Trump and Netanyahu spread sunscreen
In it Decline and fall (Decline and fall of the Roman Empire,1765), Edward Gibbon reports that the Emperor Commodus of the Antonine dynasty, notorious for his cruelty, was the victim of an attempted assassination: "One evening, as the emperor was returning to the palace through a dark and narrow portico of the amphitheater, he cried out loudly: 'The senate sends you this. ' The threat prevented the execution; Later he speaks of the indecency and depravity of another emperor, Elagabal of the Severan dynasty: "To confound the order of the seasons and climates, to trifle with the passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law of nature and decency, were among his most outmoded amusements." The Decline and Fall It is not the only one, but it is one of the main sources of the image that we have formed of imperial Rome in our time, as a time of excess and overflow. The parallels with some current leaders, and especially with this 2.0 version of Donald Trump that we witness every day, can be said to be self-evident.
Unless they have some other unpleasant surprise in store for us, we end the week as we started it: with a grotesque display by the new Trumpist power. If a few days ago we talked about Elon Musk brandishing Milei's chainsaw, now we talk about the repulsive video in which the US president, through artificial intelligence, shows us his fantasy of a Gaza exposed to mass tourism, once the Palestinians have been eliminated from their land (deported or killed) they are dead. We see Netanyahu and Trump lying in swimsuits on hammocks like a couple of lecherous old men, an impression that is reinforced by the image of Trump in the company of a dancer who shows her ass while moving to the rhythm of the lamentable music of the soundtrack. We also see the inevitable Elon Musk walking under a shower of banknotes, and literally eating hummus like a pig. The video is, in its entirety, a hymn to opulence, obscenity and stupidity decorated with baths of gold paint. It is also a cruel and foolish mockery of the people who have been victims of the genocide perpetrated there by the Israeli government and army. We will have to get used to this kind of humor: the Trumpist Kennedy, John Kennedy Jr., has spread a fake news story on the networks declaring Pope Francis dead, apparently just for fun.
Confronting the victims of disasters, and laughing, is another taboo that the new right wants to break: close to us, Ayuso and Mazón do the same with the victims of the protocols of shame in Madrid's nursing homes and with those of the DANA in the Valencian Country. As Gibbon wrote, "their inexpressible infamy surpasses that of any other time or country."