THE MADNESS OF KING DONALD

 

Trump's ambition is perfectly clear by now: to cajole and coerce into the hard right not just the US but the world, to put an end to the decadent times of "bleeding heart liberalism", as the neo-fascists see the years before and after 1989 when the enviable USSR fell apart.

That's what Kings do: exercise power as they see fit. To Trump, a deeply reactionary Monarch, that means making America great again, as in his mind it was once upon a time. It means turning the clock back.

A hopeless project, others will judge, except it seems possible in the gilded world of wealthy courtiers and impressionable subjects, backed with a powerful means to achieve it these days, the worldwide internet. Tweet your royal fantasies into reality for millions of people at a click. It works. Really. Proselytise, propagandise, pull the wool over eyes. Lie as required, to order.

After all, if Mars is to be under the American flag in 15 years or so, as Mr Musk predicts, why not the same on Earth? The biggest ships, the most advanced warplanes, the impregnable Golden Dome show Trump is unstoppable. "No other king and country in the world could do it". 

It's been coming for some time, though. The slow realisation, a growing unease, that it's too much to ask of the whole Stars and Stripes. 

It's not possible - not doable. It's not affordable. It's not ..."right".

Ordinary people always get in the way.