I bumped into an American mate the other day and knowing he was fond of TV dramas asked if he’d seen Jimmy McGovern’s brilliant new series Time. “Is that on BBC?” he asked. I nodded. He squirmed and replied: “I can’t.” Which amazed me, as he’s far from a wild-eyed gammon who thinks the BBC is a cesspit of woke perverts that wants to turn all kids trans.
He explained that he now only watches streaming channels like Netflix for fear of stumbling on a news programme, seeing his president’s face, and being suffocated with shame. When I realised he wasn’t joking I felt sadness, but then hope. It hit me that this was the route out of the Trumpian madness that now shackles the world. That maybe, some time soon, enough Americans will come to their senses and eradicate the MAGA virus that has poisoned their country. Many events in its modern history have disgraced America: the political assassinations, Vietnam, CIA-backed coups, Nixon and the invasion of Iraq. But no figure has shamed America so consistently as the disgrace of a human being that currently leads it.
Over the years, Trump’s actions have left us all thinking that he can’t sink any lower. Yet he always manages to somehow go lower than a flea on a limbo dancer’s backside. This week alone his administration floated the idea of livestreaming a federal execution, smashed sanctions against a Nato enemy, possibly helped kill innocent Ukrainians by interfering with a satellite system as a favour to that enemy’s leader, lied about an energy ceasefire in that war, called again for Canada to become the 51st American state and posted an AI‑generated video of himself wrestling the tiger that killed a mentally troubled 24-year-old in Yorkshire.
Trump clearly suffers from an extreme form of a yet-to-be diagnosed narcissistic disorder but, terrifyingly, his sociopathic behaviour has become so normalised it’s just accepted. Had he been the US Commander-in-Chief during the Second World War it’s not inconceivable he’d have tried to cut a deal as Russia closed in on Berlin, to let Hitler survive in return for building Trump resorts across bombed German real estate. And we’d have just shrugged and said “yep, that figures”.
There are 165 million Americans who don’t own passports, and probably another 100 million who don’t watch foreign news, so don’t know what the rest of the world thinks. But it’s never been more crucial that the majority realise that horrified onlookers are convinced their country’s real enemy is not illegal immigrants or “fake news” but the presidential monster they have created, who, on an hourly basis, takes a flamethrower to their dignity.
In just over a fortnight America goes to the polls for the Midterms, and despite Trump’s attempts to bribe people into voting Republican, a humiliating rout for Putin’s patsy is predicted. His approval ratings have sunk to a record low and no seedy deal with Putin can disguise the fact he caused American fuel prices to rocket with his reckless bombing of Iran.
If Americans love their flag as much as they like to tell us they do, they must vote to wrest control of the law-making Congress away from a crazed despot who has no genuine love for their flag, their country or anything but himself. If not for the world’s sanity, then for their own self-respect.
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