Donald Trump, Donald Bloody Trump

What a vexing week for the Boy Roberts. Too much to think about for this unquiet mind - that's a reference to my bipolar which has been peeping its head over the parapet in the face of all this mental stimulation. An Unquiet Mind, by the way, is the incisive title of Kay Redfield Jamison's book on manic depression.

So what's eating me? You name it: Europe, the NHS, God, state education, rugby football, but I think above all else the trigger has been Donald Trump, Donald Bloody Trump. His political rise has, as you will have surmised, got me in a right old tizzy. People keep telling me that I am daft but the more I try to ignore the wretched man, the more I am intrigued. In his phenomenon so many issues, cultural and political, are crystallizing.

Serious political analysis is needed - this bloke is at best a tosser

The problem out of which the Donald has sprung is, by a much discerned irony, the same one that has spawned the cults of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. Large portions of the governed feel themselves utterly alienated from and deserted by their governors. These alienated people are not even remotely confined to the self-flagellating left and the amoral right. We are everywhere. Just yet, the numbers have not reached a tipping point but America is belatedly waking up to the fact that it is closer to that point than it had conceived. And those doing the tipping are, with respect, reaching for the wrong solutions - Trump/Sanders/Corbyn. At the moment the 'political class' (this ugly epiphet is often in Trump's mouth but he is completely right to designate them thus - look only at the shameless behaviour of Cameron in the Europe debate) is most alarmed by Trump because he has dared to scramble furthest up their greasy pole. Just wait to see what the post EU referendum Conservative Party will unleash on Corbyn as its easiest means of reunification. All the fun of the fair.

Is Trump right about anything? Of course he is. He identifies problems (and shamelessly fabricates others) but unerringly comes up with the wrong solutions. Crude is not automatically bad. Oafish is not automatically bad. Vulgarity is not automatically bad. Winning is not at all a bad thing. But, but, but. When crudeness, oafishness and vulgarity are deployed without any acknowledgement of their limitations and when winning becomes the only acceptable result, we cease to be civilised. And yes I do know that, 'Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing' was the delivered wisdom of Vince Lombardi (for whom the Super Bowl trophy is named) but not even the daftest sports coach suggests this as a mantra for life as a whole. In any understood and practical context, winners have their corollaries - losers. The Trump method takes all this nonsense a step further and dances on the downtrodden 'losers'. To my shame (trust me it lives with you) I have done this myself on the sporting field. It demeans both perpetrator and victim. As a model for government it is terrifying.

The most depressing fact pushed shamefacedly into the glare of the Trump spotlight is this - the moral poverty of his opposition. The Republican debate last night was raucous and uncouth. These guys really don't like each other. But at its end every candidate avowed that he would support the eventual GOP nominee. I admire loyalty chaps but one can take it too far. Up with this you should not put.

But the question of opposition goes further - look at the bloody Democrats. It seems it will be Hillary, a woman long known to the American public but who inspires them for no greater reason than that she would be the first woman president - Why do they like Hillary . This is not exactly what propelled Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi and Margaret Thatcher to power. Mind you, I don't suppose that my old mate Polly Toynbee would suggest any of those as an inspiration so perhaps I'm (wilfully?) missing the point. Let's put it another way - Hillary Clinton comes with a lot of baggage, although amusingly the neocons unremember the fact that her lothario husband Bill was the last president to run a budget surplus, this being what his VP Mr Gore might term an inconvenient truth.

Don'r cry for me Minnesota

Much of the American commentariat is available via that interweb thing so go on have some fun and drive yourself as bonkers as me. A lot of it is, once you dig a little, barking mad and you will be amazed what a mountain of invective you can build from the grainiest grain of truth - try for example the 'Truthers' (Trump was there at the conception of this movement and, seed sown, skulked away from the scene of his crime) who will prove to you that Obama is definitely not an American but is definitely a muslim. Rather more balanced (in its limited context) is Wesley Pruden in the right wing Washington Times - Commentariat Wrong . I make no case for the Washington Times in general (susidised by the Unification Church and Reagan's favourite paper) but Cruden's mischievous joy at the rise of Trump and the attendant discomfiture of the bien pensant is perhaps an antidote to my own melancholy. 

For a measured British perspective on the Trump thing and why it matters try this - Trump's Angry America .

As for me, well I'm going to stand myself down and gather some energy to fulminate against the loons who want to emasculate my precious game - Shock News - People Get Hurt Playing Rugby
Mind you, I might be wrong on this one. Maybe all this angst I experience is because I had too many knocks on the head playing God's own game. Having said that, I'm going to take some convincing that my life would be better without that tackle I made against Old Coventrians in 97. A small moment of perfection - and those are few indeed.

Oh well it's only a game. Which sentiment presumably makes me one of the Donald's 'losers'.