The Blurt of Richard Davies

Chapter Seven

The Crises - Part Two. Stunned by what had happened we wondered what an ominous future held in store for us. We hoped, prayed, things would improve; but they didn't: In fact they lurched downward once more.

Despite the best efforts of the Federal Reserve to postpone it, the financial disaster occurred during the US presidential election year. But for the backdrop of such a crisis it would have been impossible for a candidate such as Lloyd 'Mad Dog' Farrell to win the Republican nomination; yet he did. Political observers wrote him and the Republican challenge off: Surely no-one in their right mind would vote for this ultra-conservative senator from Arkansas? Farrell was a fervent believer in his own particular style of fundamentalist Christianity; a good ol' boy redneck of little education, but well-endowed with the reptilian cunning required for national politics, even though he was perhaps just a little too far to the right for the mainstream; and not to mention the fact of his borderline mental illness... Yet his campaign struck a chord with enough people to propel the Farrell/Hernandez ticket into the Republican convention with an unassailable lead.

The Mad Dog was so reactionary he considered George W Bush to have wimped-out by not launching nuclear strikes on Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il, and Osama Bin Laden's cave. And as for Obama pulling back from launching a drone strike through President Assad's bathroom window when he had ample opportunities to do so; well there were no words that could adequately express his contempt.

The talking heads concluded Farrell's nomination was proof - were any needed - of how far shifting demographics and social attitudes had rendered the Republicans out of touch and destined for permanent minorities in both the House and Senate, with no hope of regaining the White House.

But those commentators underestimated the degree to which people seek security in extremes in troubled times. Farrell's ultra-neocon message that a world dominated once more by America would be a better place chimed with an uneasy electorate. No matter how the more educated sections of the intelligentsia cringed, the fact remained his simplistic views resonated with a newly impoverished, frightened, and angry people who chose to express their insecurity by lashing out at the disadvantaged groups within their own midst and the outside world in general.

Nor did those political spectators fully understand the ingenuity behind Farrell's choice of Victor Hernandez as his running mate. Hernandez, the son of formerly illegal Mexican immigrants who had gone through the process of being legally naturalised, was able to appeal to both the minority communities and  conservatives as someone who had by his own efforts pulled himself out of poverty to attain the American dream. His would be the example minorities could aspire to and emulate if they rallied to his banner. The determined campaign he ran to register Latino voters, ready to be delivered en bloc to the right candidate is regarded by many pundits to have been the deciding factor in Farrell's choice of running mate. Hernandez's rumoured past connections via his family to a drugs cartel were effectively swept under the carpet, and anyway nothing could be proved. Farrell may have been a throwback to a past age, but he was certainly no racist. His courting of the conservative vote in whatever community it was to be found would eventually prove decisive.

It was a hard fought campaign, and in the end Farrell could only win 46% of the popular vote; but he gained enough votes in the right places to carry the Electoral College and enter the White House. As the world and many cultured Americans looked on aghast, the newly elected President Farrell took the oath of office.

His first actions were - of course - to announce tax cuts for the wealthy and entitlement cuts for the poor. But soon as every newly elected president does he felt the need to 'blood' himself; to prove his resolve and America's military prowess to the world by creating and winning a war. There were many simmering conflicts which Farrell could have intervened in, but he chose to pick on Iran.