Here in Sweden Donald Trump is overwhelmingly unpopular, and indeed reviled; more so even than in most other European countries (https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/50844-who-do-europeans-want-to-win-the-2024-us-presidential-election). Obviously one would expect this, in view of the vast differences between our political cultures. Swedish friends of mine find it genuinely difficult to understand his appeal to Americans; and even with my American experience – I studied US history at university, and have lived and worked there for about two years in all – I’m at a loss to account for it in a way that would make much sense to them. It’s another – and scarier – world.

I’m preparing for Tuesday’s election by soaking myself in Trumpiana. I’ve been watching Trump: An American Dream on Netflix; this evening we’re seeing The Apprentice at the cinema. Maybe I should be doing the same for Harris, but she’s not the main issue here, and not yet – I think – the subject of a movie. Trump is. I already knew a lot about him, of course – don’t we all: an effect of his narcissistic hunger for fame – but there’s still a lot that’s new to me. Roy Cohn is one (though I’m sure he’s familiar to all Americans); the disbarred McCarthyite lawyer who taught him to ‘never concede, never apologise’. Cohn really was a monster; fully deserving his death from Aids, in view (only) of his hypocritical persecution of gay people while alive. We saw a lot of the ‘never conceding’ Trump after the last Presidential election. None of us will be surprised to see it again – if he loses – next week.

Is it naïve, over-simplistic, or just Leftist-prejudice, to look at all this in the context of ‘late-stage capitalism’? As capitalism marches on it becomes redder in tooth and claw. Competition drives it into a ‘winner or loser’-only scenario. Nothing else counts. Morality flies out of the window. Trump learned this from his father, and from Cohn. He makes it very clear in interviews. Americans, or half of them, go along with this, and with a ‘strong leader’ who presents himself – by ‘never conceding’ – as a ‘winner’ all his life. That’s what late-stage capitalism does to you. The electorate knows no better. At this level, capitalism is fundamentally antithetical to ‘democracy’. Which is why capitalists like Elon Musk string along with Trump.

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To change the subject: on today’s UK election of a black woman as Tory party leader, which may have surprised many, see https://bernardjporter.com/2024/10/11/race-and-the-tory-leadership/. But that scarcely matters by the side of this coming Tuesday’s vote.