Every time I open my different social media apps I am consistently met by two distinct strands of content, one much more prominent than the other. First – and I must admit, the more amusing one – is the endless stream of brain-dead statements made by the orange man. It is like a drug to me, watching him stumble over his words, make up facts, and get stuck on the smallest, most insignificant details; and then listen as he gets utterly ripped apart by his fellow countrymen.
His presidency was always a bit of a joke, but the way he speaks and acts now is a new level of ridiculous. Signing crazy executive orders left and right, screaming about tariffs on penguins, or posting AI generated images and videos across his social media – portraying some kind of fantasy of having a full head of hair. It is incredibly amusing to watch this absolute joke of a man pretending to be president. But as we are all laughing at this stream of content, there is a second stream flowing in the background, one that is far from amusing.
The second stream is one I only come across every once in a while, hidden between the videos of the orange man’s latest stand-up show. It is the content asking: “Did you see what the orange man’s administration just did?” Here is where the actual content of those executive orders get unearthed, where the words he utters get analysed. This side of social media reeks with conspiracy theories, but once I manage to fact-check myself past the obvious make-belief, one thing becomes painfully clear: we really should not be laughing.
I cannot tell you if the orange man really is as inconceivably stupid as he seems, or if it is all an act, but I do not think it really matters at this point. Because – just like with my social media feed – whilst we are busy laughing at the orange man’s latest show, we miss what is really happening behind the scenes.
The orange man uploads an AI-generated picture of himself as the pope, we think it ridiculous; meanwhile, the department of education sees their funding sliced within an inch of its life. They text war plans in a group-chat with a journalist, we wonder how they can be so stupid; meanwhile, Alcatraz will re-open because there are too many illegal immigrants to “give all of them a fair trial”. Then there is the Gulf of America, annexing Greenland, making Canada the 51st state; and meanwhile, scholars are being detained without trial or clear cause.
And did you hear of that man they sent to the concentra… I mean prison in El Salvador, who they are now unable to get back, what a whoopsie, haha… Except, it’s not really such a funny whoopsie, is it? But when we get flooded by an endless stream of “the orange man is a buffoon” narrative, we start to expect him to always be reliably stupid; forgetting that no matter how many weird AI pictures and stupid rants he makes about the radical left, there are real forces working behind the scenes – forces that cause destruction and devastation wherever they go.
This has all made me wonder if his statements and actions have not become a lot more over the top since he re-took office, and if they do not seem to become more and more brain-dead as time passes. Just recently the orange man was asked in an interview with PBS if he needed to uphold the constitution as president, and answered “I don’t know”. That is such a strange answer coming even from him, because it is so stupid, almost too stupid… And that is when I stopped laughing. What if we have misjudged the orange man, what if he is a lot smarter than we give him credit for (or at least someone on his team is)?
He has us all mesmerised by the joke, and we are too busy laughing to see that the real fools here might be us. Because whilst we write him off as just another idiot, he might be using our underestimation of him to get away with eroding American democracy as we know it. It might be the most genius autocratic takeover I have seen in modern times, because after all: “all warfare is based on deception” (Sun Tzu, The Art of War). If that is his intention – or if he really is just a clueless idiot – only time will tell.
No matter what though, he is possibly the world’s most stupid genius, and soon that title might get him to the position of the world’s newest dictator. Because even when we laugh at his ignorance and brain-dead statements, the threat he poses has still been enough to make me actively avoid using his real name throughout this text, for fear of what might come if I do.
↓ Image Attributions
“orange fruit on white surface” by charlesdeluvio // Licensed under Unsplash
