For subscribers
Democracy dies in Trumpian boredom
The candidate’s unchecked flow of untruths and bizarre outbursts spell danger but no longer cause sufficient shock.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
The 2024 US election’s odd blend is to be equal parts dull and frightening, says the writer.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Edward Luce
Call it the banality of chaos. Here is a checklist of Donald Trump’s recent activity. He promised to let Jan 6 convicts out of jail on day one of his presidency, close the US-Mexico border and “drill baby drill” for gas and oil. He feted Mr Viktor Orban in Mar-a-Lago as the best leader in the world and assured Hungary’s strongman that he would not “give a penny” to Ukraine. He took out a US$91.6 million (S$122 million) surety bond to pay defamation damages to his sexual assault victim, Ms E. Jean Carroll.
He purged the Republican National Committee (RNC) with 60 staff firings – the opening move by his daughter-in-law, Ms Lara Trump, whom he hand-picked as RNC co-chair. He did a U-turn on TikTok, now saying its Chinese parent company should retain ownership. He mimicked US President Joe Biden’s stutter, insisted that America’s true inflation rate was 50 per cent, and attacked Jimmy Kimmel as the worst-ever Oscars host. It seems almost trivial to add that new detail emerged about Trump’s apparent soft spot for Adolf Hitler.
