Attention Everyone. The Planet Is Now Under New Management
Eighty years of postwar order, wound up in one afternoon.
The world, it was announced this week, is no longer available for lease. It is now for sale in three generously proportioned lots. Lot One: America, a bright, spacious fixer-upper, a renovator’s dream. Lot Two: Russia, a motivated seller with a history of subsidence, but with room to expand. Lot Three: China, already under offer. Europe will be retained as a heritage feature, to be admired from a distance and invoiced monthly.
President Trump drafted the brochure, with Natalie’s help, after a brief consultation with himself. As a stable genius, he cast the unanimous vote.
The idea arrived, as the best ideas do, by telephone. Vladimir Putin rang last week. Mr Trump listened, a first historians will note.
Vladimir explained that the skirmish in Ukraine has been going less swimmingly than previously advertised, and something had to be done pronto. Might the President spare a couple of days in November to sit down with Xi Jinping and tidy up?
Mr Putin is extremely keen on a three-way summit. After four years of not being invited to any parties, he still feels Russia is entitled to be seen as one of the Big Three. The reality is that he simply wants to be seen in the superpower lounge, with access to the good pastries.
The United Nations, founded in 1945 to prevent precisely this sort of thing, was reportedly notified by email. In the cc line.
Somebody has clearly been reading 1984.
In Mr Trump’s case, he has only seen the cover. Those of us who have read it will recall that Orwell’s three-superpower world was a warning. That notion has since been swept under the carpet, relabelled, and filed under the title “business plan.”
For the summit to have any hope of a pleasant atmosphere, a few goodwill gestures were required, and the President got straight onto it. Last week, his administration scrapped the additional sanctions on Russia, two days before Congress was due to ratify them. The late Senator Lindsey Graham, a close friend of the President, had championed them and spent his last week alive in Kyiv brokering the deal. Nothing says “close friend” like scrapping his last project before the flowers on the man’s coffin wilt.
With the sanctions gone, Vladimir can resume selling oil to anyone who needs it. Welcome back to the global economy, Vladimir. We saved your seat.
Elon Musk lurked outside the Oval Office and, with the President’s blessing, began slowing Starlink and Starshield over Ukraine. This was the network keeping Ukraine’s defenses connected just as Russian missiles and drones were appearing over Kyiv. Please hold. Your call is important to Moscow.
Moscow was naturally delighted and marked the occasion by posting a meme: the American eagle and the Russian bear standing shoulder to shoulder over a British lion, with the European flag drooping in the background. The caption read, “Things Have Changed.”
To explain all this to his adoring fans, the President turned to social media. “My decision on Russia is a very simple one,” he wrote, adding that he does not want to do anything that would drive Russia away from the bargaining table. He neglected to mention that his son-in-law Jared and his man, Steve Witkoff, have been at that table for months, achieving nothing, albeit with great enthusiasm.
He went on: “Russia’s support for Iran in its war against the United States is doing very little to help Tehran, compared with what Moscow could do, and I want to keep it that way.”
The commander in chief is thus on record for thanking a hostile power for helping the enemy only a little. Moderation in all things.
Then came Zelensky. Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries, the President said, are driving up diesel prices in America, and Zelensky “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.” So the man whose country was invaded is the obstacle to peace, while the man who invaded it is a valued dinner guest.
The Constitution has a clause for this. Article III, Section 3 defines treason as “adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Nobody is suggesting it applies. It is merely curious that the drafters, in 1787, described the situation so precisely.
The framers also gave senators six-year terms so that a senator could afford to say no to a president. It was a sound idea. What they didn’t allow for was that senators would find it cheaper to say nothing.
Today, the executive branch strolls into the Senate and helps itself to the Senate’s powers, while the Senate holds the door open. Some of them ask whether he needs a hand carrying it all the way to the car.
Republicans have spent forty years telling us what Ronald Reagan would do. He stood in Berlin and told Gorbachev to tear down that wall. His party now watches a president hand Moscow a spare key to the Lincoln Bedroom and says nothing.
Somewhere, a bronze Reagan is trying to turn his back, but he’s bolted to the plinth.
