In this episode, Dara reacts to the re-election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. Did the Democrats and Kamala Harris once again fail to take seriously Trump and the Republican voter base? Whatever the cause, politicians of the liberal centre or centre-left have not been convincing enough to get themselves back into power. Four more years of Trump is a worrying prospect for the larger wellness of a very divided nation.
Admitting the limitations of his own political analysis, Dara turns to an incisive commentator of yesteryear – the brilliant Gore Vidal, whose sardonic voice spoke comprehensively on American public life, among other topics. In 1968, the liberal Vidal memorably featured in televised political debates with the conservative William F. Buckley, which descended into a barely controlled slanging match by their conclusion, choice epithets being volleyed back and forth with ever increasing venom.
Dara reads in full two of Vidal’s pieces of writing on the US presidency. The first, The Real Two-Party System, is a short article written before the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. It questions the very idea of representation in US politics. The second, Armageddon? was written at the end of Reagan’s second term and is a skewering of the president’s shared and widely-publicised belief in a Christian end-of-the-world consummation. The unforgiving cynicism on display is a testament to eyes that were in no danger of having the wool pulled over them, especially by an ‘Acting President’.
Vidal vs Buckley documentary, Best of Enemies – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3518012/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_5_tt_4_nm_4_in_0_q_the%2520best%2520of%2520enemies