All the presidents who were men

Four years ago this weekend at a Deshi dawat I confidently made two predictions — the one I got wrong, about the race to the White House, was met with a yawn, while the one about the Iron Throne: well, I did explain how it was a show about Bangladesh, but this is for another time.  With this year’s voting well under way, in another adda, a more fundamental question came up: why do we care?

We being the more than 95% of humanity that is not American, of course.  And the answer obviously reflects the fact that the United States remains, to use Madeline Albright’s words, the indispensable nation.  For good or evil, what is done there affects us all.  One doesn’t have to support hegemony to accept that reality.  Indeed, denying it would be to behave like an ostrich.