Figuring that his fly rod was too flimsy for any useful defence, he managed to break a branch off a fallen tree and, as the lead dog moved towards him, landed a sharp whack on the hound’s snout.
The dog retreated, howling in pain — and then the pack turned on the retreating head dog, attacking him and chasing him off, to leave the fisherman alone.
The Boss was puzzled by that reaction but it’s obvious to a dog — the top dog’s power was suddenly gone, he was weakened, and the others sensed it. There are dogs who live like that, in the same way there are humans who live like that.
I thought I should remind him of this when he was feeling gloomy about the response of The Donald and his backers to the latest string of his criminal charges for trying to overturn the 2020 American presidential election and stay in his job: The Donald merely claims it as more evidence of the Deep State’s conspiracy against him, and presses on.
And remarkably — to The Boss anyway — Mr Trump’s apologists and enablers in Congress go along with the show, decrying the “weaponisation of the justice system” and further undermining the confidence Americans might have in their institutions of law enforcement, the courts and government. As if it has no consequences.
“It’s as though they don’t care where that leads, General,” The Boss says. “By glossing over The Donald’s incessant claims of a stolen election and ballot fraud, despite no evidence of it, they are ensuring that election results are going to be disbelieved and challenged for years to come.”
Mind you, he knows that the Americans have a different history and a different perspective from ours. He recently came across reservations their Founding Fathers expressed about the survival chances of their infant democracy, way back in the 18th century.
Alexander Hamilton, who was better known as Treasury Secretary to George Washington and a Founding Father than the star of a musical, said in 1790: “The only path to a subversion of the republican system of the country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion.”
And James Madison, another Founding Father and the fourth US president — often considered the main author of the Constitution and of the Bill of Rights — also worried that demagogues would incite mobs and factions to defy the rule of law, overturn free and fair elections and undermine American democracy. And later a young Abraham Lincoln worried about the fate of the republic if a leader of demagogic ambition arose, who was not committed to the institutions built by the founding generation.
“Distinction,” Lincoln said, “will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building it up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.”
What I’m trying to explain to The Boss is that The Donald is the lead dog and his opportunity to do any good is past and there is nothing left to be done — except staying out of jail.
The district attorney of Fulton Country in Georgia, Fani Willis, has just whacked him on the nose and there are 18 others dragged into the conspiracy with him. As soon as they see The Donald flagging they will turn on him, first one or two and then his rivals for the nomination and then the Republican establishment, all in a rush, like rabid dogs. Woof!
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