Tranquillity base

I don’t like Donald Trump any more than anyone else, but I think we should all follow Barack Obama’s lead and give the president-elect some time and space. Forget about the early White House appointments and what they might signal. And don’t fret about the bond market losing $1 trillion in a matter of a few days. The traders are just sending Trump a signal not to count on spending whatever he wants on infrastructure. An inflationary economy is a bad idea.

Nor should we worry overly about rowdy demonstrations and police with assault rifles at the ready. This is nothing compared to 1968 after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy when riots convulsed 100 cities. Memphis took decades to recover. And let’s remember that the U.S. was able survive Richard Nixon’s resignation and Bill Clinton’s dalliances. It’s hard to Trump either of those.

Will the world be different? Absolutely. Does any CNN panelist know how it will be different? Absolutely not.

Along with everyone else I’ve been watching The Crown with its wonderful production values, excellent casting and intimate portraits of the Royals as real people. Of all the characters, John Lithgow’s Winston Churchill has been my favourite. Seeing Churchill so well played reminds me of one of his quotes that we would all do well to apply in the current Washington circumstances. “I’m an optimist,” Churchill once said. “There’s no use being anything else.”