The Surreal US Presidential Election 2016

As a blogger from South-East Asia observing world events for many years, I can't remember ever seeing something as bizarre as this year's US Presidential Election.

On the surface, it looks like both sides are conducting increasingly acrimonious campaigns against each other; but their rhetoric do not seem to be directed at each other, more like past each other.

Extraordinarily, Clinton's campaign hardly talks about her vision for America or her take on significant issues. Most of her firepower is directed at attacking Trump personally, using every word, phrase, sentence or old audio recordings of Trump's to turn them negatively in every which way she can; no matter how mundane, harmless, commonplace, irrelevant or out-of-context they may be. Her campaign will then have these allegations repeated ad nauseum by surrogate agencies who disguise themselves as official news media round the clock. Together with coordinated trivial stories about how they impact on polls and anecdotal accounts of reactions from Republican elites, this blanket coverage by highly recognizable news outlets is so well-synchronized that one would have marvelled at their consistency if not for the fact that you are equally horrified by their utter implausibility. The surreal nature of this phenomenon is aggravated by the child-like gullibility of those in position and power and, frankly, who should know better than to buy into this unlikely narrative. You cringe when you hear politicians and pundits suddenly spouting prudish and puritan pronouncements about their own personal behavior even when they are in their own private space. Everyone suddenly swears that they never talk like men (or women), when they are at the pub, in the yacht, in the changing room, or "locker room", if you prefer the term, or in your intimate moments in your own bedroom ...

"Am I going to be the first one to admit it? No, not me. I'm good, I'm clean, respectful and polite at any time, in any place! You? ... I'm sure you wouldn't dare to say otherwise!" This is just like a mirror-image of real locker-room talk where men outdo each other boasting about their sexual prowess and recklessness; and women about how easily they wrap their fingers around their men. The more outrageous the claim, the better, or if you have the stomach to listen, the more vulgar it is, the better. Of course, this kind of banter is usually exaggerated or, more likely than not, an on-the-spot fictional contrivance, the nature of which is implicitly understood by all present. Nobody ever takes this kind of talk seriously ..., perhaps only when it conveniently shows up as an ancient dusty audiotape to be exploited for political gain. I daresay, if we are on Mars and a Martian politician were to pull this sort of stunt, everyone will end up on the floor holding their stomach in uncontrollable laughter. Unfortunately, we are on Earth and Earthlings say in all seriousness that such talk, if detected, is incontrovertible evidence of one's moral weakness and no one should look at this person in the same way again. Ever. No amount of pointing out of the obvious is going to help undo the stupor of political correctness.

To me, it strikes me as the silliest thing in the world for an election outcome to hang on such a frivolity. Of course, don't get me wrong - morality is of utmost importance, but, this Access Hollywood tape is of dubious value if you are really interested in morality. Just be a little smarter - don't fall into the hands of moral manipulators!

On the other hand, Trump has built his case with a list of policy changes in the midst of allegations of Clinton's incompetence, dishonesty, collusion, corruption and crimes involving state secrets, perjury and obstruction of justice. He is being helped by well-timed periodic releases of hacked Clinton emails by WikiLeaks, whose intentions are unclear except that they are doing their best to undermine her campaign. The fantastic part of these leaks are not the juicy bits in the email which in an ordinary world would have ended any election campaign immediately; but the amazing extent these expose are being apparently ignored by former journalists of the mainstream media who have suddenly switched careers en masse and become campaign volunteers for Clinton. It is as if journalism had ceased to exist in America in an instant! Equally incredible is the apparent willingness of supposed poll participants to base their judgement more on Trump's compromising private conversation than the hard evidence of official Clinton emails detailing corruption, collusion, crime and treasonous political agenda. In Mars, Clinton would have been disqualified a long time ago, much less, to still appear in the polls.

In fact, since we are on the subject of fantasy, dreams and surrealism, my idea of a perfect 2016 US Presidential Election would be one between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders battling it out in a contest of policy proposals sorely needed to revitalize a slumping America whose malaise is the real legacy of Obama's poor 8 years of stewardship. In that dream world, no one will talk about Trump's supposed sex scandals and Sander's assumed socialist tendencies. Come to think of it, if the Democratic Party had not rigged their Primaries, Sanders would have been nominated and this ideal contest would have materialized. Democracy would have been less molested, but since claims of molestation of one form or another are rampant on Earth (or is it only in America?), we have to find democracy elsewhere in the solar system ... probably on Mars!