US president Donald Trump

• PORTLAND Oregon’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, accuses Donald Trump of stoking inter-racial violence, so the result in two months’ time should resemble Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch, in which a dictator grows increasingly paranoid in his isolation and more aggressive in his monstrous actions, a man whose power appears total but who clings to it ever more desperately.

He seeks assurances from his aides that he’s a “winner” but they are dissembling (to keep their promotions).

The actions he takes to consolidate his position – exploitation of divisions in his country and other nefarious schemes – ensure his own downfall.

Self-deception is the leader’s undoing when he has lost the electorate’s faith.

Power in the wrong hands crumbles… one hopes!

MIKE BOR
St George’s Fields, W2