21-01-23 Saturday Covid-19 Day 315 I - "Paradigm Shift"

Well, that resolution (to blog more frequently) didn't even last a week. Maybe I should hang my head in shame. Maybe anyone who reads this is breathing a sigh of relief. Who knows? 

I thought it might be worth commemorating the fact that we have a new president in the U.S. Now we can refer to "President Biden" rather than "President-Elect Biden". I listened to a bit of his inauguration speech on the day; it sounded pretty good. The sort of stuff you would expect a normal, standard politician to say. I think he's got a pretty big job on his hands (hurr hurr, not *that* kind of job) to reunite the U.S., considering that over 70 million people voted for Trump. He is going to have to show that he is listening to their concerns as well, and working for the benefit of the U.S. as a whole. 

There were two interesting things coming out of the transfer of power in the U.S., or at least they are interesting to me. One is the QAnon conspiracy cult; apparently they mostly believed that the Biden inauguration would be the trigger for a mass national rebellion. According to message boards and other sources people were stockpiling water, ensuring their generators were in working order, etc., because they thought this was going to be "the big one". It seems that a lot of people are now disappointed, and I would hope disillusioned as well. Maybe "disillusioned" is the wrong word; maybe I mean disabused of their fantasies. Hopefully the country can come together on a common set of facts which they agree on, and go forward from there. There will always be disagreement about the best way to progress, but if you can at least agree *where you are*, that is a start for dialogue. And maybe we can get to the same situation here in the UK regarding Brexit, at some stage in the future. 

The other interesting thing is the Winston Churchill bust rebuttal video. A number of right wing commentators in the UK have been up in arms about the fact that Biden has moved the bust of Churchill out of the Oval Office and replaced it with a bust of Cesar Chavez. So the White House admin have released a video stating that it is "just a bust" and it doesn't affect the "special relationship" between the U.S. and the UK. This is quite a good move, I think. Firstly, it is an acknowledgement that some people have concerns (whether those are legitimate or not). Secondly, it addresses those concerns in a lighthearted (I think) way. Thirdly, it shows that they are listening. Fourthly, it cuts off thoses who are agitating against the new administration. Maybe "agitating" is the wrong word, again. But clearly there are some people who preferred Trump in charge, and they are focusing on this change of bust as a signifier of the regime change. If Biden can move this bust out of the Oval Office, and disrespect the UK like this, what else is he going to change? This video minimises the bust issue. It focuses instead on the past relationships between the leaders of the U.S. and the UK, as well as the security and economic interests shared by the two countries. The bust? It's just a bust. 

I think a lot of people are hoping for four years of boring, pragmatic politics coming out of the U.S. If they can include a video like this every once in a while, so much the better. 

TTFN.

Saturday 16-11-12 Trump

I suppose he deserves a mention. It's not every day that the U.S. gets a new president, and it's certainly not every day that the pollsters get it so wrong. But this is subsequent to Brexit, where the pollsters were also wrong, and you would think that they might be careful about their prognostications.
A couple of weeks ago, the polls were very close, and our old friends PaddyPower were offering odds on Trump of 5-2. I thought at the time that the odds didn't reflect the close nature of the election, and so I wagered an almighty 40p on a victory for the Trumpster. As we got closer to the polling date, I did think that I wouldn't see that 40p again, since all the indications were that Hillary was going to win.
I had been out on the Tuesday night, seeing Such Small Hands again, and I got home having had a few beers, and I picked up a couple more on the way home. So you might say I was well-lubricated. I went to bed after the votes started coming in, so I guess that was about midnight or shortly after; Trump was already 26 electoral votes to 3. Then I woke up at about 3 in the morning, and checked my phone - Trump was still in the lead. PP were offering me 80p to cash out; I could have doubled my original stake and stopped worrying and gone back to sleep. TW roused, and she suggested I could put the radio on, so of course I did. There were some big states still to declare, and it wasn't all cut and dried. But as time went on, the amount PP were offering to cash out kept increasing. By 4:30 it was up to over a pound. I do realise that is small beer to most people, but it's not about winning big for me; it's about seeing if I was right. Anyway, remember that I'd had a beer or two and not gone to bed until after midnight? Being awake from 3am to 5am didn't help me rest, especially with such earth-shattering events going on. So Wednesday at work was a bit of a struggle. But there were others who were in the same boat, so I didn't feel as bad as I should have done.
I reckon that the Americans have the gap between the election and the actual swapping of the Presidential Office to mitigate any shock or surprise at the outcome of the election. There are currently demonstrations going on in the U.S. against Trump, but I think that his wilder suggestions will be kicked into the long grass by Congress and the Senate. He is already suggesting that he won't totally dismantle Obamacare, which was one of the cornerstones of his election campaign, and it is my guess that as time goes on, more of those pre-election promises will go by the wayside.
The electorate here in the UK and over there in the U.S. are becoming disillusioned with the political class, and it is showing. I think that in future politicians will need to do things differently, in order to ensure that the electorate are kept satisfied. There are elections in Germany and France next year, and it wouldn't be surprising if those threw up some unexpected results.
In the end, my bet of 40p at 5/2 returned me £1.40, which was much-needed because my sports betting had been woeful. I also won on Brexit, although that was a bit more impressive - £2 at 7/4 returned £5.50. The MiL had a fiver on the same and took home £15, which was nice. So overall I've bet £2.40 on political events and won £6.90.
I don't think Trump will be the nightmare that some people are fearing, but I wouldn't have voted for him. I think his agenda will be mostly domestic, so we might not hear from the U.S. again until 2021. And if that is the worst outcome, I think that is one that I can live with.