Those who have not been convinced of US President Donald Trump’s unsuitability to hold the office he does, should pay more attention to his very public reaction to the midterm election results last week. His party had lost its majority in the House of Congress, and picked up one seat in the Senate, increasing its majority from very slim to slim. He actually declared victory.

His millions of supporters would argue differently, but I would think that that shows a strong disconnect with reality. What would have happened this summer, if Mian Shehbaz Sharif had insisted that he had won the election? Something like what happened in 2013, when Imran Khan had insisted that he hadn’t lost, that the election had been stolen. That was when he followed his instincts and went for the famous dharna. Trump showed the easy way: no need to get on top of any container; just say you’ve won.

It’s all about image. Look at the massacre in the bar in Thousand Oaks, California. True, the shooter was an ex-Marine, which Army people would have much to say about, but the former machine-gunner, who served in Afghanistan, probably missed having targets. But though a former Marine, he was also suffering mental problems. And he also had a beard. All that is missing is an eyewitness saying he was shouting “Allahu Akbar” while he fired, proving he was a mad Muslim. The only other thing missing is that he wasn’t a Hispanic or an African-American.

If no one shows that he, and then the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, were mad Muslims, you could get the blame thrown on things like the ease with which you can get firearms in the USA. I wonder how the California wildfires, which have killed nine people, and rendered 250,000 homeless, can be blamed on mad Muslims, Mexicans, African-Americans or Jews. Global warming? Or divine punishment for Democrats?

Of course, the shooting may have been simply a criticism of country music. Y’know, I know a lot of people care about their music, but the trend of carrying out musical criticism with guns is carrying things too far. There was the concert in Paris, and then there was the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. And wasn’t last year’s shooting in Las Vegas at a country music festival? One of the survivors of the Las Vegas shootings lost his life in California, which shows something not known before: country music can be dangerous. And not just to ears.

There doesn’t seem to have been any music component of the Melbourne attack, in which three people were stabbed, one fatally, before the attacker was subdued and shot. He later died. He had a beard and a shaved head. Responsibility was claimed by the Islamic State, though it was not confirmed that he had mental problems. That seems to have been terrorism pure and simple.

It wasn’t even a protest related to Asia Bibi, whose presence or absence from Pakistan was not clear, though her lawyer, Saiful Mulook, was long out of the country. May be there’s an Asia-for-Aafia deal in the works, with the PTI government trying to get back Dr Aafia Siddiqui. Well, if Asia shows how the Pakistani judicial system has broken, Dr Aafia shows how the American is. After all, Asia Bibi, not being dumb, is at least physically capable of blasphemy. But Dr Aafia was not even physically capable of overpowering an armed guard and attempting to murder him. Yet she was convicted.

A feat which the PTI government managed was to get the fabled Chinese relief package. There was something of the ‘never say die’ spirit of President Trump in the brave declaration that China had come across with a relief package. That was the first, apparently, the Chinese had ever heard of it. It was a little like our leaders’ blithe declaration that Saudi Arabia was joining the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Until then, China had thought it would decide who could play. It had to be reassured. But then Imran turned up, asking for a handout.

China is not shelling out, not without a Pakistani delegation which includes the Governor State Bank. It’s to do with how each country got its money. Saudi Arabia got its by selling oil; its leaders had nothing to do with making. So it splashes around its money. It gives away oil at deferred payments. (Trying getting it to give us tractors, or even common pins, on deferred payments.) China, on the other hand, has got its money the hard way. Exporting goods. Economies of scale. Getting accused of dumping. So they won’t part with th’ brass without asking a lot of questions. Due diligence. Being more like the IMF than the IMF itself.

That’s not really friendly. What we need is for them to hand over cash, preferably in small unmarked bills in suitcases, so that we can run up whatever import bill we want.