For this talk, we are lucky to have one of the finest journalists of his generation, as well as one who has tracked the President’s every move for years. Please note that VOA is rigorously non-partisan and journalists are under strict instructions not to twist the facts to suit their own biases. Guests can look forward to a neutral, lucid and insightful discussion.
Is President Trump the Zombie President?
In Zombie movies, the dead don’t stay dead. After succumbing to some horrible fate, they return, immune to all but the most fearsome weapons.
For his opponents, the last four years have been a horror show: brazen extrajudicial assassinations such as the one carried out on a top Iranian general; diplomatic insults regarding for example Germany’s (indefensible) underfunding of its military; bizarre Covid theories; climate crisis denial; comments which are interpreted in the mainstream media as not just anti-immigration but white supremacist; a dogmatic and brutal style of dealing with opponents; and waging an astonishing war against America’s most cherished institutions: the military, Congress; the intelligence community; the judiciary; government regulators; education – all in the name of fighting back against a tyrannical and secretive ‘deep state’.
Like a Zombie, however, these seemingly mortal failings have not finished off the incumbent. Indeed, rumours are abounding that he might repeat the upset of 2016.
To his supporters, the aforementioned criticisms, voiced incessantly and stridently by the Democrats, are just semantics. In their view, Trump protects them, above all, from overweening tyranny. He is their William Wallace, or at least the Hollywood version. His disdain reflects how tens of millions of Americans despise their own government. Indeed, Trump’s supporters express many of the same ideals – almost word-for-word – as the British revolutionary Tom Paine did against mad King George III in the 18th century. He too railed against media censorship; tyranny, corruption, taxation and even against curtailments on people’s right to bear arms. He also denounced an elite which saw representing the interests of the masses as irrelevant to their drive for power, and argued for the moral right to violently remove them. Nowhere more than in their support of their President does one more clearly see the links between the US and the UK, albeit the UK of 250 years ago.
Any CEO wondering about the outcome of this election should attend this event. Unprecedented battle lines are being drawn between two conflicting views of the US: personal freedom above all else versus the moral obligation to build a better world.
Delphi Network Salon – The President They Just Couldn’t Kill
When: September 4, 11am (Note the Unusual Time!)
Cost: 2,000 for members; 5,000 for non-members
Speaker: Steven Herman, White House Bureau Chief, Voice of America
The guest list with contact details will be shared with attendees.
