As an American in Australia people ask me every day about my view of politics in the USA. I answer - honestly - that it feels like I’m watching politics in Zimbabwe or Kenya or Serbia. There are thrills and spills that feel completely foreign. The USA election is playing out like a dark comedy - or is that a travesty? It’s largely incomprehensible.
Two things I’d like to share - the first was last weekend’s opening skit on “Saturday Night Live” - really priceless:
Finally another rabid Democrat sent me a soul-searching list as she tried to understand politis in America:
| I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight….*If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re ‘exotic, different.’
* Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers - a quintessential American story. * If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim. Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick. * Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable. * Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded. *If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.*If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, left your disfigured wife and married an heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society. * If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s. *If your husband is nicknamed ‘First Dude’, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and was once a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.OK, much clearer now. |
