Today feels like a sort of Apocalypse Day. Americans are going to the polls to vote for their next president and the world is holding its breath.
How is it even possible that someone like Donald Trump, convicted felon, sexual abuser and a narcissist who considers himself the best president of all time – including Lincoln – is neck and neck with his opponent?
We’re all hoping for a miracle, while still fearing the Democrats have already lost it by their failure to stop Biden running for a second term.
Kamala Harris wouldn’t have been the choice if there’d been time for a proper contest. But there wasn’t and I’ll take someone who’s a mediocre orator, who dodges interviews and comes up with bizarre “word salads”, simply because she is not a dangerous demagogue surrounded by sinister right-wing forces with a vice-presidential partner who looks like a serial killer from a Netflix drama.
It’s hard to credit that an election of such global significance was dominated by nonsense over “garbage”, petty insults and playground name-calling.
It’s depressing being exposed to the Musk-dominated Twittersphere (doesn’t work with X, does it?), where the Trumpers publish toe-curling scenes to promote their hero, like the group of pastors who surrounded him and called on the Almighty to support his crusade, or him donning a hi-viz vest in the same shade of orange as his face, trying and failing to open the door of a garbage truck.
If it wasn’t so crucial to what is happening in Gaza and Ukraine, it would almost be funny, a Dr Strangelove comedy of the 21st century.
And quite apart from his dodgy grasp on international relations, which he regards as just being chummy with dictators, he also believes climate change is a “hoax”.
Try telling that to the poor people of Valencia, where more than 200 people died and homes were wrecked by torrents of water following a year’s rainfall in just eight hours.
Another Trump administration will spell disaster in so many areas, and unfortunately the world cannot look away for the next four years.
So we are left hoping that his lack of appeal among women voters will somehow save the day.
Desperate glimmers of optimism broke through my gloom with a report from a group of Republican women in swing-state Arizona, who couldn’t bear to vote for Trump because of his attitude to women.
This was mostly a response to the overturning by the Trumper-stuffed Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade on abortion rights. It was even before Trump’s comments at a rally in Wisconsin when he said he was determined to protect women “whether they liked it or not”.
Sounding for all the world like an even creepier Hannibal Lecter – his hero – Trump admitted his campaign team had already told him not to say things like that, but he knew better.
Even Trump supporters, like the right-wing TV host Megyn Kelly, expressed anger that the Madison Square Garden rally was counter-productive because it was too “bro-tastic " with no women speakers on stage.
Trump prefers his women to be there for decorative purposes only, like his gimlet-eyed wife number three and his trophy daughter. The polls have shown Harris scores better among women voters, but he does better with men, who seem to admire his macho stance and the fact that the normal rules just don’t apply to him.
This is a president in waiting who described Republican critic Liz Cheney as a “war hawk” and added: “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Let’s hope and pray that enough women – and sensible men – place their vote for the right candidate. It would indeed be poetic justice, given his attitude to females, if it was women who were ultimately the undoing of the Donald.