With their Iowa entertainment, the Democrats have made the news watchable again

There’s no finer way of proving governmental competence than holding an election you’ve had three years to prepare for, only to declare all the votes have gone missing because no one knows how computers work

Since the election, an exciting group has emerged in society: people who have decided they can’t bear to follow the news, and that since they don’t, the news isn’t really happening. These people live by the mantra that if you can succeed in never hearing the name “Boris Johnson”, Boris Johnson will cease to exist. But even for these people, American Democrats have made the news watchable again.

The entertainment began in Iowa, with an unusual method for selecting a candidate to oppose Donald Trump. In it, Democrat supporters in the state vote for the person they want to be candidate, then officials lose the votes so that no one knows who’s won. It’s a voting system that’s proved effective in many democracies, such as Zimbabwe and Iraq, and it’s a sign of a healthy society that it feels able to borrow from other more established nations.

The preferred candidate for the Democrat leadership is Joe Biden, because in order to defeat Trump they need a candidate who isn’t radical like Bernie Sanders, but competent and efficient. And there’s no finer way of proving competence and efficiency than holding an election you’ve had three years to prepare for, only to declare all the votes have gone missing because no one knows how computers work (of course, you can hardly expect a party hoping to govern a superpower to have any level of technical expertise).

If his team wins, Biden will stand on the White House lawn to announce: “Today I met with the leaders of Israel and Iran and we concluded an historic deal. But I pressed Delete instead of Save and I’ve lost the whole darned thing. I remember there was something in there about uranium but the rest is a blank, so hopefully next year we can get them back and have another go.”

The escapade has been useful in another way, which is suggesting how we might slow down this tide of sociopaths, such as Trump, Modi and Johnson.

The official Democrat method up to now has been to appear as sensible as possible, protesting Trump is behaving in a way that’s “unconstitutional” or “not becoming for a position of high office”. So far, this doesn’t seem to have had much impact – any more than someone approaching a lion that’s eating people in a village and holding up a charter saying “Your policy of severing the limbs of our residents is not befitting the presidency, as Meryl Streep pointed out in a rather forthright speech at the Golden Globes, so PLEASE take heed” might.

There seems little point in fact-checking Trump, as his followers believe whatever he says, even if you disprove it. You might as well go to church and fact-check the vicar during a service, shouting, “I’ve spoken with five separate biologists and they all dispute the story of the Ark as the two leopards would have eaten the two zebras.”

But this appears to be the strategy of the Joe Biden campaign, trying to appear bland and sensible, rather than supporting national healthcare or gun control or anything at all, as supporting things may upset someone.

And they won’t make the mistake of last time, when Trump could portray Hillary Clinton as a wealthy figure of the establishment, part of the “swamp”. Because Joe Biden is worth only nine million dollars, and his son has a job everyone can relate to: on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, admitting he was given the job because the company would have access to his dad, who was vice-president of America. I can’t see any way Trump might make use of that.

Another advantage of a steady, moderate candidate like Joe Biden is he’ll speak in a reassuring calming way, as he did on the night of the lost votes in Iowa.

His speech went: “This is about ending an era of ending an era, God willing, of a president that is, look, this is bigger than any of us, the working class, the middle class, the middle class, it’s been getting laid out by this administration.” Isn’t it marvellous how some politicians have the ability to explain simply what we’ve all been thinking, but not known how to put into words?

One problem could be there might not be many floating voters, as not many people will wonder, “Some days I support locking babies in a cage, then other days, I’m not so sure.” So it may be the only way to beat Trump is to inspire more people on their side than Trump can mobilise on his.

Biden might argue that as he won’t be able to motivate anyone to come to his rallies, there will be room for a lot more balloons – and that’s the main thing.

There are candidates among the Democrats who inspire people, who excite the young and attract large crowds. They might still lose, but at least they have a chance. Or maybe there’s been a global pact, and parties opposing the nationalist maniacs take it in turns to be useless and lose. The Labour Party in Britain was useless from the left, so now it feel it’s the Democrats’ turn to be useless and lose from the right.

And if Trump wins, it won’t matter – we can simply watch CBeebies for a couple of years until the BBC’s shutdown, and pretend it hasn’t happened.