left caucus) have chosen to leverage pulling in behind Biden for a range of policy concessions. Maybe the saviour of the left was here all along, twinkling towards Babylon…

Anyway, we’ll be over there later this year to cover the last days before the second (and final) Trump imperium begins. Enjoy!