Another Day At King Donald's Court

Between fantasy land and spy thriller.

Until January 20th of this year, the USA had a president the whole world respected, even if not always supporting his policies. President Obama had a grace, an intellect and wit one could not help but admire. On January 20th, however, the definition of modern US presidency we had become accustomed to for eight years changed forever.

It began with the inauguration speech the new president held, frankly leaving any neutral observer asking which country the man with the strange orange hair at the podium was talking about.

In 2008, president Obama had taken over a nation ridden with dire problems: a banking and real estate crisis, unemployment at an all time high, a massive debt accumulated by two wars, and many more pressing issues on the foreign policy front. But, at the end of his two terms, Obama left the country in pretty good shape. He had created well over 100 million new jobs, gotten a hold on the banking crisis averting further peril on that subject, had stabilised the real estate market, which was picking up, pushed progressive, eco-friendly industries as well as reforming part of the criminal justice system, and he had struck a deal with Iran to prevent nuclear proliferation, to name just a few of his many accomplishements.

Yet, here was his successor claiming the country was in shambles, that “carnage” existed everywhere. Even former president George W. Bush looked as stunned and puzzled as most of the audience listening to the scathing words Donald Trump found for America. And when, at last, Trump reiterated what he had always claimed during his campaign (”I, alone, can fix this!” and “I will do it on day one!”) most of us neutral observers from abroad, who had listened attentively to his words and watched him closely as he said them, went away with a gloomy feeling in the pit of our stomachs. Hadn’t we heard similar statements from lesser democratic leaders before, and had they not only turned out to be false, but born catastrophic results in the end?

It is now May 12th of the same year (I know, it rather seems, years have passed since that memorable day in January). May 12th is also the third day, since president Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. The very man who had been leading the investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign on allegations of collusion with Russia to influence the outcome of the presidential elections last year winning him the Oval office.

When the news of Comey’s immediate dismissal broke, the world stared aghast at their TV screens and listened with incredulity at the reports coming from the White House. Could it be true? Could a president be really this brazen to rid himself of the one man in the position to potentially provide evidence against him, to bring him down, so-to-speak? It was a move, none who believed in the rule of law expected Donald Trump to make, but those that know him better were only surprised it took him so long.

All this happened Tuesday, a mere three days ago. Did we have time to digest it? Not really, because with this president, a news cycle is often less than 24 hours.

And, without warning, my day turns once again from a John le Carré novel into the fantasy world inhabited by the mad king and his court populated with obedient, yet often scared servants trying to please their erratic master as well as ruthless henchman forging ahead with the king’s ambitious albeit unrealistic decrees, subject to sudden change depending on whatever their ruler’s mood might be, at any given time. As such, it was no surprise to wake up to yet another incredulous fanfare of words blazing at me from the medium the mad king avails himself of whenever he wants to reach the only subjects he believes still loyal to him: his adoring base, his admirers who cannot find fault with anything he does, as crazy as it may it be. Taking once again to this modern utensil of spreading his message, the king’s verbiage presented a thinly veiled threat against the man he had fired so sanctimoniously only three days ago, thus escalating an already strained situation even further.
This follows yesterday’s bizarre private audience the king surprisingly granted to one of the writing guild he despises so much. In this conversation, the mad king appeared even more unhinged as we experience him ever so often now, after just over 100 days of him taking reign. His words hardly made sense, since they didn’t reflect reality, only the strange realm he seems to take refuge in when feeling misunderstood and wants to convince his environment of his “truthfulness”. Sadly, it is not truth we get from the mad king, but a world of falsehoods, much like the make-belief utterances of a child refusing to accept adulthood, and therefore living in his own world.

What are we to do with a president we can’t distinguish from a mad king and a possible Russian agent guilty of treason; a man who in one instance is an angry child hitting out in paranoia against anyone seemingly not in agreement with him and in the other is behaving like a gangster boss demanding absolute loyalty?

Alas, I resign myself to either another performance by the king’s jesters entertaining yet again the writing guild with fantastic justifications of their ruler‘s actions or to the tales from the depths of a dark dystopia recounting the story of heroic agents and counter intelligence officers defending a failing democracy against a treasonous government.

At this point, it doesn’t really matter, which of the two options will be on my news menu today. Both have become very hard to digest without verging on the brink of insanity.

Read also

• The Inexplicable Metamorphosis Of Lindsey Graham
• A Speech For The History Books

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