The Global Trumpian Humour: Why Laughing at Trump is a Fatal Error

The world has settled into a dangerous cycle these past years: watch, ridicule, repeat. Each morning brings a fresh torrent of digital cartoons depicting the 45th US President as a shrieking, orange-tinted toddler. Late-night hosts exhaust their dictionaries for more synonyms for “unhinged”. Social media feeds brim with vulgar memes of his narcissistic rants and erratic, often childish pronouncements. Comedians the world over have a new canvas for crude jokes; either mimicking or mocking Trump.

Tragically, as he cuts deals for himself and his cronies, the pun is on the rest of the world: he is laughing all the way to the bank. The collective global response to a man holding the world’s most “powerful” office has largely been a sustained, almost nervous giggle. Sharing his latest, stupefying rants at the dinner table. Many are “tariff-ied” of this ogre called Trump. This is not satire anymore; it is a catastrophic failure of not even reading in between the lines. While the world laughs, the foundations of justice, peace and working towards a common humanity are being deliberately demolished. This, where the world should be at the height of ‘Global Responsibility Age’. Instead, Trump and his band of clowns are bent on cleansing the USA of “foreigners”. This despite the fact that up to 60% of “legal” Americans have foreign ancestry.  

Let us be blunt about what we are witnessing. This is not normal political disagreement. This is the systematic unravelling of governance by a figure whose psychological fitness has been a subject of unprecedented alarm. A 2019 study from Harvard’s Berkman Klein Centre analysed over 55,000 English-language news articles about Trump, finding a staggering 91% carried a negative tone. But more chilling than editorial content are the warnings from the medical community. In a landmark act of conscience, thousands of mental health professionals have breached the traditional “Goldwater Rule” (which says that Mental health professionals should not publicly diagnose or speculate about the mental health of public figures they have not personally examined and who have not given consent) to voice their concerns. Dr. Bandy Lee, a professor of psychiatry at Yale, (who edited a book titled The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump) organised conferences and publications warning of the president’s “dangerousness,” citing his patterns of grandiosity, lack of empathy, aversion to facts, and propensity for inciting violence; a clinical profile they argued posed a clear public health risk.

And what has been the response to this clinical and political crisis? A global shrug disguised as a smirk. All chuckle at the buffoonery while ignoring the blueprint. Waiting for the next cartoon. He strong-arms his own party into submission, resulting in a historic collapse of legislative function in the US Congress, where loyalty to one man now trumps governance. He dismantles diplomatic norms, publicly musing about the absurd territorial purchase of Greenland, threatening to “obliterate” Iranian cultural sites, and engaging in belligerent escalations that align perfectly with the ambitions of certain allies, like Israel’s far-right government. He cosies up to dictators and reportedly entertains fantasies of kidnapping foreign leaders, as has now happened with the kidnapping of Venezuela’s President. Venezuela, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel all annexed. The participants in the so called Board of Peace for Gaza? All captured. With a known war monger, Tony Blair, at the helm. Laughable as it may sound, it is this reality that is being supported by so-called sane persons. 

The United Nations, already strained, has been reduced to zero and more a platform for his grievances. The institutions designed to prevent conflict have been being hollowed out from within. History does not only repeat itself, but it also often echoes with a terrifying accuracy. We must dare to make the comparison that Zionists would forbid us: the rise and rise of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu echoes, in methodology if not yet in scale, the rise of Adolf Hitler. Consider the parallels:

• The cult of personality: relentless self-aggrandisement and the claim of being the sole voice of the “true” people. 
• The scapegoating: the relentless targeting of immigrants, minorities and political opponents as enemies of the state.
• The assault on truth: the weaponisation of “fake news” to dismantle reality, mirroring the use of Hitler’s co-opting a “lying press” to drive propaganda.
• The erosion of institutions: the systematic disabling of checks and balances, painting the deep state, courts and free press as treasonous.
• The glorification of violence: the rhetoric inviting supporters to “fight like hell” and his admiration for authoritarian strength.
• The revolutionary goal: the desire not to govern within the system, but to overthrow the existing order in the name of a nationalist revival. MAGA and Make Germany Great Again. 

Hitler, too, was initially underestimated, caricatured as a screaming clown with a funny moustache by his early detractors. The world laughed right up until the moment it scrambled to count the dead bodies. ICE is doing the work of SS and the Gestapo. 

This should be  our final warning. The laughter, for now, is a coping mechanism. Or is it a form of complicity? To dismiss this as mere “Trumpian antics” is to misunderstand the nature of the threat. We are not watching a comedy. We are watching a slow-motion authoritarian plan being executed, with the U.S. nuclear arsenal and the world’s largest economy as its leverage. 

To the nations of the world: Heed this. Your amusement is his weapon. Your inaction is his mandate. The collapse of American democracy and the destabilisation of global frameworks will not end with another funny tweet on Trump’s Truth Social. It will end with miscalculation, with ignited conflict, with alliances shattered. It will end, potentially, on the brink of a conflict we dare not name but must now consciously work to prevent: a possible World War III. The time for laughter is over. The time for sober, resolute and united opposition is now. Before the punchline becomes a caption on billions of gravestones.

So – as Africans, colonised by many but who have never initiated or waged war against any nation in the world, we have a unique responsibly. To rise at once as a united voice. To at least now shed the shackles of colonialism and offer the world a new direction by fearlessly declaring a call for true justice. Without which peace is not possible. Not only for Africans but for the rest of the world. 

Let history books record: This was The Golden Era of African Global Leadership. 

* Shabodien Roomanay is the board Chairman of Muslim Views Publication, founding member of the Salt River Heritage Society, and a trustee of the SA Foundation for Islamic Art. 

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.