Through the Looking Glass...

Well, we've finally crossed over into that bizarre alternate universe where satire is redundant, because you can't possibly make up anything weirder than what's actually happening.  I mean, when you've got the US president, supposedly the leader of the free world (at least, that's how the Yanks have traditionally liked to style their leader), in a fit of pique, accuses Ukraine of starting the war with Russia (despite the fact that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine) and describes Ukraine's democratically elected leader as a 'dictator', then you know that you are no longer in Kansas.  What was Trump piqued about?  Well, it seems that the 'dictator' Zelensky had the temerity to suggest that Trump might have swallowed too much Russian propaganda and had refused to sign over half of his country's mineral rights to the US without getting any security deals in return.  On top of this, we have the US trying to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine directly with Putin's Russia, excluding Europe and Ukraine from the process.  Oh, let's not forget that matter of the US Vice President failing to read the room in Munich and attempting to scold European governments for refusing to collaborate with Nazis and restricting their freedom of speech by not letting them say Nazi things, like 'Gas the Jews', before going off and partying with Germany's neo-Nazis (who are also pals with Elon Musk).  I know that the likes of me have been busy calling the US' right-wing Nazis for a while now, in the face of their denials and dismissal of such charges, but now they've really let the mask drop.  They're in power and they don't care who knows that they are Nazis.

But let's look at the upside of all this:  at least now we in Europe don't have to pay even lip service to the US's sanctimonius self-rightousness about being the true keeper of democratic values and the last bastion of free speech.  They've knowingly elected a Nazi who consorts with war criminals like Putin, backing him over the legitimate government of Ukraine, so they've forfeited any claims to the moral leadership of the 'free world'.  Yeah, that's right, they knowingly elected the Mango Mussolini - they'd already had one taste of what government under him was like, they saw the kind of people he allies himself with and heard from his own mouth what he was going to do during his latest election campaign.  So don't feign shock at the fact he's a Nazi - you fucking knew and you voted for him anyway.  We can but hope that our own leaders show some backbone and stand up to him.  While that seems unlikely, there have been encouraging signs from Starmer and Macron, in their dismissal of the Orange Shitgibbon's description of Zelenskyy as a 'dictator' and his claims that Ukraine started the war.  That said, it's too much to hope that, in Starmer's forthcoming visit to Washington he simply walks into the Oval Office, decks Trump, then walks straight out again.  Sadly, it is also unlikely that Macron's subsequent visit will see him headbutt Trump, before kneeing Elon Musk in the groin as he leaves.  Because, right now, I think that only meaningful message that we can give America right now is that they can fuck right off.