America Today.

Pictures of the potty political trinity in America keep appearing in the BBC news pages, and I find myself being almost mesmerised by their images. I keep trying to clarify what those images mean to me so I can give them all nicknames. It isn’t easy and all I’ve come up with so far is Donald ‘the Windbag’ Trump, JD ‘the Robot’ Vance, and Plastic Pete Hegseth. And so shall they be addressed henceforth until I come up with something better.

We often see all three together, and whenever we do I note that their relative positions in the layout have been carefully choreographed (deliberate choice of word) to leave no doubt that Donald is King and the other two but minor acolytes. I wonder whether they employ a theatre designer to set the chairs out so that the little guys are placed in such a way as to keep them strictly in their place. It seems that Donald is no King Arthur. No round tables in his court.

You know, I remember the days when American Presidents were imbued with the authority gene. Eisenhower and Kennedy come instantly to mind. And then American politics became really silly and gave the world Reagan, GW, and Clinton, and now it’s hit rock bottom with Trump. Seems to me that Donald is entirely devoid of the authority gene, relying instead on mock frowns and empty bluster.

So what about the Iran situation? Trump says ‘We cut the Iranians off at the knees, but they done nut’n to us,’ and the Ayatollah replies with ‘Tis but a scratch, but we really biffed them damn Yankees.’

You can’t believe anything anybody says these days, can you?