Life’s a Pitch
One day we were celebrating headlines like this: In the United States, Every World Cup Team Is a Home Team. And the next day, our beloved squad was soundly defeated by Belgium, and our nation was being mocked with disdain as the winning team ridiculed America with a clownish Trump dance and a post that read, Overturn This. As Jerry Brewer writes in The Athletic: The United States’ dream didn’t die. It was overturned. “The president didn’t rescue Folarin Balogun. He didn’t give the U.S. greater odds to win. He didn’t fix the tournament by correcting a mistake. He repossessed the World Cup. He made Balogun, whose class and character represented the entire squad, the face of a fix. He helped create the snooty American attitude that gave Belgium a motivational boost.” What can I say: Football is life. And this is life with Trump. The whole charade was “in many ways, yet another crystallisation of America’s philosophy under Trump, where a rules-based international order can be swept aside when it is deemed to be in the interests of the U.S. One day, it may be climate change co-operation, or it could be economic tariffs on long-standing partners. On another day, it may be withdrawing from the World Health Organization, or threatening to seize Greenland or making Canada the 51st state.” And Trump’s MAGA-red card insertion into the World Cup is a pitch perfect metaphor for the kick-off of today’s NATO meetings, where Trump will further antagonize allies, destroy America’s leadership role, and provide yet another reminder that the election of 2024 was the own goal of the century.
+ “You are not dealing with an administration that has processes, you are dealing with a single volatile individual.” The WSJ (Gift Article) with the backstory of Europe’s split with America. “Hours passed as people talked over each other in a conversation with such seismic implications it seemed surreal: In its 250th year, had America, protector of Europe, now become a threat?” ‘There Is No Going Back’: The Inside Story of Europe’s Rupture With America. The Europeans learned faster than Trump’s American sycophants that even the authoritarian-pleasing false praise has its limits. “The fragile consensus on flattery was starting to splinter, a trend captured by Britain’s MI6. That form of diplomacy, per an assessment from the spy service, was ‘subject to the law of diminishing returns.'” (That’s the one law the administration upholds.)
+ “In remarks to reporters, Trump reiterated his view that the U.S. should take control of Greenland. ‘It should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark.'” This follows Trump’s posting of a picture of himself and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni “with the caption ‘restraining order needed,’ a reference to his earlier comments that Meloni ‘begged’ him for a photo during the Group of Seven summit of leading industrialized nations last month.” Here’s the latest from NBC and CNN.
