Séamus Ahearne: The king of Bombast
Blenheim Palace lost its golden toilet. Churchill must be shattered. This work of art was called America. It was a fully functional toilet, and apparently used by one of the alleged robbers, some days earlier. The artist Maurizio Cattelan refused to give an interpretation of this work of art, but did admit, that it had a connection with Donald Trump. It was supposedly celebrating his excesses! 18 carat gold excesses. The aesthetics of the throne (apparently), were hinting at Trump’s life style, and possibly his language.
It should have been present in the Oval Office (as a symbol), for his outlandish treatment of Zelensky. Trump’s flunkies in JD Vance and Marco Rubrio with Lesley Graham, should have adorned a replica of it. They all displayed an utter disregard for the sufferings of a nation and its leader. They were absorbed in the simplicity of their own understanding of a world view. I used the phrase one time to describe someone – as psychologically constipated. I think it applies here. And in the old Latin comment: ‘Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur.’ If only Trump and Co could grasp how full of it they are.
The core problem now is: How could such political leaders emerge? What is happening in our world, if intelligence gets drowned out by such amoral leadership? These ‘babies’ in the White House were voted in and are supported by so many people. (Check the video – Two babies in the White House).
What is happening? I saw an ex-ambassador saying that “America cannot stand alone as a bastion of freedom” — speaking the language of the past. The political swerve is sufficiently unnerving, but worse is the upsurge of rightist thinking everywhere.
But Europe’s reaction to the bullying scene in the Oval Office and the renewed outpouring of love and support for Zelensky and his people are signs of hope. Merz’s declaration that a top priority of Germany must be “freedom from America” reflects resentment against the US that goes back at least as far as 2003.
But Trump’s victory in 2024 depended upon swing voters, many of whom are already expressing buyer’s remorse as Musk’s lunacy wreaks havoc and economic indicators fail to respond to Trump’s prediction of a new golden age. Sanity in the US is not extinguished – proven by a reminder of the Atlantic Charter of 1941 in a New York Times op ed. ‘A Day of American Infamy’, yesterday.
Among that 1941 Atlantic Charter’s key ideals: “no aggrandizement, territorial or other”; “sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them”; “freedom from fear and want”.
This clear vision of 84 years ago is timeless and can yet prevail if Europe can gather itself sufficiently to buy time for Ukraine, with Russia also depleted by war. The alternative is the victory of the imperialism – i.e. the protection racketeering – of the 1800s that led inexorably to the horrors of the two world wars of the 1900s.
All depends upon the galvanisation, globally, of all who value a rules-based international order and who acknowledge truth as revealed by science. Trumpism is also gangsterism, know-nothingism and white supremacism – and is therefore doomed. JD Vance’s ignominious backing of cruelty, mendacity and vulgarity on Friday must surely have repelled many of the US Catholics who naively voted for that duo.
“”I think it’s disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media.”
So said VP Vance to Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday – and still Zelenskyy is the one being asked to ‘fix’ the relationship with the White House, even by Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO.
But everyone knows exactly what Zelenskyy is being asked to do. He must stop trying to get Donald Trump to recognise reality – that it was Vladimir Putin who started and who still maintains, daily, the war in Ukraine. Instead he, the President of Ukraine, must do what Mark Rutte, Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer and even evidently Marco Rubio have done – given up on all hope of persuading Trump of that reality and turned to flattery instead as the only means of maintaining the western alliance.
But flattery and respect are not the same thing. It is flattery that is truly insulting – a declaration that the person being flattered is incapable of honest communication and must instead be ‘managed’ – like a child prone to tantrums.
So again today, Monday, Zelenskyy is asking Trump to wake up and see what is truly happening:
“Those who seek negotiations do not deliberately strike civilians with ballistic missiles.”
And soon Trump must surely choose between his chum Vladimir Putin and the Western alliance.
This is a truly hair-raising moment, but also a wonderful one. The world’s most powerful person – in terms of military strength – is being challenged by a nation in the greatest danger to grow beyond the childish need for flattery – to join the adults in the room.
J.D. Vance may never see it, but this is true respect.