Photo: Bloomberg/Getty

UPDATE, 1345 GMT:

I spoke with talkRADIO’s Julia Hartley-Brewer on Tuesday about Donald Trump’s position, after clearing away the Kanye West obstacle.

Listen from 20:55 in 0930-1000 Segment

Americans are looking at the marches, they are not thinking, when the marchers call for health, for housing, for education, for responsible policing, “That’s fascist.”

And I appeared alongside Kanye’s biographer Mark Beaumont on BBC Talkback:

Listen to Discussion from 49:01

Focusing on Kanye takes attention away from the serious issues in American society that have been raised by the marches in the past six weeks.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: In our first Journey Through Trump-Land on Times Radio, I chatted with Alexis Conran on Sunday about US politics from the not-so-sublime to the ridiculous.

First, we clear away the headline distraction of Kanye West announcing that he will run for President in November.

Then we get to the serious issues: will Donald Trump’s “culture war” campaign save him from the political damage of Coronavirus, its toll on the US economy, and the issues raised by Black Lives Matter marches?

Listen to Discussion from 1:07.42

We’ve got a contest, amid other trials and tribulations, of spectacle v. issues.

What we saw four years ago was the ascendancy of spectacle. Issues didn’t feature in that Presidential election. It was all about the reality TV star and taking on America, rather than immigration, race relations, the economy: all the issues we are talking about in 2020 got pushed to the side.

But I think America has reached its limit with spectacle, because of the reality of the pandemic, unemployment, and bringing communities back together.