Johnson, Trump and Putin are taking the myth... and it’s scary
A FEW years ago the editor asked me to contemplate a frightening future.
To imagine that the unthinkable had happened and Boris Johnson (then a reactionary columnist and backbencher) and Donald Trump (a TV celeb trashing fellow Republicans to steal the party’s presidential nomination) had joined Vladimir Putin (a thug stopping anyone else ruling Russia) as the heads of three of the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council.
After I’d admitted the prospect was so scary if it happened I’d do something even more implausible and book a seat next to Richard Branson on his Virgin Galactic space flight, I wrote a skit about the trio re-staging the 1945 Yalta Conference, when Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill carved up post-war Europe.
Only these narcissistic sociopaths would meet near Armageddon to carve-up a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by their deceit and ambition. Looking at what’s transpired I wish I’d asked Ladbrokes for odds on my vision. Who, with any faith in
humanity, could have foreseen advanced populations allowing it to happen, I thought. But not only has it happened, all three myth- spewers remain popular with a large chunk of their people.
If elections were held tomorrow (including a proper one in Russia) there’s a good chance all three pathological liars would be re-elected. The unquestioning acceptance of their deception being the most depressing aspect of that truth.
Following the poisoning of Putin’s political rival Alexei Navalny, Germ Germany’s Angela Merkel claimed Russi Russia has “very serious questions” to an answer.
Pu Putin’s answer, as ever, was to turn in to reggae singer Shaggy and belt out ““it wasn’t me” before instructing Rus Russian TV to do a piece mocking Wes Western imperialists for reading too man many spy novels, then put up a mo montage of him wrestling barechested che with bears in Siberia and pun punching a shark between the eyes in the Black Sea. According to
Johnson, the poisoning was “outrageous” but who can believe he truly thinks that? This is a man who’s lied more in Greek this week than you have in English all your life.
A lazy bluffer with no substance or morals, who charmed his way through the gilded halls he was parachuted into and can’t even be honest about how many children he has.
And then there’s Donald Trump, who churns out more whoppers on an hourly basis than Burger King. Whoppers consumed by half the American nation with relish and extra fries, which only encourages him to lie even more.
In fact, if you printed out all the lies he’s told since he’s been in office, and stuck the Stars and Stripes on the end, Trump could plant a flag on the sun.
He, like Putin and Johnson, doesn’t care about those who don’t swallow their lies, indeed they laugh at them. Because they know that so long as their base is happy with their posturing, they can get away with murder. We have finally arrived at a post-truth age, folks.
One in which voters are not just prepared to be lied to by those who call the truth-tellers fake news peddlers, they lap it up. Voters who are happy to be extras in a fantasy tale of dangerous macho nationalism. And, sadly, we have no idea where it will end.
I need to lie... down.
‘‘ So long as their support base is happy they can get away with murder