Then we came to the end
What happens when the bully starts a fight, but nobody’s in the playground? At the beginning of his second term, almost every leader in the world was ready to fall in line like obsequious peons and kiss the hand of the self-styled emperor with the fake tan and the ridiculous comb-over—in the hopes that their countries would be spared from those punitive tariffs he threatened to impose.
US President Donald Trump, the bully with the padded butt, thanks to the extra-large Depends he wears—is it any wonder his wife recoils from his touch?—also expected everyone to rush over in a stampede to make a deal to save their economies from ruin.
Because yes, the porcine king loved it when powerful people grovelled at his feet. He levied those taxes anyway and delighted in the squirms of the heads of state, while his clueless subjects jeered at the saps who caved in—barely realizing that the added cost would, in fact, be shouldered by them. The consumers, not the exporters.
Trump vs. the world
It was Trump vs. the world. And the world, stupidly, was ready to capitulate.
Fast forward to April 2026, and the brute stands alone, save for his spineless posse of war freaks, real estate moguls masquerading as peace brokers, and, of course, his genocidal partner-in-crime. Still intoxicated from his most recent bender with his drug of choice—a lethal, speedy cocktail of blockades, sanctions, kidnappings, and military interventions in the name of regime change—he thought he could replicate that unforgettable high once more in Iran.
He was so sure that his old reliables—the United Kingdom, the European Union, NATO, the Gulf States, perhaps India, and even the pick-me girls scattered all over the Pacific, including, yes, the Philippines—would join him in bombing an entire civilization back to the Stone Age all because the Iranian government said “nah, we good” when he demanded they surrender and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Being trumped over
But his so-called allies made it clear America was on its own. They were happy to send arms to their buddy Israel and run reconnaissance flights over Gaza so that more babies could be starved and slaughtered. They shrugged when Palestinian journalists were being killed. They looked away when children had to be amputated without anesthesia. They ignored it when Lebanon kept being pounded with bombs in violation of a ceasefire that the aggressor never respected.
Lucy Ellmann began a poem with these words:
“Men like war:
they do not hold much sway over birth,
so they make up for it with death.
Unlike women,
men menstruate
by shedding
other people’s blood.”
But joining the naval blockade against Iran was a line they would not cross. Perhaps because they knew that the next death would be the empire’s—and theirs. Because empire is a death cult.
Today, it’s the world vs Trump. And Trump has already lost.
