The Global Election | Monocle
#WhoisNeil | SoundCloud
Rich Hall’s (US Election) Breakdown (Radio 4) | iPlayer
Aside from “liking” anti-Trump memes, putting thumbs up by Michelle Obama’s righteous feminism vids and worrying about Hillary’s dubious past, what else can we do? We can’t vote. But we can listen to people who know more than us. And no, I don’t mean the comedians on Saturday Night Live.
I’ve been tuning into Monocle’s Trump v Clinton podcast, The Global Election. Presented by Steve Bloomfield, this half-hour weekly programme brings in high-level experts on foreign policy, international terrorism, City finance, Europe and China to discuss what might happen in countries that are not the US after the US election.
Once you’ve got over the weird disconnect of hearing well-informed people offer considered views on Donald Trump and what his presidency might entail, this is really interesting. (It is strange at first, like having a professor of logic analyse the rantings of an angry toddler.) In the most recent episode, Chris Phillips, former head of the UK’s counter-terrorism office, points out that Trump is aiding Isis – playing into their hands – by trying to split the US along racial and religious lines. In the show on Europe, there are a few really fascinating points about how Trump’s admiration for Putin means that the Baltic states are suspicious of him, but also how his (US) nationalism chimes with many of them, too.
In the same episode, Yanis Varoufakis (Greece’s ex-finance minister) compares Trump to Mussolini, but he also calls Clinton a “thoroughly dangerous prospect for geopolitical peace”. And all this is done with impeccable politesse. We listeners are like the waiters at a grownup dinner party, earwigging on the high-end conversations.
As a side point, it was Monocle radio’s fifth birthday last week, so congrats and bumps and happy birthday etc. The shows on Monocle – there are loads, covering urban living, culture, finance, news – have always been of an immensely high standard. They’re like the magazine: clever, international, but also a teensy bit smug and sans jokes. Lovely antidotes to the ramblings of unprepared podcast “personalities”.
Here’s another Trump-ish podcast. #WhoisNeil is an odd story. About eight months ago, computer coder Nathan Bernard started wondering why and how a tweeter called Neil Turner was always the first to comment on Donald Trump’s tweets.
Was Turner a Trump-bot? Kind of. He turned out to be a real person who uses a computer program to make sure his replies were first. Bernard found all this out and created his own bot to respond first to “Neil” whenever he tweeted. Then Bernard started talking to “Neil” on social media. And then he made a podcast.
Eight episodes in and the podcast is… OK. Not brilliant. Bernard speaks slowly, without much dynamism and he’s not the world’s best storyteller. The use of music is odd and there is much techy chat that leaves me cold. It gets better when Bernard starts delving into the alt-right movement. God, they are odd, these people, blethering on about how “the US is supposed to be whites only” and other vile rubbish. There is interesting stuff here, but listening makes you long for a presenter like Jon Ronson or Louis Theroux.
And on Wednesday, comedian Rich Hall began his new series, Rich Hall’s (US Election) Breakdown. I could listen to Hall for ever. His laconic, hilarious intelligence and beautiful use of language is always a delight. And this standup show, recorded in front of an audience in Washington DC, didn’t disappoint. He dealt his blows even-handedly. Clinton is “a cyborg, void of emotion, held together by rivets”. Trump has “all the appeal of a rancid Mac and cheese fermenting in a hot dumpster”. Whoever wins, it will be, said Hall, a historic decision. “We’re about to elect the first woman president,” he said. “Or the first last president.”
