In a move that surprised precisely nobody with a functioning frontal lobe, His Rotundness Donald J. Trump terminated an NBC interview with the grace of a toddler whose biscuit has been confiscated. The precipitating cause? A query concerning the 2020 election which our Dear Leader insists was as rigged as a circus strongman's barbell. Let us parse this theatre of the absurd, British Press Division.
Trump, a man whose relationship with reality is akin to a drunken sailor on shore leave, simply rolled up his sleeves and walked. The journalists, presumably stunned by the sheer audacity of a man who believes his own press releases, could only stammer into the void. But what does this signify for the United States of Amnesia? Much ink shall be spilled, no doubt, on the 'strain' on democratic institutions. Strain? More like a full-blown cardiological meltdown. The man has turned the Oval Office into a podcast booth and the press conference into a call-in rant show.
One must ask: is this a democracy or a reality TV show with a really expensive set? The Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves with the velocity of a whirling dervish. They imagined a nation where the press served as a check on executive power, not as a sparring partner for a bankrupt casino magnate's ego.
The British press, ever the genteel observers, wring their hands with appropriate gravitas. 'Oh, the fragility of the American experiment!' they cry, whilst sipping tea from cups decorated with union jacks. But let us not feign surprise. This is the same country that elected a man who once suggested injecting bleach as a cure. The democratic strain is not a bug, it's a feature. A glorious, tragicomic feature.
What we witnessed was not an interview but a performance. A performance in which the leading man refused to utter his pre-scripted lines. And why? Because the interviewer dared to mention the unmentionable: that Trump's great 'stolen election' is a fantasy constructed from the same materials as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but with considerably less charm.
In the aftermath, we are left with questions. Or rather, we are left with the same questions, unanswered, like a culinary school drop-out staring at a soufflé. Will America survive? Probably. But the real query is: will they ever learn? Given that they have the collective attention span of a gnat on methamphetamine, I suspect not.
So let us raise a glass of airport gin to the Orange Oracle. He may be a walking constitutional crisis, but by God, he makes good copy.
