8dec23

ON DECK: I’m running out of year!
INBOX: 82.
LISTENING: an excellent episode of UNCLASSIFIED
READING: John Rogers’ newsletter. I also have a new issue of DEEP CUTS that Kyle Higgins sent over to read.

The other day, my daughter asked me about the forthcoming US election, since she knows I usually start following the process from at least a year out. She was surprised and perhaps even a little concerned when I said I hadn’t been paying it much attention this time around. Being British and living in Britain, I have no skin in that election beyond geopolitical concerns, so I really have no right to opinions about them, but for me they’ve long been a fascinating spectator sport. I suspect FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, which I read when I was 19 or 20, gave me the bug. In those days, you could still buy the International Herald Tribune here, and spend an afternoon in the pub getting all the American news. “In those days.” I’m 55 and buying an international newspaper sounds like ancient history now.

I read Politico, The Economist and Foreign Policy most days. I keep half an eye on it. But GOP candidate debates where the frontrunner isn’t even attending? Where Chris Christie looks like a model of professional competence? (Though I do admire his apparent need to show up just to fuck with people, right back from when he murdered Marco Rubio on live tv in 2016.) It almost makes me miss the flailing desperation of Rick Santorum or Rick Perry giving all the appearances of being too shitfaced to think. With Trump missing, it plays like everyone but Christie auditioning for VP, and it’s boring to a non-American who showed up for the sport.

All of which is to say, I’m okay, it’s cold, I’m having a cup of bone broth and going back to work.