The Audacity of Deception

We have witnessed this exact play before; the stench of corruption is undeniable, and the spectacle is just a desperate attempt to reset a narrative.

The air in Manhattan tonight carries a familiar, cloying stench. It is the olfactory hallmark of the Trump era, a pungent cocktail of desperation and artifice that we have, to our collective shame, learned to recognise by its first note. As midnight approaches, one might have hoped for the quiet dignity of a waning regime, but instead we are treated to the latest instalment of a tawdry, recurring theatre. We are expected to believe that lightning has struck the same golden-haired target twice, and we are expected to do so with our critical faculties firmly disengaged. It is, to put it plainly, bullshit. To those who find such language unrefined, I suggest you look closer at the stagecraft before you. When I was awakened to reports of a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, my initial instinct was not one of shock, but of weary recognition. The immediate imagery, the convenient chaos, the perfectly timed interruption of a night designed to humiliate the man at the centre …