The U.S. at the UN, Kimmel at ABC

On a day like today, we pass the time away writing love letters in the sand

Do you love letters, like UN and ABC? How about U.S.? There’s a lot of them around today. In the sand. And there’s a tide a-comin’ in.

The UN needs reforming. It needs teeth. Teeth that bite. But not teeth that bite anything and everything that comes within reach. Unlike the U.S., the UN works on the principle of consensus. And you can’t have consensus with mavericks in the fold. Russia, North Korea and the U.S., for instance. Yes, the U.S. is putting itself into the realm of the pariah states.

Maybe the UN needs to get out of New York, and over to Geneva before they have to helicopter airlift them off the roof. But, then again, it won’t. It will stay, and it will work its fingers to the bone to do what it’s always done: tried to build consensus. They’re fat, overpaid, corrupt and self-important. Yes, the UN, as well as the U.S. government. But, unlike the U.S. government, the UN haven’t lost sight of their mission.

Trump sees it differently: the UN is his baby. The U.S.’s baby. It was created by the U.S., with the complicity of the UK, which still thought it would be a great imperial power for many centuries to come. It had called on its empire to fight against the powers of tyranny that wanted to envelop all nations of Europe. Did Britain really think its colonies would not take a subliminal message out of that call to arms?

Hence, alas, Britain lost its empire; and the U.S. gained its. If the U.S. and UK are the UN’s parents, the UK is virtually immaterial today—it can’t even appoint its most prestigious ambassador without getting mired in sleaze. The UN has now become the U.S.’s diplomatic face-slap machine. And the U.S. has no use for face-slapping any more. Trump wants it destroyed. Well, if he can destroy democracy in his own country, don’t you think he’ll try for international democracy next?

Lashing out at internal policy in the city of London is intended to point fingers at the UN’s failings in areas which are not even part of the UN’s remit. Escalator systems are the responsibility of the building’s multinational architects, whose principal was French. The same nationality as that of the president he made stand on a street corner like some French tart, waiting for his motor train to pass. I’ll lay a dime to a dollar that menus for banquets in his new ballroom will not have one word of French on them. Wannabet?

France is a Security Council member. Britain too. But the Security Council is defunct: Russia and the U.S. will only play ball there if there’s something in it for both of them. The board of management for world peace is now a horse-trading market. Well, did you ever? What a swell party this is.

The UN is the U.S.’s baby, to nurture or to condemn to the altar of Moloch. It is to Moloch that, yesterday, Trump tried to send the baby. I fear the only way to save it is to place a child protection order over it, and secrete it away to Switzerland.

I live outside the U.S. I’ll not say I’d never heard of Jimmy Kimmel, his name was vaguely familiar. The Colbert fellow, I’d watched him once or twice, and the Guardian sometimes features these comedians. Comedians? Well, comedians. But are they becoming something else?

The recent events surrounding Kimmel’s removal from the small screen echoed here in Europe: everything Trump does to turn his country into a pariah state echoes here. Because we have parts of our populations that are like a part of his population, to which Trump is pandering and which Trump is also pummelling with policies that don’t please them. And, because we have always caught colds when America sneezed, it echoes. Aaa-CHOOO-oo-oo-oo.

The first thing I notice when I watch the recording of Mr Kimmel’s return is like the first thing I notice when I walk into a hotel: the reception. The reception given to Mr Kimmel by his studio audience (and no doubt by those celebrating around the nation at home) doesn’t echo so much here in Europe. Americans like hyperbole and big shows and stars and all that. But that is what we Europeans expect to see in the U.S.—and in fact it’s pretty much what we expect to see at Trump rallies. So, with folk asking, “How presidential was Trump’s address to the UN?”, I would actually be interested to see Kimmel give a monologue without any audience. Like someone presidential normally does when they address a nation in crisis.

How about that? Kimmel without the wise cracks getting claps and laughter to encourage him. Kimmel has a serious message to impart. It ought not to depend on crutches, but stand on its own merits. Let him ditch the audience for once. The show is over: it’s time to draw up battle lines. After all Dad’s Army was only funny because the war was over.

Let that echo in Europe.