A Fly on the Wall

If Only We Could Fly Away from Donald Trump

[Here’s a strange thing: After all these years, I’ve only recently started to reread my own old book, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation, published in 1995 and updated in 2007 with its focus on what I then called (and, with the war on Iran underway, could still call) the American war story. Do check it out if you feel in the mood. I 1think it most distinctly still has something to say. Tom]

Yes, I’m on the fly when it comes to -- or do I mean I’m a fly on the wall of? -- our most recent history. I’m not sure which, but whatever the case, I do know that I’m watching a world growing eerily stranger by the day (if not the hour, minute, or even second). And you know just who’s at the very heart of that strangeness. His initials, of course, are DJT and, explain it as you will, he just happens to be the president of the United States for a second time (on his third try).

He certainly gives “imperial” new meaning. He is the Great Donald, the number one everything on planet Earth (at least if you ask him) and, if you don’t agree (and you’re anywhere in his vicinity), believe me you’ll regret it.

As it happens, I looked at the New York Times online as I was writing this and here are two of the headlines that promptly jumped out at me: “Iran Digs in After Latest Trump Threats Against Civilian Targets“ (and yes, striking civilian targets is the definition of a war crime, not that Donald Trump gives a damn) and “What to Know About Trump’s Tariffs on Canada, and What’s Next.”

As for Iran, Trump is truly accomplishing something historic, don’t you think? After all, as I was writing this, amazingly enough, he kept the surge in oil prices from his war on Iran to a mere $100-plus a barrel and the price at the pump in this country to a modest $4-plus a gallon (with the distinct possibility that they will rise yet more as he fights on). And honestly, who could ask for better?

Meanwhile, just imagine for a moment the nerve of the Canadians, putting 25% tariffs on American cars and trucks (after Trump did exactly that to them), as well as starting all those forest fires and sending all that smoke down not just on the United States but on Washington, D.C., and so on Donald J. Trump himself, creating some of the worst air quality on Earth at that moment! Or as the president put it: “We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!”

And for such dreadful behavior, they deserved nothing less than Trump’s 50% tariffs from hell (right?), including on such major exports as “wigs (partial), false beards, eyebrows and the like, of synthetic textile materials.” All of that from the president who is essentially doing everything in his power (a sadly appropriate word) to heat up and so burn down this planet of ours.

Of course, there’s no reason for Canada to return the favor, because unlike their fires, the 22 (yes, 22!) grim U.S. fires that were burning in the states of Washington and Oregon as I was writing this and pouring smoke into Western Canada weren’t purposely set (or much reported on in this country). On the other hand, Donald Trump’s (anti-)climate-change policies are intended to do nothing less than set this planet ablaze, but that’s a relatively long-term phenomenon, so, once again, no reason to put the blame on The Donald, right?

And all of that makes so much sense on what’s increasingly Donald Trump’s (wounded) planet. As for war, as that song so famously put it, what is it good for -- absolutely nothin’ -- except when he decides to attack a more or less random country, in the most recent case Iran. Okay, admittedly he’s anything but alone, presidentially speaking, since this country hasn’t won a war in his lifetime and he was born almost a year after World War II, the last truly victorious American war, ended -- but who the hell cares now that he’s in the White House? Admittedly, even he once seemed to care, promising on the campaign trail not to get this country involved in yet another set of wars, something that he now vividly denies.

Donald Trump Leaves the Rest of Us in the Dust of History

The question is: What’s next (not to speak of next after that, and that, and that)? Of course, since we’re talking about President Donald Trump, who could ever truly know until it literally happens? I wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, if some of the algae still growing in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool isn’t also growing inside his brain.

The mainstream media world is simply too polite in its coverage to call the American president a madman, though James Mattis, secretary of defense from his first term in office, described him as “a madman in a circular room screaming.” So, no surprise that he’s appointed a number of mad people to key posts under him. Take Secretary of -- yes, “War,” not “Defense” Pete Hegseth. His focus these days, as the U.S. military fights yet another endless (and endlessly destructive, as well as unsuccessful) war, all too Trumpianly labelled Operation Epic Fury, that he’s already claimed as “a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield,” is on -- what else? -- testosterone levels in the U.S. military. Under the circumstances, what could be more important than that?

I mean, honestly, what could go wrong when “our” president is putting so much energy into building a new White House ballroom (despite the fact that 97% of the public comments on it have been negative) and a towering 250-foot triumphal arch to himself in Washington (larger , it goes without saying, than the Parisian Arc de Triomphe)? And yet, strangely enough, he hasn’t (so far) committed himself to building the largest White House bathroom ever.

I could go on (and on and on), but let me just ask: Can you even believe it? Any of it? Here we all are and yet can you even believe this Trumpian world of ours? Yes, somewhere in the shadows, another imperial power, China, with another leader, is quietly rising and out there in our grim world, Vladimir Putin is still fighting his war with Ukraine. Nonetheless, give Donald Trump full credit. In his own strange fashion, he leaves them all in dust -- and sooner or later, if he indeed does his damnedest (as he undoubtedly will), he’s likely to make remarkable progress (if you’ll excuse my use of that word) in leaving the rest of us in the literal dust of history.

I mean, if Donald Trump doesn’t give imperial decline new meaning, I don’t know who or what could. And yet -- and let me speak personally here -- I’ve been writing about this country and the world first at TomDispatch and most recently at my own Substack for almost a quarter of a century now and, once upon a time, while I might have focused on certain key figures on this planet and been a kind of fly on the wall to history-in-the-making, I didn’t write time after time about just one of them.

No longer. In some truly eerie way that I only wish I could shake, Donald Trump is now, it seems, my world. And god save me for (and from) that.