Observations of an Expat: Trump, COVID and Me

BY TOM ARMS

Donald Trump and I have something in common. We are both on steroids. And I can tell you from personal experience, that heavy doses of steroids can affect you mentally—and physically.

It can make you angry and a shade irrational. Just ask my wife. In fact, she says I should delete the word “shade”. In my case it affects my feet and hands as well; swelling the feet and making the hands shake.

The reason for these changes is that steroids dramatically and rapidly push up your sugar levels. It is a bit like suddenly swallowing a kilo of the white stuff in one 10 second sitting. You become hyper. I have also become a steroid diabetic. As President Trump weighs about 20 kilos more than me, it is possible that he has suffered the same or similar fate.

In my case, I have to take steroids for chronic cancer called Multiple Myeloma. The bad news is that the nature of cancer, the steroids and a bewildering cocktail of other drugs, means that I will be boring you with this column for many years to come. Steroids affect your behaviour and your quality of life. But they save lives. They don’t end them.

Your body also adjusts to the initial onslaught of steroids and the chemicals that accompany them. In my case, it took about four months and a reduction in steroid intake. I have no idea how long it will take Trump to physically and mentally acclimatise. But, I can assure you that a weekend at Walter Reed Hospital—no matter how good the doctors are—is insufficient.

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Of course, Donald Trump’s behaviour was erratic in the extreme long before he swallowed his first dose of dexamethasone. He stands apart as a person who refuses to accept that the laws of nature and man apply to him. Facts, historical records and evidence of our own senses are an irrelevancy as far as Donald J. Trump is concerned.

For his supporters, that is a big part of Trump’s appeal.  For them, laws and rules equate to restrictions and constraints in a country dubbed the “Land of Liberty,” and respect for physical strength often goes hand in hand with disdain for the normal rules of behaviour.

Throughout history, ruthless brawn has too often been valued over the brain as the most sought after characteristic of leaders. William the Conqueror was illiterate. So was Genghis Khan. In fact, the Mongols did not have a written language until the great Asian ruler was 40 years old. Clovis the First—the sixth-century founder of France—also preferred mastering swordplay than the written word.

An illiterate political leader is unthinkable in the modern world. But at the same time, there is almost an unbreakable connection in the public mind between physical strength and mental agility. Vladimir Putin goes to great lengths to be photographed shirtless as often as possible. A photo opportunity of a jogging president with his phalanx of secret service agents is almost mandatory.

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When political leaders suffer illness it is covered up. The withered legs of Franklin Roosevelt were one of Washington’s best-kept secrets; as was John F. Kennedy’s debilitating back problems. Churchill bullied his doctor, Lord Moran, into hushing up a series of strokes which started as early as 1941 and eventually forced his retirement in 1955.

There are reams of evidence to prove that poor health has resulted in bad political decisions. In 1956 British Prime Minister Anthony Eden was taking a drug called Benzedrine to relieve the pain from a blocked bile duct. Benzedrine was the wonder drug of the day. Now it is classed as a dangerous amphetamine which causes insomnia and severe mood swings—not too dissimilar from steroids.  Eden’s blocked bile duct and the Benzedrine have been blamed by many for the irrational behaviour which led to the disastrous Suez War.

Steroids are being blamed for the even more erratic than usual behaviour of President Trump, and one of the main reasons why the Joe Biden is widening the gap between himself and the current occupant of the White House. Perhaps I should send the president some extra pills.

World Review

The Pence/Harris vice-presidential debate was refreshingly civilised. There were the occasional sharp exchanges—mainly over coronavirus issues– and both sides at times played fast and loose with the facts. But compared with the embarrassing performance of Donald Trump in his debate with Joe Biden, the two vice-presidential candidates made significant progress in restoring faith in the American political process. There were exceptions; mostly on issues which the candidates refused to answer. Kamala Harris, for instance, dodged the question of whether or not Joe Biden would pack the Supreme Court if he wins the election and control of the Senate after Trump succeeds in placing conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court. Both candidates refused to answer questions about the elephant in the room: The health and age of Biden and Trump; and Pence disturbingly declined to guarantee a peaceful power transition should Trump lose the election. Pence needs to be reminded that he swore an oath of loyalty to the US constitution—not Donald Trump.

READ ALSO: Observations of an Expat: Not So Free or Fair Elections

Europeans are sick of coronavirus. They have endured one wave; are in the middle of a second and are facing the likelihood of a third and fourth tsunami as the Northern Hemisphere slips into a long, dark winter. They yearn for a trip to the cinema, a hug from granny and a guilt-free night out at a pub or restaurant. But the World Health Organisation refused to pull its punches this week when they said that the light at the end of the tunnel is a little more than a flickering glimmer. The WHO report comes as part of a warning of what it calls “pandemic fatigue” which it says is undermining the fight against COVID-19. The social restrictions that have been introduced to combat the virus are mentally exhausting and is reported to be “demotivating” populations. According to the WHO, the answer to the problem is more effective government and dialogue at the local and national level. Politicos and their civil servants should be constantly checking the temperature of public opinion and acknowledging hardships and sacrifices. Discussions should be held at every level and with as many people and organisations as possible; and, finally, people must be allowed to live their lives while governments investigate and implement innovative ways of helping the vulnerable.

Mob rule has struck the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan after disputed parliamentary election results and the seizure of the parliament buildings by opposition groups. Criminal gangs have seized gold and coal mines. Vigilantes are roaming the streets and some have released convicted corrupt politicians from prison. It appears as if the blame for this chaos can be laid at the door of President Soronvey Jeenbekov who has been accused of selling votes to ensure the installation of his candidate in the prime minister’s job. This is the third time since independence from the Soviet Union that mountainous landlocked Kyrgyzstan has suffered violent upheavals. Each one seems worse than the one before. Sandwiched between China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; Kyrgyzstan is one of the poorest and most backward of the countries in the central Asian heartland. It is also one of the most strategic, which is why both the United States and Russia have military bases there.

READ ALSO: Observations of an Expat: I am an Immigrant

Are we heading for an Asian NATO? US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to be aiming for just that when he was in Tokyo this week for a meeting with the foreign ministers of Japan, India and Australia. Together with the United States, they comprise the Quadrilateral Initiative, or Quad, which the Trump Administration wants to become the core of an anti-Chinese alliance similar to NATO in Europe. But Asia is not Western Europe. China is not the Soviet Union. The world is not emerging from a debilitating global war and Trump is certainly no Truman or Eisenhower. The other big difference is that the economies of Australia, Japan, India and the rest of the region are heavily dependent on trade with China. That was never the case between the Soviet Union and Western Europe. That is not to say that Indo-Pacific countries do not regard Beijing as a political and military threat. They do. And on several levels, they value and appreciate the hard line that Pompeo and Trump take against China. But, sitting in the frontline, they are wary of the current administration’s tendency to continually poke the Chinese with the sharp end of a short stick.

READ ALSO: Observations of an Expat: Geopolitical Fault Line

If you are a pilot with an urge to view the site of Ethiopia’s controversial $4.8 billion dollar Grand Renaissance Dam then I have a bit of important advice for you: Don’t do it.  The Ethiopian government this week has issued a warning that any planes invading the dam’s air space risk being shot down. The reason is that they are afraid that the Egyptians will try to destroy the massive hydro-electric project on the Blue Nile. GERD (as it is called) will provide electricity to millions in East Africa. But it also threatens to reduce the flow of the Nile upon which Egypt has been totally dependent since before the Pharaohs. War has been threatened by both sides and Sudan has been dragged into the row on the side of Egypt. The Trump administration tried to negotiate a deal but this collapsed when The Ethiopians unilaterally started to fill the lake behind the dam ahead of schedule. Water has become one of the least appreciated and most politically dangerous of the world’s natural resources, especially when waterways cross national boundaries.  A string of Chinese hydroelectric dams along the upper reaches of the Mekong River threatens the livelihood of the rice farmers of Southeast Asia. The Himalayan highlands of Central Asia are filled with roaring mountain rivers which traverse Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan creating a constant flow of political friction in their wake and, in the Middle East, rights over the Jordan and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are a constant nightmare.

One of my few claims to fame is being among the first to publicise the World Wife Carrying Championship. In those days—the late 1980s–the competition was restricted to Finland and I was running an international diary news service called Future Events News Service which informed the world’s news organisations of important—and unusual—forthcoming stories so that they could better plan their coverage. The wife carrying championship grabbed our subscribers’ interest with a vengeance and scores of journalists from around the world turned up to watch brawny Finnish men race through an obstacle course carrying comely wives over their shoulders. The competition caught the imagination of the rest of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. This past week, a race was held in Hungary. The winners received a beautifully framed certificate and cash prize. Back in the 1980s, Finnish men were awarded their wife’s weight in beer.

Stay Healthy,

Tom Arms