Only one thing to do with Trump's 'peace' ultimatum

Maga America is falling into autocracy and advocates for Russian victory in Ukraine – it's time the West saw this and dealt with it. Sam Kiley, world affairs editor, explains how

- Sam Kiley

It may feel like a rip in the time-space continuum. On one side of the tear, there’s a universe in which America is run by a wannabe king who uses the invasion of an ally as an opportunity for profit, who lies, cheats and backstabs his friends. On the other stand America’s closest comrades, insisting that Washington’s a force for good.

There is only one reality, and it is time to confront it.

America is no longer the leader of the West, let alone the rest of the world. It’s got the biggest armed forces. It has the biggest economy and the widest cultural reach the world has ever seen. But its democracy is collapsing, and it has been captured by a cult of ignorant grifters.

They are in bed with tech-bro fantasists who believe they can control the media and bend minds, while genetically engineering their way to a master class ruling the world as high-technocrats.

Europe’s leaders are gathering in Johannesburg for the G20. They’re going into huddles at the meeting to decide how to react to Donald Trump’s latest pro-Russian plan for Ukraine to surrender, and American business (the Trump Organization?) to profit.

The question they need to ask themselves is whether now is the time to stop bothering with the grovelling and flattery, in return for keeping the Toddler-in-Chief from throwing a king-sized tantrum?

The answer, according to a senior Western source intimately involved in the real-world security of Europe and the UK, is to “just tell him to fuck off”.

Sorely tempting, of course.

And the source is right to explain that the time is now overdue for Europe, Canada, the UK and many other allies to establish military and intelligence independence from the US.

Why? Because the US is so busy eviscerating its own democracy that within a year, it will more closely resemble the Russia of Vladimir Putin than anything that would be recognised as a Western democracy.