Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said it: “There are so many pussies in your presidential campaign, on both sides, that I prefer no to comment about this.”
Mr. Lavrov’s jewel of literary inspiration should go to the anales of historic quotes for not only it is hilarious but it also fits perfectly in the Russian establishment´s current endeavour: to ridicule, both in their domestic market and abroad, US democracy as a non-serious, roten system, lost in frivolity, lies and immorality, incapable of bringing order and of catering for honest and working people. It is a masterpiece soundbite of apparently unintended mockery -though he may be somewhat right in the substance.
Lavrov tried to sound naïf and humble, as if his lack of command of the English language did not allow him to fully comprehend what the candidates had actually been talking about, or as he did not posses the ability to express the subtleties of his own thoughts with enough precision or propriety. And, therefore, decided not to comment. Yet, Mr. Lavrov possesses a mastery of English vocabulary likely superior to a vast majority of American native English speakers -years of attending meetings at the UN certainly helped. And he indeed commented, for a statement such as “there are so many pussies in your presidential campaign on both sides” is as much a politically charged description as an implicit assessment of the situation. He did not forget to clearly extend his observation to the Clinton camp -surely not an accident.
The ever present CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour did as if she was trying to hide her laughter at Lavrov´s words, but you bet she was enjoying the situation, fully aware that this would become one more in her long list of moments of global glory. In fact, it was her who introduced the word pussy in the conversation (had Lavrov been warned beforehand?), thus appearing in front of her audience as a daring interviewer, yet without trespassing on politically unacceptable territory or vocabulary, as she was paraphrasing others -this is the CNN after all. But she doubtlessly knew the episode would make big waves, and big audience.
Maybe Amanpour was expecting an answer exculpatory of Mr. Trump, reflecting both Russian predilection for this candidate and its lack of sensitivity to gender questions, of the type “you know, this is just man´s talk, not so important.” What she got instead was a kind of “to us the problem is present not only on Mr. Trump´s side but everywhere in the American political spectrum.”
Yet, the point is that there is a lot of truth in Mr. Lavrov´s implicit message: so much talk on personal conduct, lies, emails and so on leaves little room for serious confrontation of views on policies, and on concrete economic, social and political issues, beyond slogans and generic, ideological posturing. The result is a poorly informed electorate left with no alternative than voting with the heart and not the brain.
But there is another way of looking at it. Sex is like philosophy: you cannot dedicate too much attention to it with an empty stomach or if you are too afraid about your physical survival. There is a lot of sex in politics in the US. In Russia, there is none. This may be an indicator of what the situation is in each country.
As for Mr. Trump, he missed a great opportunity to make further populist pronouncements (that would no doubt bring millions of, mainly masculine, votes) such as “no immigrant will grab our American pussies” or something of the like. We, in Europe, would have looked with envy to our American friends as our boring political leaders would never walk that path.
