Prison Radio
Mumia Abu-Jamal

“Ugly American Abroad.”

The political reality of American President Donald Trump on the world stage is a sight to behold: bold, brash, as opinionated as he is uninformed. Trump moves in global spaces like King Kong, bringing destruction and devastation no matter which way he turns.

His opinions, drawn from the bottom shelves of the U.S. right wing, are really frantic prayers to return to guests a year, the good old days of the 1950s when white men ruled and all the rest were silent. Elected basically as a reaction to the Obama election, Trump’s sole appeal is his whiteness, not his ideas.

As for ideas, he has not save a sad request for time’s gone by. His politics, the politics best represented by the elderly comic, Don Rickles, for like Rickles, his is the politics of insult. Wherever he goes, his insults proceed or follow as he attacks Britain’s Theresa May, Germany’s Angela Merkel, or Emmanuel Macron of France.

The EU is a foe according to Trump, and only Putin’s Russia deserves respect, for its leader is strong. It may surprise some, but truth be told, Trump is America’s truest face. His grim visage, his air of disdain for all other countries. Well, this is America: fearful of strangers, small, petty. and pretentious.

This is America, not the urbane, witty, sophisticated Obama. America, the empire, needs no allies nor no friends, needs only supplicants, foes, satraps, and comedies.

From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.