Lessons & Warnings

I don't know where to start sometimes. At the age of seventy I've lived through decades of political and social change; both to the good and to the bad, but mostly falling into a normal pattern of mediocrity, and as such, at least a vaguely balanced and understandable system of flux. That's because I grew up in the post-war era of the 50's 60's and 70's, when, although the Cold War was always a real and present danger, politics and economics sort of conformed to a set of vaguely agreed upon rules of engagement: a kind of controlling battle plan overseen by an unwritten equivalent of the Geneva convention. Few, at least in the Global North, stepped outside of these parameters for very long, and there was always some route back from any shit-storm created, if needed. Paraphrasing Churchill: 'Democracy is a pile of crap, but it's the best pile of crap we've got.'

However, in the last fortnight or so, the new US administration has napalmed this imperfect but vaguely stable pile of crap in the service of a - now quite obviously - psychotic old man with a bunch of equally deranged, much younger and stupidly wealthy tech-bros in tow. Chuck in that he has now roped in Russell Vought as his Heydrich-lite accomplice in his fever dream machinations of completely destroying the US State machine - and probably its economy in the process - annexing whatever foreign state he deems fit and suppressing any and all dissent domestically, and you might be forgiven for thinking that we are revisiting Europe of the 1930's. The similarities are there: a chippy underachiever - and Trump is an underachiever in his own sphere - a bunch of psychotic adherents and a propaganda machine of enormous sophistication. But the biggest difference is that the US, economically, bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to inter-war Germany, and Trump, likewise, to Adolf Hitler.

Both Trump and Hitler are admittedly correctly describable as deranged - they even have similar signatures, for chrissakes: graphologists, take note - but their backgrounds are diametrically opposed. However, the modus operandi of both is too similar to ignore. I harbour the hope, however, that he will piss off too many potential allies too quickly - given the speed of communications these days, compared with the 1930's - and that his putsch will fizzle out fairly rapidly. However, the rest of the international community needs a heads-up: he needs to be slapped down in short order. The time to stand up to the US is finally here. The President needs to be told no, and in no uncertain terms. A metaphorical little boy needs to stand up and say loudly in front of the crowd: "The Emperor is stark, bollock naked: why mommy?".