Happy Birthday Mr. President! Joe Biden is 82 today. He is busy trying to carve out his lame duck legacy, even strolling away from the G20 summit and taking to the Amazonian rainforest to proclaim that his renewable energy path will never be closed. What he has now opened in the last weeks of his tenure is the ability for Ukraine to fire US missiles into Russian territory. Maybe this will mean that the new President will take longer than his promised “24 hours” to fix the Ukraine conflict?
Do I detect that Biden is still capable of a scintilla of schadenfreude in his dotage. Forgive me, but given his depictions of Trump during the campaign as democracy’s anti-Christ, did Biden seem altogether too relaxed when welcoming Trump back to the White House? Does he truly still believe that he was the only one that could have derailed Trump’s MAGA train?
Trump, of course, does not realise how naked his narcissism is: in their fireside chat, he commented to Biden that “politics is a nasty business, but today is a good day.” Of course, it was because he won!
Just over four years ago Trump broke all protocols by snubbing Biden’s inauguration and encouraging/aiding/inciting public dissent/rebellion/violence/insurrection because he could not accept that he had lost an election!
Later this week we have the anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination. Of course, it was Kennedy who redefined the celebration of a President’s birthday when he was serenaded in sultry tones by America’s siren of the Sixties, Marilyn Monroe.
Who would have thought any of us would have lived to see a Kennedy- let’s not forget RFK Jr’s father, whose birthday was also November 20, was his brother’s Attorney-General and was slain whilst seeking the nomination as the Democrat’s candidate in the 1968 election- becoming a senior official in a Republican administration?
Well, we have through the nomination of RFK Jr as Trump’s Secretary of Health. For the first family of the Democrats, the defection of RFK Jr is a stunning combination of volte-face and apostasy. The former President’s daughter, Caroline, now America’s ambassador to Australia, this week described her cousin’s attitudes about vaccinations as "dangerous.”
Trump, of course, has given his nominee, if you will forgive me, an endorsement of the cleanest bill of health, with another signature serve of social media populism:
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said Thursday in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “end the Chronic Disease epidemic” and “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Tennis continues to play out its wonderful links and parallels to politics. Last week in Turin, the world’s top eight male players played the year’s final tournament, the ATP finals. Australia’s Alex de Minaur, the first Australian to make the year-end tournament for 20 years, qualified as the eighth ranked player. His place in the tournament was made possible after Novak Djokovic’s withdrawal from a tournament he had won a record six times.
Maybe Djokovic was giving advice to America’s new Health Secretary? After all, he will always be remembered as “No Vax Djokovic” whose refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19 led to his deportation from Australia on the eve of the 2022 Australian Open.
Jannik Sinner won his first end of year playoff title in imperious style, confirming his coronation as the world’s best male player. He did not drop a set, beating plucky American, Taylor Fritz in the final.
Meanwhile in the Women’s end of year playoffs Coco Gauff, unlike Kamala Harris, was able to end the year on a triumphant note. Trump may look to Gauff’s triumph for political inspiration. After all, in her semi-final Gauff defeated a Belarussian, the world’s No.1 ranked Arnya Sabalenka, and then the Chinese player, Qinwen Zheng, in the final. How Trump would love to see Belarus and Russia deflated and the Chinese economy defeated! And let’s not forget that Gauff’s triumph was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia whose willingness to engage with the West will no doubt be utilised by the new President when designing his Middle East foreign policy.
Well, he will have his chance not long after next year’s Australian Open. Trump will be reinaugurated on 20th January, the day the second week of the Australian Open commences. One suspects next year’s Australian Open champions will not shock us as much as Trump’s first hundred days. After all the Open’s organisers will only allow a handful of ‘wildcards’ into the tournament, including inevitably it seems the manic, mercurial Nick Kyrgios, whilst Trump delights in selecting a Cabinet full of them! Maybe Trump will organise a summit between his two favourite “rocket men”- Elon and Kim?
The traditional end of season pause to the tennis year will begin after this week’s Davis Cup finals. The tournament that used to see nations competing across a year is now condensed to a week of truncated matches: quarter finals began overnight, continue today including an old-fashioned Australia vs. USA clash, where Australia led by De Minaur will be hoping to perform better than Australia’s female team that have been eliminated from the Billie Jean (formerly Federation) Cup finals. The champion nation will be known by Monday morning.
This year the sentimental favourites was host Spain-a nation recently buffeted by the effects of tragic flooding and political angst directed at its Royal family-as Nadal made his irrevocable farewell to the sport.
In his honour, the opening quarter-final was Spain v Netherlands. Nadal was defeated by Botic van de Zandschulp 6-4 6-4, remarking afterwards that he had lost “his opening and closing Davis Cup matches”, having lost to Jiri Novak in 2004. Between these losses there were 29 successive victories in Davis Cup singles.
Twenty years of supremacy. Which Presidents and Prime Ministers in democratic countries can claim such unalloyed affection and admiration for so long? American Presidents must retire after eight. Thatcher had a tenure of eleven and a half years and that was unprecedented. John Howard’s comparable term in Australia was similarly atypical by modern standards. Justin Trudeau’s tenth anniversary as Canadian Prime Minister is next year; however, his likely present is rejection by his electorate. All seem tarnished and bruised by the end.
The Spanish team recovered to win the second singles rubber but lost the doubles so Spain’s sentimental search for glory is over.
So now Rafael’s tennis revels are ended, but unlike Shakespeare’s players in The Tempest, one doubts the gifts of Nadal’s grit and genius will melt into thin air. His is a legacy “of such stuff as dreams are made on.”
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