Dear Editor,

During the time of the Roman Empire in 64 AD there was a great fire that ravaged Rome, the State capital, for six days, destroying 70 per cent of the city and half the population was left homeless.

This led to a famous saying in Roman history that the very unpopular Roman emperor, Nero, played his fiddle while Rome burnt; that is, he played music while his people suffered and was also an ineffective leader in a time of crisis.

Examples of a similar nonchalance by a leader to the suffering of his people can still be found in contemporary times.

In August 2023 he took three holidays and during this time Maui, Hawaii, suffered a great wildfire, the deadliest in modern US history, which killed more than 100 people, with 1,300 still missing.

It took US President Joe Biden eight days to comment on the tragedy after repeatedly refusing to do so even when asked.

Reminiscent of Emperor Nero’s nonchalant attitude to the burning of Rome, the American leader was on holiday, enjoying a gorgeous beach day in Delaware, while Hawaii burnt.

On August 21, President Biden eventually visited Hawaii — two weeks after the wildfires broke out.

In his first speech the president offered his hosts an aid package of a measly US$700 per household, while on the same day he granted a further US$200 million in aid for the Ukraine. Besides, he showed a lack of empathy for the Hawaiians at a time of crisis by equating the tragedy to a small kitchen fire at his home.

Seven months after the train derailment and an environmental disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, President Biden has still not visited the area, no doubt because the residents there are “Trumpites”.

He has never visited the southern border which has a migrant crisis, seemingly because the southern border states are in MAGA (Make America Great Again) country. This is former US President Donald Trump’s slogan and refers to believers in the nationalist policies advocated by him.

But Hawaii is a solid blue state and what appears to be President Biden’s nonchalance to their crisis has, in my opinion, to do with his belief that Hawaiians will vote for him regardless, because he is perceived by them to be the lesser of the two evils.

Unfortunately, this might be right and further explains why the people are largely neglected by both parties even if their party is in power.

The America First policy has been superseded by American hegemony and a misplaced belief that it is the obligation of the two parties to enable the deep state, their campaign contributors, to profit from war.

American defence contractors are the biggest profiteers from the Ukraine war, a war that President Biden could easily end by stopping the funding to the Ukrainians.

On the contrary, President Biden is ramping up the war effort by supplying F16 jets and cluster bombs along with American personnel to provide technical support. They are now bombing Russian cities and military bases with American-supplied drones and with no explanation from the Biden Administration as to how they plan to win a war against a country with an industrial production capacity that exceeds all the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries combined and has the largest number of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them.

So far President Putin has been soft-pedalling, which was the cause of his alleged difference with Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who wanted him to step up his efforts and finish the war. But if President Biden continues to stoke the bear, this course seems inevitable.

That is the state of play in American politics at this time, as sad as it is.

Victor A Dixon

Author and political scientist

Florida

victoradixon@yahoo.com