In a development so utterly predictable it borders on cosmic satire, Donald Trump has officially endorsed the missing New Jersey congressman, a man now more notable for his absence than his presence. The former president, a man whose relationship with reality is at best a casual acquaintance, declared on Truth Social that the vanished legislator is a 'great guy' and that the 'Deep State' is clearly to blame. GCHQ, meanwhile, has reportedly 'assessed' the mystery, which is intelligence-speak for 'we haven't got a clue either'. One imagines a room full of men in ill-fitting suits staring at a blank whiteboard, sipping tepid tea, and muttering about the bloody Yanks.
Let us dissect this farce. A congressman, a man who presumably exists because he won an election, has ceased to exist in any meaningful sense. He has not been seen in weeks. His staff are silent. His phone goes to voicemail. And yet, rather than a manhunt, we have a political endorsement. It is as if a search party for a missing hiker has been redirected to sign a petition to make him king of the mountain. Trump, ever the master of the non-sequitur, has taken this opportunity to remind us that he alone can fix this, presumably by tweeting a photo of a salad fork and claiming victory.
UK intelligence, bless their cotton socks, have categorised this as a 'mystery', which is the bureaucratic equivalent of shrugging and going back to watching Gogglebox. One can only imagine the inter-departmental memos. 'We have assessed the situation. He is not here. We have checked under the desk. He remains not here. Recommend further assessment.' Meanwhile, the US media, a collective noun for a herd of panicked meerkats, have elevated this non-event to a national crisis. Cable news hosts are gesticulating wildly at maps of New Jersey as if the missing man might be hiding behind a tree in a live satellite image.
But here is the rub, dear reader. This is not about a missing congressman. This is about the utter vacuity of modern political theatre. Trump endorses a ghost because the ghost, by virtue of being missing, is now a martyr. The martyr is always a convenient stick with which to beat the establishment. And the establishment, in the form of UK intelligence, responds by creating a committee to 'assess' the stick. It is a perfect feedback loop of nonsense, a closed system of increasingly ornate pointlessness.
I propose a different approach. Find the man, of course. But if he remains elusive, let us at least be honest about the farce. Let Trump endorse a turnip. Let GCHQ assess the probability of the turnip being a Russian sleeper agent. Let CNN run a 24-hour 'Turnip Watch' with a clock counting down to the next inevitable non-revelation. The gin in this airport is flowing freely, and for that I am grateful. Because only with a generous measure of juniper-infused oblivion can one truly appreciate the sublime absurdity of a nation searching for a man it has already replaced with a symbol. The congressman is missing. Long live the congressman.
