What might Evelyn Waugh say about Trump and politics in 2025?

Grok: Setting: A hypothetical 2025 London literary salon, reimagined with Evelyn Waugh miraculously present, sipping a martini and holding court. His sharp tongue and satirical eye, honed in the 20th century, now dissect the political circus of Donald Trump and the global stage, as observed through X posts and contemporary chatter. Below is an imagined monologue, capturing Waugh’s voice—caustic, erudite, and dripping with disdain—addressing Trump and politics in 2025.
My dear friends, if one must endure the cacophony of this modern age, with its incessant “X” bleatings and the vulgarity of digital pamphleteering, let us at least dissect the grotesque pantomime that is politics in 2025. And who better to epitomize this farce than Mr. Donald Trump, a man who seems to have mistaken governance for a music-hall act, complete with bombast and a wig that defies both gravity and taste?
I have perused the latest dispatches on this “X” platform—good Lord, what a sewer of human thought, where every Tom, Dick, and Harry fancies himself a Cicero. Trump, it seems, remains a force, a sort of orange-hued Falstaff, bellowing about tariffs, Big Law, and the perfidies of his enemies. His war on large law firms, for instance, is the stuff of low comedy: a man who once wielded lawyers like cudgels now rails against their fees, as if he’s discovered thrift in his eighth decade. It’s as though Nero, mid-fiddle, decided to tax the fire brigade.
What would I say of Trump? He is no statesman, but a ringmaster, thriving on the chaos of the crowd. His politics are not ideology but performance—a vulgar ballet of tweets (or whatever they’re called now) and rallies, where the mob’s roar substitutes for reason. In 2025, he seems less a president than a perennial candidate, a ghost haunting the American psyche, refusing to fade like a decent villain should. His supporters, bless their simple hearts, see him as a savior, smashing the idols of elites; his detractors, meanwhile, clutch their pearls and cry “democracy’s end.” Both are wrong. Trump is neither savior nor apocalypse, but a mirror—reflecting a civilization that prefers spectacle to substance, a Rome that would rather watch gladiators than read Seneca.
And yet, the man has a certain genius, if one can call it that. Like a character from my own Scoop, he understands the press’s hunger for outrage and feeds it daily, a one-man scandal factory. His pronouncements on X—about taxing lawyers, or China, or some imagined conspiracy involving windmills—are not policies but provocations, designed to keep his name in neon. In my day, we had Beaverbrook and Rothermere; now, every man with a smartphone is a press baron, and Trump is their king.
Politics itself, in this benighted year, is a shambles. The Americans, God help them, oscillate between Trump’s carnival and the sanctimonious drivel of his opponents, who seem to believe that earnestness is a substitute for competence. Across the Atlantic, we British fare little better, governed by a parade of mediocrities who lack even the originality to lack originality. The world stage is a farce: Europe bickers like dowagers at a tea party, China looms like a headmaster with a cane, and the rest scramble for scraps. Trump, at least, has the merit of being candid in his absurdity—a rare honesty in a world of polished lies.
What would I write of this? A novel, perhaps, though it would strain credulity. Picture it: The Triumph of Trump, a satire where a brash tycoon storms a decadent republic, armed with nothing but bravado and a hairpiece. His foes, a coalition of prigs and pedants, fall before his sheer indifference to their rules. The climax? Not a revolution, but a reality show, where the nation votes not for laws but for catchphrases. Too outlandish? Hardly. Reality has outstripped fiction, and I, for one, am exhausted by its audacity.
In the end, Trump is not the disease but a symptom—a garish boil on the body politic, signaling a deeper malaise. We have traded dignity for distraction, principle for popularity. If I were to offer advice, it would be this: turn off your screens, pour a stiff drink, and read something written before 1900. The world may not improve, but at least you’ll have better company than the howling mob on X.