Cooking with Trump

The film had started. The opening titles had rolled and the opening scenes had been missed. Having walked in late, the first shot was of a kitchen. A country kitchen, where things are hung: things to chop, things to stir, things to boil or fry in, which had a large wooden station in front of the range. A bit like Downton Abbey's but smaller and more modern. There was no Daisy or Mrs Patmore, just a man who looked like Trump, from behind and in front, in a suit and myself who was it appeared his assistant. There was little or no conversation, but a following round from here to there, selecting and collecting pots and pans from the different country-style kitchens, one of several, it turned out, in the same building. Trump, the scene translated, wanted to cook for Melania, though the what hadn't been decided upon or the ingredients gathered.
I fell out of sleep as the alarm went off. 7am, 5^th of October 2020.
Trump had been hospitalised for two days. Last night I had watched his drive-by, wondering why the 11 o'clock headlines had been given over to all things American lately, not that I have a problem with that country or following the ins and outs as reported by correspondents of the presidential election, but neither do I think it is the greatest in the world. Every country has its merits and its failures, and its problems, which each leader either contributes to or solves.
However its attitudes did interest me, although I couldn't be sure that what was reported was accurate. Foreign correspondents are not, I would say, entirely unbiased or neutral in their reporting. I think you can tell which way their judgement falls, and the edit, too, if not live, can present a view that might be popular in Britain but false in America and vice versa. What we see might be what we want to believe or the view the media would like us to.
Prior to cooking with Trump I had heard some of his supporters voice their opinions of his personal handling of the virus, they thought he had demonstrated caution of it and maintained social distance. Here in Britain we hadn't seen that, only the opposite. Trump, most of us thought, was reckless, but then we might have said the same of Boris Johnson and then the next day accused of him of being too cautious.
That both, Trump and Johnson, had been brought down by the virus was a positive, it made them human. That, at least, was the opinion, though I'm not convinced it swayed any decisions they made in the hereafter. If anything it seemed to further confuse their decision-making powers, or the processes to convey them. So the people of America and Britain with their befuddled leaders in the days that followed battled on. One striving to be great and the other to take back control, while their peoples weren't pulling together but further apart. The virus proving to be just as divisive as any policy with too many clauses, where to understand the rules and the loopholes you have to delve deeper or employ an investigative journalist.
Trump clearly thought he was Superman, as did some of his fans. (I'm not sure which super hero Boris thought he was.) One interviewed on radio even thought the virus had been introduced into America to bring Trump down, though by whom the speaker couldn't or wouldn't identify. (China was on the interviewer's lips but was brushed off, “I'm just a small-town boy”.) Others, however, were more sensible: Trump hadn't taken the virus seriously at all, or set the example; they were surprised it had taken the virus so long.
The talk is of a war. We are at war with an invisible enemy. We are going to beat this thing. And when at war, or in the midst of a presidential campaign, strength needs to be shown and the troops' morale needs to be boosted, or alternatively sympathy elicited. If everyone's confused, too, as to the state of the country and what is truth and what is fiction, nobody can be blamed, not even those claiming to run it.
Above all, what struck me more than before Trump's Covid downfall was the ageist attitudes towards him and his opponent, Joe Biden. Some voters had already written both off as 'too old' and 'unlikely to see out the term'. I personally don't see age as a problem, but then I've always respected my elders, regardless of what they might think or whether I agree with them.
Cooking with Trump was therefore not an unwelcome dream.

Picture credit: Trump, Jon McNaughton (source: WikiArt).

Written October 2020.