All the world’s a stage etc.
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But today, it seems all the world’s a video clip on a mobile phone screen with a “watch again” button.
The scene that played out at the Oval Office in Washington a week ago is still rolling around the world like a tidal river bore.
When it first appeared on my phone on Friday morning I had to watch it again to make sure it wasn’t a joke reel from Fails of the Week.
But no, this was real footage of the most powerful men in the world berating a man from a smaller country under attack asking for help.
I labelled it as yet another example of Donald Trump’s trampling of decency and good manners.
I have made my living for 40 years using words to describe the ugliness, the beauty and the madness of the world but this time my tools failed me.
I just could not find an adequate element of speech accurate enough to sum up what I had just witnessed on my phone.
Then I remembered the Australian Macquarie Dictionary’s 20024 Word of the Year.
“Enshittification” is just about the best description of what happened during last week’s scene in the Oval Office.
Not perfect, but it’s the best I can do for now.
The word also serves as a suitable adjective to sum up what Trump and his cronies have done to the delicate web of global politics.
Anyway, I put my phone away and went on mowing the lawn.
But the minute-long reel kept playing in my head.
I realised that just like a fragmentation grenade, it was much larger than the sum of its parts.
This nagged at me so I searched out a 40-minute reel from the BBC to get a bigger picture of the drama.
The conference begins with a statesmanlike Trump introducing his Ukranian counterpart to the gathered press cohort.
He then praises the bravery of Ukranian soldiers.
President Zelensky talks about the brutality of the Russians and Trump talks about Ukraine’s “raw earth” which he wants to get hold of under a special deal.
So far so good.
Things start to head south when US Vice President Vance accuses Zelensky of disrespect in not saying thank you enough times for American support.
Then it dissolves into the shouting match with which we have become familiar.
I’ve always wondered what happens between powerful men involved in stratospheric global talks behind closed doors.
After last week’s televised argument, now we know.
In Trump’s case, they behave like New York mobsters in a bar room shakedown.
We can never know how presidents Obama or Reagan or Roosevelt behaved behind closed doors, but I can’t imagine it was like this.
What the world witnessed was Trump using transactional business negotiations with a man with his back against the wall and a gun against his head.
Trump’s message was “I’ll do something for you if you do something for me”.
That might be OK if you’re dealing in real estate, but when you’re negotiating the future of a nation with millions of lives at stake, it’s a cheap and dishonourable means to win a deal.
Earlier Trump had asked why Europe was not paying its fair share in defending itself. Whatever you think of Trump and his showmanship, that seemed an entirely reasonable question.
Trump was then quite clinical in his assessment of America’s role in Europe.
He saw it as a business deal, and America was not getting its fair share.
This was a hinge-moment in history.
For more than 80 years, the west, including Australia, has relied on American might to protect it from encroaching evil empires.
Not any more.
It’s now a business transaction.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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