“I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting”.

Noam Chomsky, to BBC journalist Andrew Marr, February 14, 1996.

Biden has “resigned” with the predictable inevitability of a wicker wheelchair trundling from a podium into a canyon. It’s the most dynamic move he’s made since the debate, a tragic and revealing end to his ‘bunker presidency’.

For as long as I can remember, at least since Tony Blair took us into Iraq on a lie and Barack Obama ‘bailed out’ the banks, the tacit pledge of the establishment left, in the thrall of the corporations of war and sickness, has been, “We know we’re shit but we’re better than the other guys.”

No one would dare to claim that this is an inspiring message or that Biden (or his replacement) are visionary leaders but instead they are a faded and senescent simulacrum of an idea that seemed plausible once and that many people aren’t yet ready to relinquish. It is in fact, if you’ll indulge me, a kind of political reflux; a late productive belch that is easier to reluctantly swallow back down than to dispatch - “Sure it tastes disgusting but think of the mess if you spit it out.”

If Kamala Harris is to be the new pick in the ‘bait n’ switch’, ‘find the lady’ cup n’ ball trick that we are being offered in lieu of democracy, we already know she’s a socially inept and empty instrument of intransigent, institutional power, solely offering cutaneous and genetic novelty to a famished pack of secularist devotees so bewildered that melanin and an ‘X chromosome’ could represent to them some kind of pyrrhic victory. If it’s Gavin (gruesome, nuisance) Newsom, he’s another slick post-Clinton-smarm-merchant. If it’s Michelle Obama, or Hilary Clinton - we’ve already seen those movies, and while gender-swap-reboots may yet be in vogue at Marvel-Disney, there are significant signs that the DPU’ (Democratic Party Universe) audience are wearying of this superannuated device.

I didn’t see myself ever attending a Republican, or any other political convention, until I was at one. ’Hunger Games in Vegas’ you might say if reaching for a quick pitch to verbally grab the lurid, breezy, ‘nice n’ easy’, high-security, cotton-candy-horror that landed in Milwaukee for three days of rhinestone patriotism and absolute anointing.

Here, in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt on demagogue-prophet Donald Trump, a moment so astonishing that the simulation seemed to buckle and flex and our ‘hazy, fluxy’ age seemed in a whistlin’ shot to come to an uneasy and fraught singularity for an instant before fragmenting once again. Perhaps irreconcilably fractured.

Here, in Wisconsin amidst the concrete balustrades and vehicular barricades strewn across Milwaukee streets. Great concrete monoliths, like henges toppled by Iron Giants, block the roads around the “Red zone”.

Here behind and (with happy spangled lanyard) beyond the borders and fences and endlessly erected checks. Here amongst the assorted battalions of almost limitless law enforcement platoons, various liveries but invariable cheer, in spite of the peculiar grinning gloom that the deeply suspicious events in Butler augured.

Whatever you say about Donald Trump, and we’ve all said a lot since he descended his personal Jacob’s Ladder, from the top of his own-brand Mount Sinai, all those election cycles ago, there are some powerful permanent interests that have been consistently marshalled against him. And remember, if the bile is already starting to rise on hearing anything other than undiluted condemnation, he’s not running against Martin Luther King - he was running against Joe Biden, and now whoever they prop up after Biden has been “Fredo’d” back into his sepulchre. And, let’s face it, if Martin Luther King was here today the left would cancel him for womanizing.

Here then, I am, with both the elaborate lanyard required for security, three laminated passes for each of the hard, semi-hard and soft perimeters, plus ‘God’s lanyards’, the crucifix, scapula and rosary about my neck, with the first set I am able to enter any zone at the Republican National Convention, with the second I can be here safely, in His Peace. The ‘Republican National Convention’; I could take issue with every word in that triumvirate - especially the third one. I attended to report on the convention on ‘Rumble’, a ‘free speech video on demand and streaming platform’,that is undoubtedly more aligned with the right (in the same way that nearly all other media and social media are aligned with the neoliberal left) and produces the content of many prolific and brilliant creators, notably Dan Bongino, a hench, reverent and righteous former cop and secret service agent whose incredible sincerity and post-Rogan intensity have garnered him an enormous online audience. He perhaps best characterizes Rumble as a platform, and the need for it. I am a more anomalous contributor, lacking the certainty that thrives online, I live in the question that seems louder than ever now; if you’re the type of person who would NEVER VOTE FOR TRUMP - or if like me you’d never vote for anyone - are we at the point that we have to consider that “Right-wing populism” (if you want to call it that) is the less harmful option for America and the world? In exactly the way that most inert supporters of the establishment assert that the bureaucratic, authoritarian, Orwellian, Huxley-esque, Kafka-esque, Military-Industrial-Complex funded, Big-Pharma-supporting, Deep-State-controlled, Democratic Party is less bad than Trump? Note, that in the case of the latter, Trump has had to be rendered as a near demonic figure. Hysterically and inaccurately portrayed by the Establishment Media, with the blasé, lazy, fluxy, hazy, trite, shite, legacy media, rendering him as a post-modern, reality TV concocted Adolf Hitler. Actual Hitler. Whatever claims and comparisons can be made when it comes to Trump and Hitler - when Hitler was made Fuhrer, went to war with the world and executed millions, he hadn’t previously had a term in power. A term which Trump and his supporters say was an unprecedented triumph and whether you believe that or not you’d surely concede that; there were no new wars, that the cages, “Oh the dreadful cages”, were already there when he arrived and that his much derided and condemned polices around border control have ultimately been accepted and mimicked by those who sought to damn him.

To know Christ is the preeminent aim in the life of every believer and to go with Our Lord and Saviour into this event was a giddying thrill indeed. The convention is of course about power. POWER. Proximity to power, need for power, love of power, disgust at power, longing for power, rejection of power. But most specifically the irrefutable coronation of Donald Trump as the ‘undisputed’ nominee of the Republican Party. Enemies vanquished, detractors banished, conciliatory Veeps, discarded.

On the fourth, final euphoric night during my brief foray onto the actual convention floor it could’ve been any modern carnival with its iridescent zeal; the MTV awards, Comicon, a Monster Truck Rally, The Oscars, the Final of the Euros, The Superbowl, or the Democratic National Convention…

When Hulk Hogan busts out of his own singlet-cocoon, like a muscular brisket in an urgent and taut celebration of Trump, is it really, snobbery aside, any different than Jack Black’s retracted endorsement of the tremulous Biden? Or George Clooney’s prevarication and eventual rejection? By what supercilious measure is Hulk Hogan ridiculous but Jack Black credible? Or Kid Rock vulgar and George Clooney cool? Does it really, REALLY just come down to class and taste? That one set hate Bud-Light and the other promotes swish coffee and fancy watches? Is that it? And if it is how important is it when it comes to policy that only one party seems at all, even slightly, committed to ending war? Firstly, to us, the people, the “populari” but more significantly to whatever permanent forces, both state and corporate, both National and Global, that plainly exercise more power over the manner of our governance and the ability to determine who to kill and who to allow to be killed than the electorate?

Given the nature of the event I ended up chatting to a lot of ‘ghouls of the right’ whom, on an interpersonal level were almost always absolutely lovely; Marjorie Taylor Greene, an effulgent soul, full of matriarchal force who, if she were singing from the globalist hymn sheet, would be heralded as a feminist icon. Eric Trump, an absolute joy, who like his brother Don Jnr, as far as I can tell, is doing a remarkable job of living well with the challenge that likely comes with being the child of a powerful father. Empathy here then is surely due to Hunter Biden, who I’ve never met and therefore cannot assess - but anyway who am I to judge? Who are any of us to judge? What are all these private tribunals that we sling up online to comfortably condemn whichever stimulus the machine rolls out in front of us to provoke ire and division that day, or that hour, or that minute on the ever-scrolling and pitiful screen that we plumb with our thumb right down to Hell?

Because I am not a liberal at the RNC, nor a Hollywood actor, nor a controversial provocateur, I am a Christian. In truth attending out of duty to Rumble (whose loyalty to me has shown the strength of character of their CEO Chris Pavlovski) I have to lean most deeply into my Faith in my Saviour Jesus Christ. Not because of my morals or superiority but because I am fallen. Not because I am impervious to power but because I find it incredibly seductive. Without Christ (and the many sincere Christians I encountered) I would foam and clutch like the other media denizens and simpering political limpets I saw scuttling and lunging and vampirically thrusting. The legacy media ‘three-letter’ leeches were of course amongst the worst; pale as veal-calves beneath their bronzer-sheen with eyes sunk deep in hollow sockets, they brandish mic-cubes like facile cocks at the end of their limp wrists. Lipstick on Nosferatu teeth. These late bastard-mutations of Chomsky’s great admonishment to Marr haughtily prowl, so certain that it’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, or me, or you, or whoever, that are disgusting that they have no inclination to look in a mirror. But of course, as with all vampires, there’d be no reflection if they did. Without Him though I easily fall into their low milieu; “There must be something, something to get…” There is nothing to get but God and nothing to cling to but His robes.

Each day I read the Bible, ‘The Bible in One Year’; some New Testament, a Psalm or a Proverb and some Old Testament. It takes twenty minutes and gives the solipsistic loop of self-loathing and longing some competition. On July 18th, the final day of the convention this was the New Testament Verse;

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” - Romans 5:3-5.

I have been told that Romans is the ‘Christian Constitution’ and the words above make sense of suffering and make suffering sensible, which helps if you want to avoid falling into the abundant ‘hell-mouths’ that yawn and gawp about the feet of any of us who live anywhere but monasteries – and I’ve heard of some pretty dubious stuff going on in them as well. I spend only the time professionally required within the ‘hard perimeter’ and end up watching Trump’s speech in a hotel bar with a few shipwrecked delegates, a redundant pianist, my mates and the staff. Trump knows how to hold a crowd, how to tell a tale, how to inspire and if you deny him his gifts the fissure opens wider and the multitude that adore, ADORE him become more certain in their total distrust. They saw the debate. They were watching independent media before it, and they watched as the insidious euthanasia of Biden smilingly unfurled.

You may have noted Donald Trump, quite deep into his speech, name check and enthusiastically endorse Sam Brown, a former soldier running for the Senate in Nevada. Sam Brown has been significantly injured and facially burned in an accident while serving in Afghanistan. During the frenetic days of streamed shows and interviews and unlikely encounters with perfectly decent fascists, Jenna, a member of the Rumble crew gently asked me if I would be willing to talk to the tall gentleman, who she quietly named as the aforementioned. As I approached him, and in retrospect patronizingly, hugged him he asked if had ten minutes to talk privately. We are all subtly challenged by facial disfigurement, it is a test of our manners but Sam Brown, it becomes immediately clear, is operating on a Higher Plane and his empyrean shine showed me quite quickly that he was not seeking my counsel or help but was here to help me. His Grace and ease ran through him and into me as we walked the concrete loop of the Milwaukee Panthers basketball arena, which for the convention became a more malfeasant coliseum, the “Media Mile”. Aglow in the high lighting are logos, radiant in the stark penumbra.

In the corridor that encircles the court we walk and chat and Sam tells me first that he saw a post I made on sometimes feeling far from Christ. I’ve not been long baptized and sometimes I am lost again and feel that I need to prove myself to be saved. That salvation may come by merit, rather than by His Grace.

Sam Brown tells me how his life was destroyed in a flash. His career and his identity exploded in an instant. That in this decimation and despair, when all else was gone, God found him. You know, don’t you, when you are dealing with a serious person, when Real Wisdom is being relayed, when God or if it’s not God for you, some higher thing, something beyond the veil, just beyond your grasp and reach, beyond what they can ever teach, that which you dare not beseech, is present with you. Sam’s eyes gave me comfort whilst he spoke from the place that only heroes know. What came through him pellucid and plain was the love and strength, the true power that we all need. The power that passes all understanding, the power that transcends all division, the power that sees all the same, the power that grants us healing and forgiveness, the power that America, her politics and this world need.

Sam was soon on his way to spread more optimism and joy. I imagine he has a life of that ahead of him. Later he sent me a Bible verse. I hardly need to tell you that it was Romans five, verses three to five, my reading from that morning. The hope to which it alludes comes from suffering, and hope is what we require in uncertainty, the uncertainty we all feel now in these fast and beleaguering times.

Hope might be the Spirit within us that reaches beyond time and space to some immutable principle, ever-present yet often lost, a spirit you may find when your life goes up in a phosphorous flash in a war-zone or when your choice for president is shot, or near shot, or resigns, or near resigns, when the country you love is lost, or near lost. When nearly all is lost in division and hatred, you may find through hope the quiet transmission of His Love, you may yet feel amidst all the hastening change something permanent and abiding, that was present when the earth was formed, when Satan fell, beyond elephant and mule, beyond red and blue, beyond all colour and when we turn away from hate and towards this Hope, we may know the healing Sam knows and that we all so clearly need.