I have often thought of this post, Obama in the lead 68-7 – in Australia. It is the results of a round-the-world survey conducted by the BBC on how different countries would have voted in the American presidential election in 2012. The results were published right at the end of the campaign. And in Australia: Obama 68% – Romney 7%. The data are there at the end. They still look as gruesome as any set of data I have ever seen.

This, mind you, was after Obama had been president for four years. The world was disintegrating, but nowhere near the level it has reached today (see the story above on The Obama Legacy). Yet, I doubt that were the question raised again that there would be much regret among the 68%. Obama would still win an American election in Australia, perhaps he would even still win in the US.

My point. I seem to see political issues in a different way from most Australians. I regret Donald has not got quite the needed polish to go all the way, but no one else can make the difference he could. He ruined himself in his criticisms of George Bush and the Iraq war in the debate on the weekend. He is a New Yorker who inevitably reads The New York Times and watches NBC. Ted Cruz is right that Trump has “New York values”. He has seen how colossal his mistake has been but it’s now, I think, too late. If he wins the nomination, which he still might, although the odds have lengthened a long way, he will no longer have the support of the bien pensants, many of whom would vote for Hillary or Bernie instead.

And while we don’t elect presidents in 2016 to deal with the problems we faced in 2001, the continuity is crucial. He may even have opposed the war in Iraq, and given how things have turned out, he may even have been right to do it. No one contemplating on what to do after 911 could possibly factor a Barack Obama presidency into a Middle East policy from 2009-2017. Everything achieved has been thrown away, and matters made infinitely worse. The world I grew up in is disappearing. Something different is emerging. There will always be an elite – go to the poorest nation on the planet and there you will find an elite living extremely well – but for the rest, neither peace nor wealth nor freedom.

But who knows? Nothing is certain. 2030 is as far from us now as we are from 2001 so maybe things will turn around. I’m sure serfdom didn’t look all that bad to the serfs.

From Around the World Who Would You Vote For?

October 2012