If this is not a tragedy of Greek proportions, then what is? The United States (US) presidential debate between an incoherent, physically and intellectually impaired man who cannot even enunciate some of his best ideas and a chronic liar is a theatrical coup that nobody in the world thought they would see in their lifetime.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are seeking re-election this year and, if neither pulls out, one of them will become the President of the US, holding the reins of a much larger global territory than the geography of the US. There’s a strong sense of foreboding, “an impending sense of doom”, as literary critic Frank Kermode says, that is gripping almost every observer of US realpolitik everywhere in the world.

Biden’s friends and staunchest supporters have already written essays on why he should bow out of the presidential race in the interest of the Democratic Party and the nation at large. It is, after all, a tall order to make Trump come across as a better politician!

Pessimism much? Philosophers and literary critics, Friedrich........

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