An American acquaintance who is a fan of TV dramas admitted he cannot watch the BBC because he fears stumbling on a news programme, seeing his president’s face, and being suffocated with shame. The admission came after he was asked if he had seen Jimmy McGovern’s new series Time.
Shame and Hope
Despite not being a wild-eyed gammon who thinks the BBC is a cesspit of woke perverts, he explained he now only watches streaming channels like Netflix. When the writer realised he was not joking, he felt sadness but then hope, seeing this as a route out of the Trumpian madness shackling the world.
The hope is that enough Americans will come to their senses and eradicate the MAGA virus that has poisoned their country. While many events in modern US history have disgraced America—political assassinations, Vietnam, CIA-backed coups, Nixon, and the invasion of Iraq—no figure has shamed America so consistently as the current president.
A Week of Shame
Trump’s actions have left observers thinking he cannot sink lower, yet he always manages to 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, lied about an energy ceasefire, called for Canada to become the 51st state, and posted an AI-generated video of himself wrestling the tiger that killed a mentally troubled 24-year-old in Yorkshire.
Trump suffers from an extreme form of a yet-to-be-diagnosed narcissistic disorder, but his sociopathic behaviour has become so normalised it is just accepted. Had he been Commander-in-Chief during the Second World War, it is not inconceivable he would 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.
Midterms Loom
There are 165 million Americans without passports, and probably another 100 million who do not watch foreign news, so they do not know what the rest of the world thinks. It is crucial that the majority realise horrified onlookers are convinced their country’s real enemy is not illegal immigrants or “fake news” but the presidential monster they have created.
In just over a fortnight, America goes to the polls for the Midterms. 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 claim, 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.
