It is interesting to see how other countries view us. Last night, I got that chance because the local public radio station runs live BBC from 11 PM until 4 AM. Immediately after the debate, the news headline was about a circus as they call the debate. Later analysis likens the debate to The Goon Show. That program ran from 1951 until 1960. It was a program of absurd humor. If you’ve ever seen The Monty Python Flying Circus, it was the successor to The Goon Show on TV. There are many clips of the Monty Python show on YouTube. You might also want to look up Spike Milligan on YouTube. Frankly, I couldn’t see the humor the BBC commentators did. I think that’s because I tried to watch the debate but gave up because that sounds like a couple of kids arguing. I wanted to hear what each of their views were on the future.
I should’ve known in advance it would not be a good debate. As a writer, I have always been fascinated by the personalities of people. The most interesting characters for both the author and the readers are the extremes. We are both revolted and curious about psychopaths who can kill just for the fun of it. I think all politicians who run for president think very highly of themselves. The extreme of that is narcissism. The narcissist personality profiles run from the highly narcissistic to those with just a touch of narcissism. Here’s a quick definition from Wikipedia of narcissism, “Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s idealized self-image if and attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water…” These characteristics make them a great character to put into a novel.
On the other hand, they are not all that great in the president of our country. Because a narcissist thinks highly of themselves, they don’t feel that the rules for “ordinary” people don’t apply to them. If they lie, that’s okay, but anyone around them who is just Damn obviously lying they immediately call out. This feeling that the rules don’t apply to them was undeniable last night. It seems they had agreed to two-minute sessions for each question. The president didn’t believe that agreement, rule, applied to him. The same was true to a much lesser degree for Biden.
I hope they cancel further debates. I don’t want to see adults squabbling like children!
