American politics has become the greatest reality TV program of all time. Almost everybody seems to be addicted to their daily dose of “What Trump did last night”, marvelling at how utterly fantastic the whole thing has become. I use the word in the sense of “seeming more appropriate to the imagination than to reality”, not as “extraordinarily good or attractive”.
Now that ole Joe has finally bowed to the inevitable, the Democrats have left themselves in a perilous predicament. Kamala Harris is their only possible option. There’s simply no time or money available to have a contest for the leadership of the free world. Two weeks ago I would have thought this was a losing scenario, but Harris has made a surprisingly strong start. From virtually no profile, she is now making speeches, telling Netanyahu where to get off, hammering away on crucial issues such as abortion, and generally taking the fight right up to the orange babyman.
What caught my eye in the flood of commentary last week, was a piece talking about how the Republicans are attacking Harris’s laugh. Apparently it’s “a cackle”, it’s “like a witch”. They said the same thing about Hilary Clinton, which suggests that they view any woman who challenges for the top role as a witch, whom they’d presumably like to burn.
Nevertheless, laughter may be Harris’s trump card in this election, if you’ll pardon the expression. The ugliness, the aggression, the violence and hatred that emanates from Trump and his MAGA crowd is so relentless it’s like watching a volcano spewing lava in all directions. The MAGA style was on full display on Four Corners this week, as Mark Willacy visited a Trump rally where a woman wore a cape emblazoned with the words “Fuck Joe Biden”. T-shirts were being sold telling us “Joe and the Ho have to go.” It’s another familiar trope – a woman in politics is either a witch or a whore. And this is from people who idolise a convicted rapist.
Only a few years ago, this kind of thing would have been unthinkable. Now it’s commonplace. Vulgarity, profanity, death threats, psychotic rage – these are the ingredients of mainstream American politics, thanks to the Trumpian revolution. He didn’t invent all this horrible stuff, he simply licenced it, allowing it to breed and fester.
If Kamala Harris has a surprise tactic up her sleeve, it should be to laugh and smile as much as possible. She has to look like she’s having a great time and feels nothing but optimism for her country. Ask yourselves: When did you ever see Donald Trump laugh? His sense of humour revolves around acts of cruelty perpetrated on foe and friend. When he’s done something especially nasty, he gives us a little smirk of self-satisfaction. The rest of the time he’s whinging and whining, telling whoppers, droning on about himself – often incomprehensibly, telling us that America is now hell on earth. “Elect me,” is the message, “and I’ll magically fix everything. Although I can’t tell you how.”
Well we know all about that already. He’ll fix the problem in the Ukraine by cutting off aid and exiting NATO, allowing Putin free reign. He’ll fix the American economy by abolishing income tax and imposing massive tariffs on imports, thereby tripling prices for US consumers. Great idea, Don. He’ll save us from electric vehicles and wind turbines by allowing oil exploration in parks and wilderness areas, and loosening pollution controls. And on and on. The one and only thought the voters should bear in mind is that if elected, he has no intentions of ever leaving the White House, and now has the stooges and the judges to pull off his coup. In fact, he has no intentions of accepting the result if and when he loses, making the United States an unattractive tourist destination in November.
What can Harris do? Laugh as much as possible and laugh at Trump, who cannot stand being ridiculed. Laughter is infectious, and tends to shame those who stand around with sour faces, grumbling messages of doom and gloom. Sociopaths cannot understand laughter, although the smarter ones can at least pretend. This much is beyond Trump. Who would want to vote for such a miserable sod?
The United States needs something to break through the shell of ugliness that has engulfed their political life. Americans need to stop staring into the abyss, and look up to the stars again, hoping they don’t see one of Elon Musk’s spaceships. At this stage, what can they do except laugh?
If I sound unusually good-humoured, it’s because I’ve just come back from a week in the Outback, largely free from mobile phones and Internet. The art column looks at the trip to Newhaven, a property on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, administered by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. I was the only male in a group that featured six artists and a couple of filmmakers, and I never felt my masculinity threatened for a second.
The week at Newhaven was in preparation for a show in a year’s time, which will bring a ten-year project to a conclusion, raising a million dollars for the AWC in the process. If my column sounds like an advertorial for this amazing conservation group, I plead guilty.
There are two films being reviewed, neither of them a five star classic. Birdeater is a new Australian movie that gives us yet another look at the “toxic masculinity” so popular in local cinema. It’s an ambitious but slightly confusing package, in which the visuals are more impressive than the plot.
The second film is Ti West’s MaXXXine, which stars Mia Goth as a porn star who scores a role in a mainstream film, but has to negotiate a serial killer who is murdering all her friends. It’s a superior slasher film, although some might argue that slasher films are the lowest of cinematic genres.
I’ve also slipped in the text of an address I gave at the National Art School this week, in honour of Guy Warren who has left us at the respectable age of 103. Even at that age, Guy was far more vital than Joe Biden, and garrulous to the end. If I’m recommending laughter as a remedy to America’s woes, I’d hold up Guy as an example of someone who had a relentlessly positive outlook on life. In the artworld, as in politics, that’s no small feat.