In the early hours of Wednesday November 9, 2016 it was decided that Donald J. Trump would be the next president of the United States of America.
It’s fair to say there have been fairly mixed opinions about this news – mainly from the media who predicted the result of the most bizarre race of all time completely wrong.
Mark Thomas is a comedian, political satirist, and journalist who says: “It’s just been a weird election.”
Thomas has been on the comedy circuit for a few years now and has often commented on this big political events across the world. However when I spoke to him about this year’s presidential race he couldn’t quite believe what the past year had been like.
“I think it is really fascinating. [The result is] worrying, it’s horrifying. It is also deeply fascinating and it genuinely shows the establishment not knowing what the f**k to do.”
Many people who aren’t happy with the result of the election are actually blaming Trump’s rival party, saying the Democrats endorsed the wrong person. Mark seems to agree with this.
“It shows the utter failure of the Democratic establishment to actually say ‘We should have gone for Sanders.’ Sanders would have kept a lot of those white working class votes from going from Democrat to Republicans. If he’d ran, I think we could actually be looking at Bernie Sanders as President.”
Mark shared his thoughts on what Trump was like as a person – despite the fact he doesn’t know him personally and has only seen the man through the eyes of the media.
He said: “I think it’s scary as sh*t. I think he’s an insane sociopath who’s also a pathological liar. The world is a slightly more fearful place.”
A bit closer to home, Mark is currently touring a show called The Red Shed, which is all about stories from the miners’ strikes and how they saw the world. He explained that it’s been a big part of his life for years:
“Me and my mates would write shows, to perform there in the evenings, raising money for whatever issue was. That’s where I started performing in public.”
The Big Red Shed is coming to Lincoln’s Drill Hall on Tuesday 15 November. Grab your tickets here for a show that is “theatre, stand-up, journalism, activism and a small amount of help from the audience.”