There he goes, Mere Anarchy (MA), loosed upon the world. Full of passionate intensity. The worst. Making America Grate Again. Trump’s second coming.
Nor should those Americans who voted him in (again) be let off the hook. They knew, we knew, everyone knew, what they were voting for. They chose the price of eggs over the value of everything.
To recall that old Catholic definition of mortal sin (surely you know it, Mr Vance?), they voted last November with full knowledge, full consent, on such a grave matter in choosing MA as US president. A case of eggs, super alles!
So, things fall apart. Meanwhile, another rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem, laying waste, his gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, slaughtering along the way. What will be born of that? Darkness drops (again).
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Just over 20 years ago, we had the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, ushering in a more open and democratic era for that brave country in asserting its identity despite the attentions of its big bear neighbour. On this small island, we know a thing or two about that. Even as recently as Brexit. We understand.
We, too, have been grateful for the succour of a more benign America, back then before Mere Anarchy was loosed upon the world (again). Before that other orange revolution, a farce now becoming tragedy. History upended.
And what a tragedy for the great experiment that was America, which next year celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence from monarchy, led now by he who would be king!
Yeats wrote The Second Coming in early 1919, at the end of the first World War, the beginnings of Ireland’s War of Independence, and while the great flu raged – another virus which originated in the US – killing millions worldwide, including more than 23,000 here.
Even with the current US-generated travails, our predicament today is not as acute as then when Yeats wrote the poem. It’s of little consolation but offers a context, a perspective.
Our hope must be that retaliatory tariffs raise the price of eggs in the US, alerting voters there to the existence of a broader world upon which they, too, are interdependent. Then, in next year’s midterm elections, they may vote accordingly, rendering Trump a lame duck. Regardless, this, too, will pass. Stay cool.
Grate, from Old French grater, “to scrape, scratch, annoy”.
