American soap opera

It has been tumultuous weeks in U.S. politics. It all started with the June debate between Biden and Trump. The nation was shocked by Biden’s poor performance and by the fact that he seemed confused and borderline senile. Since then, several reports have been coming out from the White House about Biden habits like spending more than one third of his time at home in Delaware, working only between 10am and 4pm with time for lunch and no activity after 8pm. It also raises questions about the occasions when Biden has been super energetic and combative such as the January State of the Union address. Was he on some kind of medication? Or drug like Vyvanse or Adderall or both? Or something stronger? Also, for the rare Biden interviews, media has been prepped with questions from the White House and the recording has been edited before showing. This has been the case already since 2020, which explains why he did not give live interviews and only rare interviews at all, then edited. How on earth did Biden get more than 81 million votes in the election 2020? That is the most any president has even gotten, many more than the popular Obama got on the height of his popularity with 69 million votes. It is truly a mystery. Reality is that Biden has become an American Brezhnev.

At the same time as the drama with Biden has unfolded, there was an attempt to assassinate Trump at a political campaign in Pennsylvania. He was incredibly lucky to survive as he turned his head in the right moment and only got shot at the ear. The secret service had done a poor job protecting the former president and FBI is now investigating the matter. It will be difficult to get an honest and objective report of what really happened and why the security was so poor to enable a sniper to get relatively close with a clear line to Trump. After all, the deep state has gone after Trump for a long time, now battling in many court cases and already a convicted felon in New York, so the next step, an assassination does not seem that far-fetched. FBI can barely be trusted, but there is nobody else to investigate, but likely pointless.  

Trump survived the assassination attempt miraculously and arrived at the republican convention in Milwaukee a couple of days later. JD Vance, a Trump opponent turned Trump follower and MAGA supporter, a 2022 elected senator from Ohio, famous for this autobiography “Hillbilly elegy”, also filmed with Glenn Close and Amy Adams, is now the Trump VP. The convention was like few others with raw emotions from the assassination attempt, but also showing a united party, ready to take back the presidency. It also showed that the difference between the republican and democratic parties is tremendous both in domestic and global affairs. It is hard to see much bipartisanship in the near future.

Days after the convention, Biden declared that he will not be the presidential candidate in the November election, and he endorsed VP Kamala Harris. Others in the democratic party followed Biden, except Obama.

Obama seems to be for an open democratic convention in August. The problem is that there are not many other options, except maybe Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. Clinton is widely unpopular due to her history of corruption, and Michelle Obama is popular, but hesitant to get into the race. So, it will likely be Kamala Harris, the unpopular VP, who will take on Trump. The front-runner to become her VP is Peter Buttigieg, former naval officer who is serving as the 19th U.S. secretary of transportation. Before that, he was the 32nd mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020. Also worth noting is that he is gay and an open advocate of the LGBT community. There are other VP choices, and it will materialize in August, but it will more or less have to be a white male. There has never been a ticket without one. The country might be ready for a female president, but it is likely not ready for a ticket with two women. Also, Harris is a minority, so there needs a white person for sure.

With mainstream media and social media, reports are continuing to shake up the political landscape quickly and often, virtually daily. There seems to be endless drama in U.S. politics and news keep feeding 24/7. Somehow, everything seems normal, even an assassination attempt, and the show goes on. In reality though, politics in the U.S. is far from normal, it has become seriously partisan, nasty, and corrupt. Who is even running the country as Biden seems to be struggling? U.S. politics has sadly become a reality show, a soap opera…

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