It’s hard to determine how much weight to give to Donald Trump’s dismal yet often mindless statements, which seem like a jumble of offensive ideas thrown by a monkey, recited in the order they fell, before they are quickly abandoned when they prove unfeasible. At that point, the monkey tosses again.
This month, Trump—whose morning routine seems to involve coating himself with sachets of the cheap hot chocolate powder I swipe from budget hotels, resembling a flightless bird trapped in the glossy machine for Magnum lollies—announced his wish to develop hotels on the mass graves of Gaza. Hasn’t Trump watched The Shining? It won’t end well. My sympathy lies with those whose children perish near a profit-generating stretch of beach. Let’s just hope the next round of mass atrocities takes place somewhere remote and inland, where it wouldn’t even qualify as a decent golf course.
Is Ukraine the battleground determining the future of European democracy, or merely an expanse of unutilized fairway, its recreational and conference value marred by some unfortunate individuals wishing to remain in the land they call home? While we see the domino effect starting with Poland and leading right to your backyard, does Trump merely visualize a series of 18-hole courses where men in caps negotiate macho deals at the tee? Drive your golf carts over the remains of the deceased!
But perhaps Trump’s atrocious rhetoric serves as further proof of his former follower Steve Bannon’s advice to “flood the zone with crap”? Could it be that Trump harbors such a deep-seated disdain for all marine life that he feels compelled to reintroduce plastic straws that Joe Biden admirably banned? Was he once advised by a mermaid to keep his hands to himself? “These things don’t work,” Trump remarked about paper straws. “I’ve tried them many times, and sometimes they break, they explode.” Must countless seabirds, turtles, manatees, and dolphins perish because Trump believes paper straws explode? Or is it just so he can guzzle down his Diet Coke swiftly enough to entertain Elon Musk, Pete Hegseth, and JD Vance with a burpy rendition of YMCA in Biden’s face during their next gathering as former presidents?
Trump, a grown man with limitless resources, is infatuated with Diet Coke, and one wonders how many of his seemingly nonsensical policy choices trace back to his desire for continuous indulgence in the soda. Perhaps there’s a hidden lake of the beverage buried deep under the Greenland tundra that the nonexistent climate crisis will soon facilitate Trump’s deep Diet Coke drilling operations? Ecstatic Inuit might shed their sealskins and dance in the cascading soda as they realize they’ve discovered a rich vein of their new lord’s black gold. Like some kind of infantilized diaper king, Trump indeed has a special button in the Oval Office that summons his beloved Diet Coke. One can only hope he doesn’t confuse it with another ominous button. It would be tragic if all life on Earth were mortally irradiated simply because Trump craved a 500ml bucket of fizz to wash down his Big Mac and fries.
But should we take Trump’s unpredictable statements seriously? While the last gasping voices of the fading liberal media pen outraged articles to their dwindling audience about hotels in Gaza, the invasion of Canada, and a mandate to drink everything through a Trump Plastic Freedom Straw Company Deluxe Plastic Freedom Straw ™ ®—even cauliflower cheese soup—his homunculus Musk has busily been dismantling the very foundations of American government as we once knew it. There are cup-and-ball jugglers on Parisian streets with far more finesse.
Half a dozen of Musk’s own self-proclaimed incels, typically the sort who would have otherwise profited from developing a way to directly mainline hardcore digital pornography into someone’s bloodstream, have, under the dubious authority of Musk’s imaginary “department of government efficiency,” ventured in and absconded with all past data about everyone and everything in the U.S. Who cares? I’m sure they’ll handle it with utmost responsibility. What could possibly go wrong?
Some gathered at the sites of Musk’s cost-reducing maneuvers, wielding placards. Others sat captivated by news footage of Kanye West’s naked wife’s backside or perused disappointing trailers for the latest Captain America film, while the world around them disintegrated beneath their oversized sofas. Keir Starmer, like someone retreating from a neighbor’s unpredictable attack dog, evaded direct comments, dodging commitment to the AI declaration like a coward, while Trump growls and froths. This simply won’t suffice.
Look, I’m just as disillusioned as any other metropolitan liberal elitist champagne socialist by Starmer’s government. While I recognize that the migration crisis needs addressing, I didn’t foresee Starmer, who once ventured out of his “village into the city of Leeds” and “discovered a whole new world of indie bands—like Orange Juice and the Wedding Present,” solving it with Nigel Farage-style performative cruelty. Certainly tackle the migration crisis, but there’s no need to be a jerk about it. Did Orange Juice endure the humiliation of their namesake third album failing to crack the top 50 in 1984 merely so, 41 years later, Starmer could dispatch Yvette Cooper to demean the desperate, akin to Paul Golding in heels?
Presently, as Putin swells under Trump’s shelter and unregulated AI threatens to rewrite history in real-time, Starmer is capitulating to the paper straw of Trump’s presidency. I fear it may be on the verge of bursting in his face.
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Stewart Lee is touring Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf this year, with a run at the Royal Festival Hall in July
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