Hillary Clinton burst out laughing at Trump’s pronouncements, while Biden crossed himself. But Trump is now calling the shots, and while the situation may seem like a laughable parody, it’s reality.
Whether he’s renaming a Gulf or a mountain, it’s merely to demonstrate his power, to prove he can do whatever he wants.
With America’s financial elite and the world’s wealthiest people by his side, he feels like an emperor. And the trumpets are already sounding.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is declaring war on Brussels: “The great offensive can begin. I announce the second phase of the offensive aimed at taking Brussels”.
Europe is awakening from its slumber, but it’s likely too late. French Prime Minister François Bayrou has warned that Europe risks being “crushed” and “marginalised” if it doesn’t defend its interests against America’s “despotic” politics, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called on Europe to resist the influence of big tech giants, emphasising the need to defend democracy.
Already, through a series of executive orders, Trump is charting a course toward a different world.
He’s withdrawing America’s signature from the Paris Climate Agreement, dismissing climate change as a hoax.
He’s also ending America’s participation in the World Health Organisation, branding it as an organisation of fraudsters – meaning the organisation loses its largest funder and its continued existence is now uncertain.
Another executive order allows him to dismiss public servants who don’t share his ideological fixations and replace them with his own appointments.
Immigrants, homosexuals, and transgender people remain constant targets. Inclusion is now being transformed into marginalisation and even persecution.
And Musk stands beside him, raising his hand in a Hitler-like salute.
Despite Trump’s promise to be a dictator for just one day, he’s signed so many executive orders that have already sent democracy to intensive care.
“Democracy Dies in Darkness” is the slogan of the Washington Post, now owned by magnate Jeff Bezos, who belongs to Trump’s circle, but democracy is dying in full global view as just another spectacle.
Perhaps the only silver lining in this story is Denmark’s decision to stop racist psychometric testing of indigenous children in Greenland.
Trump’s threat to buy or somehow annex Greenland to America made Denmark finally acknowledge the rights of the indigenous Inuit people. Though this too, it seems, comes rather late.
Read more: