This Week... Her Name Was Rio

Commentary

“I have at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country. Period. Any allegation to the contrary is simply untrue.” – Melania Trump.

"When Slovenia sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems to us." – Donald Trump*

"I’m still buzzing from the fact that last night, to a watching world, our society was represented by three people – a ginger-haired bloke who looks like a postman, a black man named Mohammed and a young, mixed race woman who has become the face of modern Britain. How can we not be proud of that? NICK GRIFFIN, DAVID STARKEY, DAILY MAIL, EDL, AIDAN BURLEY – CAN YOU HEAR ME? YOU BOYS TOOK ONE HELL OF A BEATING!" – Billy Bragg.

HER NAME WAS RIO

In a time when we are all so divided it’s important to recognise worldwide events that as a race brings us all together, something that reminds us that we are all equal. The Furby craze, Von Dutch hats and needing to poop have all succeeded in doing this in the past and now it’s time for the Olympics to do the same as the games kick off this week. Mainly known for vuvuzelas, this photo, that pose thing that Mo Farah does and Paula Radcliffe urinating in the street like a man called Glen at 2am on a Saturday night in Wrexham, the Olympics have this year been dogged with reports of numerous corruption scandals involving Russians, doping scandals involving Russians and just before the opening ceremony a vice-consul has shot and killed a would be mugger who, you guessed it, was sent by Russia.

Now all jokes aside there’s nothing quite like the Olympics, it exudes the same sort of effect that loving Andy Murray as an Englishman does. It makes us believe that we as a country are successful based on other people’s achievements and plus, why would you not support Usain Bolt? While we may not win anything much other than that pinnacle of human achievement, curling, the Olympics gifts us an opportunity to actually become interested in supporting Ukraine’s gymnastics team. We can watch an angry bald man throw something that isn’t a racial slur. The Olympics is basically a worldwide equivalent of those punching machines lads play on the Magaluf strip and I for one am thankful of that.

WWE AND THE RNC

No it wasn’t Wrestlemania, it was the Republican National Convention around two weeks ago but you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The Republican Party and the WWE have a lot in common. Both organisations fill stadiums across the US with angry placard holding fans shouting insulting slogans. Both organisations are brimming with on stage theatrics that leave a bloodthirsty crowd wanting more. Both organisations make their business peddling lies which unfortunately a large portion of the population believe to be true and even two of its main protagonists in The Undertaker and Donald Trump enter their respective domains the same way. Just compare the two photos below and tell me which is which. It’s uncanny.

It is the latter name of these two we’ll be concentrating on this week as Donald Trump officially became the Republican party nominee for President of the United States. The Republican National Convention has always been a hurricane of poorly worded hate speeches and ex-bodybuilders/Terminators talking about the fall of the Soviet Union but as we have with beards and ‘everyone’s favourite buzzword of 2016’ Pokémon Go this year we have reached peak RNC. This is a conference where the host of a TV series called ‘Duck Dynasty’ can bring an audience to tears with a freestyle prayer.

A conference where a slight error is an on stage nazi salute. A conference where even our own Nigel Farage was more than happy to take a seat at and peddle yet more nonsense about the ‘benefits’ of Brexit and fuel his own ego by sharing the story of how he divided a nation to those it doesn’t really affect.

A conference where facts and statistics are thrown away and replaced by the stoking of people’s fears. A conference where someone like Ted fucking Cruz actually comes out most respectable by refusing to officially endorse Trump. A place where the bigger your cowboy hat the higher up in the pecking order you are and where people like Alex Jones are actually given a platform to speak in front of impressionable speakers as if he wasn’t absolutely, unequivocally crazy.

Never mind the fact that it was a celebration for those who oppose gay marriage, who deny global warming and who only have sex in the missionary position this was a rallying cry to say ‘this is our America and we’re taking it back’, seemingly oblivious to the fact that what they see as ‘their America’ is not theirs anymore. Whatever happens in November Trump will obviously not unite a nation and in failing to do that the ‘greatness’ his supporters seek is defunct, a vision of a 1950s era Marilyn Monroe America dead. If Trump is elected then the realisation of that for many will be the biggest heartache of all and Trump’s own undoing. If Hillary is elected then well, let’s just take things one step at a time shall we…

INTERNET DOES SOMETHING RIGHT?

While Kony may still be at large 4 years after the infamous ‘Kony 2012’ campaign either sipping strawberry daiquiris in a sort of Ugandan hideout equivalent of George Michael’s vision of Club Tropicana or creating mobile apps, an internet viral campaign actually succeeded this week in funding a major scientific breakthrough. 2014’s ice bucket challenge was undertaken by everyone from Alex Salmond and a typically mental Russian equivalent from someone pretending to be Vladimir Putin, to that cousin who still lives in your home town and shares videos from The Lad Bible. However where this differs from all popular internet trends before it such as the cinnamon challenge, planking, being racist on forums and calling Ian Watkins from Steps a paedo on Twitter, the ice bucket challenge was actually a success, raising over $100 million and more astoundingly killed nobody in the process.

It’s pretty easy (and fun) to sneer and mock these sort of campaigns in the beginning but now that some actual good has come from it I’m left in a sort of moral limbo, replacing my love of heckling something I know nothing of with the possibility of a new craze reaching similar peaks of achievement, whether it be the badger baiting challenge or shoving £100’s worth of 2 pence pieces up your arse to raise awareness of wind chimes.