Our large adult president is on the loose again. It's been one of those days already, as he watched The New York Times expose his Transportation Secretary as another Swamp Creature with a leading role in The Great American Heist, and he watched the Son-in-Law-in-Chief faceplant repeatedly in an Axios interview. But Donald Trump, American president, has the chance to escape all those petty concerns around "ethics" and "corruption" and "racism," because he's headed to beautiful Londontown. The United Kingdom has, for some reason, agreed to take him in for a state visit. He'll also participate in a commemoration of D-Day, a landmark event in the fight against the rising tide of fascism in Europe. Just going to leave that there.

Donald Trump has already repaid our dear allies for their hospitality in typical fashion. He announced his arrival with a tweet complaining that the U.K. has CNN, which the president felt necessary to tell the world he'd watched "for a short while" before he turned it off. "All negative & so much Fake News, very bad for U.S.," said the United States president, shortly before he met the Queen of England. And then the world's most powerful man used his pulpit to undermine a major American telecommunications firm because one of its subsidiaries reports the news in ways he doesn't like.

"I believe that if people stoped using or subscribing to @ATT, they would be forced to make big changes at @CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway. It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News! Why wouldn’t they act. When the World watches @CNN, it gets a false picture of USA. Sad!"

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I believe that if people stoped using or subscribing to @ATT, they would be forced to make big changes at @CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway. It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News! Why wouldn’t they act. When the World watches @CNN, it gets a false picture of USA. Sad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2019

This is one of those times where it feels worth pointing out that what's happening here is completely fucking nuts. Absolutely bonkers. Totally unacceptable. Completely out of step with the principles of free expression, a free press, free markets, and the democratic process that unite the country he leads and the country he's visiting. Just another blatant spasm of the authoritarian impulse. A reimagining of the American state—which represents the interests and concerns of close to 330 million people—as a vessel for the trifling feuds of an old man whose brain is steadily atrophying due to a debilitating level of cable news consumption.

But it paled in comparison to this.

".@SadiqKhan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly 'nasty' to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom. He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me..........Kahn reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job - only half his height. In any event, I look forward to being a great friend to the United Kingdom, and am looking very much forward to my visit. Landing now!"

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.@SadiqKhan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly “nasty” to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom. He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me...... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2019

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....Kahn reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job - only half his height. In any event, I look forward to being a great friend to the United Kingdom, and am looking very much forward to my visit. Landing now! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2019

Sweet Jesus. It's here where we might point out that Trump used the word "nasty" just as he did in an interview with The Sun when asked about Meghan Markle, the American Duchess of Sussex, who has called out Trump's obvious misogyny and divisiveness. There was apparently a debate this weekend about whether Trump actually called her nasty, as if there weren't an audio recording of him calling her nasty and as if he doesn't call people nasty all the time. Like he did here.

But while his schoolyard antics might seem like some garden-variety pettiness towards a critic, Trump's ire is tied to some extraordinary comments from Khan this week, writing in The Observer.

Donald Trump is just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat. The far right is on the rise around the world, threatening our hard-won rights and freedoms and the values that have defined our liberal, democratic societies for more than seventy years. Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Matteo Salvini in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France and Nigel Farage here in the UK are using the same divisive tropes of the fascists of the 20th century to garner support, but are using new sinister methods to deliver their message. And they are gaining ground and winning power and influence in places that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

They are intentionally pitting their own citizens against one another, regardless of the horrific impact in our communities. They are picking on minority groups and the marginalised to manufacture an enemy – and encouraging others to do the same. And they are constructing lies to stoke up fear and to attack the fundamental pillars of a healthy democracy – equality under the law, the freedom of the press and an independent justice system. Trump is seen as a figurehead of this global far-right movement. Through his words and actions, he has given comfort to far-right political leaders, and it’s no coincidence that his former campaign manager, Steve Bannon, has been touring the world, spreading hateful views and bolstering the far right wherever he goes.

It's hard to argue with much of that. But, you know, the economy's good, at least for the 10 percent of Americans who own 84 percent of all stocks. Wages have started to tick up slightly. So it's all worth it, even as the president's own son-in-law, and one of his top advisers, refuses to defend his specific racist conduct, preferring to say he's not racist in his heart, or whatever. So, in the best-case scenario, Trump just uses racism he doesn't actually subscribe to in order to accrue power for himself and his family? Cool stuff.

Surely none of this has anything to do with a strange coincidence occurring at Buckingham Palace, according to the Washington Post:

Buckingham Palace is reportedly unable to host the Trumps because of ongoing renovation work that began in 2016. According to the official royal website, Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms, including 52 “Royal and guest bedrooms.”

Or maybe the queen saw what our president was up to this weekend and grew concerned he might come storming into her quarters in golf spikes.

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President Trump makes an unannounced stop at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, VA. pic.twitter.com/qBZzDi96vl — The Hill (@thehill) June 2, 2019

Good Lord. Someday, assuming there is a future for our country or our species, we will look back on this era with our gobs absolutely smacked. The president was walking around in public in a declining state of cognitive health, hatching international crises as he landed in foreign countries, spewing schoolyard insults and more dangerous appeals to bigotry and division while embracing political violence from the rally podium, and we've all just accepted it as the current state of affairs.

The press patiently waits for him to stalk about, yelling red-faced about who-knows-what, and then asks him about invading Iran or whatever. Members of the public throw up their hands, wondering whether anything will be done. And the Congress dawdles in its constitutional duties, despite overwhelming evidence the president has repeatedly broken the law in office and abused his powers to avoid accountability. He has waged war on the pillars of democracy, like the separation of powers and the free press and an independent system of justice, and soon enough even those who count themselves as his allies will find they are vassals to a man who stomps into church in golf spikes to stand next to the pastor, visibly bewildered. And all the while, the time to maintain a habitable environment on our only planet dwindles. What will we tell our children?



Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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