It would be terribly convenient to suggest that Donald Trump is mad; that his breaches of international law can be ignored; that his threats of imposing tariffs on countries including the UK, so that he might acquire Greenland, breach our own constitution, even in US law; and that, as a consequence, everything that he says can be ignored. That would be convenient.
It would also be wrong, for one very good reason, apparent most obviously on the streets of Minneapolis in the US state of Minnesota, where forces from Trump's Gestapo-like Immigration and Customs Enforcement service are terrorising the people of the city whilst deliberately breaking down the barriers that usually enforce law and order.
Trump might well be mad. His administration is heinous. Those who surround him appear to be intent on creating a far-right, white, male, evangelical Christian-focused theocracy that is utterly contemptuous of democracy, and which seeks to rule the world by force for the benefit of a tiny wealthy elite, but the problem is that he is willing to subject people to that force, and even kill them if they dissent.
In comparison, he might argue that threats to impose tariffs to force European agreement on the US acquisition of Greenland are an exercise in moderation, but they are nothing of the sort. It is war by any other name; let's stop pretending otherwise. Keir Starmer might still talk about things like special relationships, but he talks a lot of nonsense, and this is typical of the stupid commentary to which he is inclined.
So, let's talk facts here. The US is now a fascist dictatorship. Its leadership is violently imposing its views upon people in that country. Its democracy has failed. Like most fascist dictatorships, it is seeking to rapidly expand its colonial influence to acquire territory that it can subjugate and exploit to support what will, inevitably, be domestic economic failure. And, again, as is normal for fascist dictatorships, it is threatening those it perceives to be weaker with retaliation if they have the temerity to object to what it is doing.
I wrote a reasoned response to this situation this morning, but the more I think about it, the more I realise that the power is actually with Europe. In that case, we need simple-to-explain and very obvious strategies that challenge what the US is doing, which do need to be discussed by European leaders publicly, so that the US knows that a response is in mind.
The first is that if the US wishes to challenge European sovereign territory, Europe can no longer host its military bases. Doing so is now absurd. Would we have offered Hitler the use of a giant airbase in Suffolk in 1939? Of course not. Why are we doing that now for the USA? The message has to be delivered loudly and clearly that these forces will need to go home if the US comes anywhere near European territory or even threatens to do so.
Secondly, since Trump is using taxes as a weapon, so should we. The US has just exempted itself from involvement in a new worldwide tax treaty designed to end corporate tax abuse, meaning that action against it is, in any case, justified. The obvious response is to require that UK tax at the basic rate should now be withheld from payments of dividends to US companies, or the subsidiaries of US companies, wherever they might be located around the world, and the same should be true with regard to interest payments from the UK to US companies, where tax should also be deducted at source. We do not do this at present, but we could, and if the US is going to be a pariah state with regard to taxation, as well as much else, then we have to use the weapons available to us, and this one is high on the list of those that might be used.
I am sure that our politicians will not want to use these tactics, but what else are they going to do when the country that was once seen as our biggest ally is now our decidedly hostile foe, and is imposing upon its own people a system of government that we fought a world war to defeat? What else are we meant to do?
The question for Keir Starmer is straightforward. Is he going to stand aside and say, “Please carry on, Donald, because you're my best friend”, or is it time to act? So let's be clear: I am not suggesting threats of military action. I am simply suggesting that we respond in style to what the US is doing. And let's also be clear: what we have to accept is that, whatever happens, this could turn very nasty. That is unsurprising. Nasty is what small-minded fascists are.
Importantly, if we are to say that we have to be sure as to what that nastiness involves. Clarity matters at this moment since it provides us with our reasons for action, and what Trump is doing involves:
- Removing the rights of women around the world whilst subjugating control of their lives and bodies to men's wishes.
- Removing the rights of all non-white people around the world, all of whom will be treated as opportunities for exploitation, at best.
- Refusing to recognise any form of diversity, whether with regard to sexual orientation, neurodiversity, gender, or any other such issue.
- Denying the right to free speech and free thought, whilst requiring acceptance of a singular worldview, with the threat of punishment for failing to do so.
We have a choice. Do we defend the human rights of the vast majority of people in the world, or abandon them? Do we succumb to the politics of might, or choose the politics of care? That is the choice. I know what I want.
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It is important that Europe and Canada take a firm principled stand.
It will strengthen the hand of the resistance in the USA. They are the only ones to overthrow him.
If we don’t resist we are signalling we are content to be vassal states, encouraging further encroachments
There are large parties in Europe, AfD, National Rally and Reform which march to the sound of Trump’s drum. If Trump is not resisted, they will be strengthened and the scenes in Minneapolis become more likely to happen here.
Agreed
Quire Agree Richard. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/16/greenland-trump-republicans-congress-00732945 There may be hope yet for some sanity.
Quire Agree Richard. There may be hope yet for some sanity. Some Republicam Congress members believe there is enough support for a veto, or even impeachment.
You mentioned that the USA is now a dictatorship with mid-term elections coming up later this year, and it is also fascist with with a large part of its economy being left to develop its own way without state direction. I wondered if Trump was literally Hitler in 1939 who had already captured the Sudetenland, crossed the Rhine, and signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to partition Poland and I think that he probably is.
Trump has even gaslighted the Europeans by telling them he’s imposing tariffs on them until they sort out a Greenland deal when in fact the tariffs are being imposed on Americans, and the Europeans have fallen for this line of reasoning and are now gaslighting us in Europe by saying that the tariffs are on us. Is there any Nazis skilled in propaganda we can compare Trump to because I think we should.
Reportedly Trump kept a copy of Hitlers speeches “My New Order” in a bedside table as light reading !
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trumps-history-adolf-hitler-nazi-writings-analysis/story?id=105810745
https://www.amazon.com/Order-Collection-Speeches-Adolph-Hitler/dp/4871879089
Really?????
Richard, you have written about how medicine relates to politics, often to the detriment of care. Here’s an article from a recent BMJ that shows the an alternative view and should be read by all of your followers:
https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2459
Martin Hime – retired doc
Thanks, Martin.
The Trump USA looks remarkably similar to the collapse of the Weimar Republic.
The US elites do not support democracy and appear comfortably with its erasure.
Don’t expect the MAGA group to complain, even if they suffer because “he’s their man”.
With the tech bros winning massive state contracts for services to provide super surveillance of the US population and anticipating peoples political views, expect opposition to Trump to be slowly killed off.
Will there mid term elections later this year? Probably not.
The UK and the EU are reliant on the tech bros. Trump will use the threat of cutting off IT software to the UK and the EU to get what he wants.
Just heard Nandy on the radio pratting on about ” we can negotiate”. Which planet is she on?
Don’t expect the UK to take any serious review of our dependency on the US or make a meaningful pivot to the EU. Where is our “sovereignty” now? The UK seems to do as its told by the USA.
Just as Starmer (or any other UK government) is unlikely to take on the USA, Canada’s Carney is not going to seriously take on the USA. There will be “elbows up” talk but no concrete, effective action. Trump is a crude fascist, Starmer and Carney are more sophisticated fascists. They seek the same goal.
I am nit sure….Carney will, I think, fight back.
Hard to disagree with any of your thoughts on this.
Listening this morning to the usual round of interviews, diplomacy was the main suggestion. I can see the sense in this, but fear that it would literally be a waste of time. Time that might be better spent standing up to Trump and his ‘gang’. He is a mendacious bully and will not listen to reason unless it is parcelled up with a large amount of money. It’s basically a protection racket which is unlawful, immoral and disgusting.
The only bright note of the morning was that all political shades here are saying that Trump is out of order. Even his pal, Farage. I always thought Farage would be undone by his admiration for Trump and Nigel seems to be worried about that as well.
Trump has shown contempt for diplomacy. The Chamberlain game is over.
One item that must be recognised, is the UK’s post BREXIT status – are we in or out or half way – whatever it will be needs to be well manged and clear to allies. I would like us to be in as much as we were before but without the Euro.
But really it’s about our status within Europe and the benefits and dis-benefits. My instinct – as I said – was to draw us closer to Europe because of the peace focus of what the EU was about (if the goods don’t flow over borders, the soldiers will). I also think that the EU needs to focus now a lot more on its social chapter in order to stem fascism within the eurozone. What happened to ‘social inclusion’ and all that? The ordo and Neo-liberals in the ECB need to be removed; the reality of dependency on America for security needs to be grasped, the zone needs to invest to save – and that means saving the peace and any semblance of democracy.
This is in total contrast to the U.S. way – warfare as trade which has got more and more unpretentious over the years as the U.S. has begun to forget about Vietnam. There is no velvet glove anymore over the iron fist; there is also no more guile. It’s naked grab-ism. Just like they have done to the native Indians, and latterly to ordinary American folk and the rest of us. This United States we are confronted with is the Southern Confederacy reborn and treating the world as its own private chattel. A line has got to be drawn somewhere and a big ‘No Thank You’ message delivered stateside. But Europe – already caught flat footed – needs time to get its act together first. It’s not when, but how?
I find myself listening to this great song almost daily. Penned by Stephen Stiills in his Buffalo Springfield days, For What It’s Worth seems to be of permanent relevance these days.
” There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
A-telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop
Children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Are getting so much resistance from behind
Time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and a-carrying signs
Mostly say hooray for our side
It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away”
You are right.
It may be worse.
Are we asking the right questions?
1% of the Epstein data has been released. Various arms of the US government (congress) has demanded the relase of the other 99%.
It has been suggested that the release of the data would destroy Trump and large parts of the US government (within both parties).
Greenland, Minneapolis and doubtless other “events” (Mexico next?) are being/will be used to deflect attention away from the Epstein saga.
It is worth noting that the saga & the abuse ran for +/- 3 decades: 1990s, 2000s, 2010s. Loads of people, lots of records & one man, now president deeply implicated and doing anything up to & including war to deflect attention. His minions will do the same, becuase if Trump goes, they go.
& if Greenland is so important – why did the US reduce its bases from ++10 to one? if the rare earths are so important why is nobody interested in mining them? (hint: cos it costs too much). When in trouble use, Blather, bullshit & deflection – i.e. the Trump way – now playing out on a world stage.
You are almost certianly right.
Very concisely and clearly put.
As an RAF kid, brought up on UK military bases (and one in Aden), with my brother born in RAF Colombo, Ceylon (as was), the point about US territorial claims on a fellow member of NATO, and military bases, is not lost on me. RAF Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Fairford, Alconbury, Menwith Hill, Croughton, to name a few -they have valuable housing and office space.
The USA is an unpredictable hostile destabilising state, led by a lawless dictator of unsound mind, threatening our trade and the territorial integrity of our allies. Apologies to the millions of very nice and generous US citizens – but he’s your elected leader, you have to get rid of him and all who think like him or enable him or fail to oppose his politics – J D Vance, plus almost all the Republicans, and most of the Democrats on Capitol Hill.
If our leaders cannot see this or they can see it but are incapable of responding coherently, then they should move aside.
And my final point, our media MUST hold the dishonourable fascist member for Mar-a-Lago South, Trump’s mini-me, Fa***e, accountable, in public, again and again, for the hostile intentions and actions of his orange-tinted lord and master. He runs press conferences often enough – but they give him too easy a ride, which is a serious culpable failure on their part, which will mean Starmer’s failure will simply be Reform UK Ltd.’s opportunity.
It wouldn’t take long to get Fa***e off balance. If waiting 2 minutes for Robert Jenrick to find the right floor in Millbank Tower (been there done that!) made him tetchy, think what a hostile press conference would do to expose this fifth columnist in our midst as the unbalanced sold-out political incompetent that he is.
We, as in the UK , Europe, probably the whole world except for China and Russia, have to stand up to the Mango Mussolini otherwise he will just keep going and keep going and keep going. He won’t stop with Greenland. He won’t stop with Canada or Cuba or any other country that he has mentioned. Yes, he is mad (mad as a box of frogs or whatever the saying is) and probably suffering from cognitive decline but he is very, very dangerous and I truly believe he would press the button.
This is scary, this is worrying and I do hope we can get through it and emerge with something better. But how the world reacts now will go a long way in determining that.
Craig
What strikes me reading this thread is how quickly we jump to the global drama while missing the deeper pattern underneath it. Authoritarianism abroad and neglect at home are not separate phenomena. They are two expressions of the same political instinct: the politics of might. Once a government decides that power matters more than people, everything else follows — whether it’s territorial threats, attacks on rights, or the quiet abandonment of those living in deprivation.
The UK is not insulated from this. We have spent more than a decade hollowing out the social foundations that make a democracy resilient: security, dignity, care, and the basic material conditions that allow people to participate as equals. A country that cannot guarantee food, warmth or stability to millions of its own citizens is already practising a domestic version of the same politics it claims to oppose internationally.
So yes, Europe must respond firmly to external threats. But unless we also rebuild a politics of care at home — one that treats deprivation as a national emergency rather than an accounting inconvenience — we will remain dangerously exposed. The politics of might thrives wherever care has been withdrawn.
Agreed
Starmer’s authoritarianism has been obvious since about 2020. Labour’s authoritarian tendencies have been evident long before that, and distressingly, some seem to have carried over into Your Party.
Authoritarianism was a characteristic of a fair bit of Tory gov’t’s since Cameron whistled his way off to pick up his ermine and lobby for Greensill – some very nasty legislation got passed by some nasty Home Secretaries.
When I mentioned this to friends_acquaintances, they tended to find it a bit embarrassing. Nowadays, they are more sympathetic to my “paranoia”.
I am, too 🙂
in the Guardian today – Jennifer Rankin in Brussels – “Emmanuel Macron, will urge the EU to use its powerful anti-coercion instrument if the US goes ahead with the tariffs in the standoff over Greenland, Agence France-Presse reported on Sunday, citing his team. The anti-coercion law, which has so far never been used, enables the EU to impose punitive economic measures on a country seeking to force a policy change.”
“The EU, according to diplomatic sources, is also considering reactivating €93bn counter tariffs against US goods that were drawn up in response to Trump’s previous economic threats, but suspended after the two sides struck –”
link to full article = https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/europe-diplomats-crisis-talks-trump-tariffs-greenland?CMP=share_btn_url
I think that you have already queried whether they will have the courage to stand up against him.
I would certainly choose the politics of care over the politics of might.
Dr. Murphy,
Please don’t give up on our democracy just yet. We have some very savvy, strong-willed, competent people here who are resisting in multifold peaceful ways, and there are many more good people in this country than there are of them.
God bless you for all you do. And thank you.
juju
I will never give up on democracy. Rest assured of that.
Its the UK establishment that is an emperor without clothes. You couldn’t really make it up – Richard and commentators here are suggesting we demolish the main pillars of our previously sacred ‘great power’ status based on the ‘special relationship’, the ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent, and all the rest of the vassalage status.
As was leaked re: Corbyn, no one who queried the US bases, NATO etc. would get the security clearance to be PM.
It is difficult to imagine how we could extract ourselves – get rid of US bases, disentangle the intelligence and security services that are full embedded inside the CIA – Mossad nexus,. stop Palantir hoovering up all our health and defence data , and getting out from under X, Meta, Amazon, etc etc
Simon Jenkins in the Guardian suggests ‘not panicking’ and playing Trump for time . Sounds a bit like Putin’s way of dealing with Trump – might be worth a try. Don’t give anything away – as Starmer has done – but draw things out and work out a way to begin disentangling from the US’s crushing embrace. But even to consider this feels like sedition – such has been our conditioning for the last 80 years.
Are you saying the US already selects our minsters?
I don’t know what kind of Bible these “Christians” surrounding Trump and have read, but it clearly isn’t the one I remember reading right through when I was 16. Although not ‘religious’ in the conventional sense, the Bible, along with many texts of other faiths, does contain many valuable ideas and tenets. Perhaps Trump needs to re-read Romans 13? Although I had to look it up just now to refresh my memory, I like verse 12 “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light”. (King James Bible). The light always defeats darkness.
One day, it will here, too.
Careful with Romans 13.1-9. Some rulers take that the way England’s Charles 1 did, as the divinely conferred right to rule (and like Ahab, or Manasseh, therefore rule without moral constraints – not forgetting David’s adultery and murder and Solomon’s pleonexia and sexual appetite).
It needs balancing with Peter’s “extremist” challenge in Acts 5.29, “we must obey God rather than human beings” which the then Jewish leaders in Jerusalem didn’t take kindly too, especially after Peter’s angelic jailbreak of Acts 5.19.
Some MAGA supporters see Trump as a modern Cyrus – anointed by God to deliver God’s people (Americans) and make America great again. This excuses his unChristian behaviour (fraud, sexual assault, dishonesty, genocide, piracy), because Cyrus was still “anointed” (chosen) despite being a pagan and not obeying Torah.
Others prefer to believe he is a genuine Christian, and either ignore his evil cruel actions, or claim they are permissible, given he is restoring Israel to its land and hastening the return of the Messiah.
I feel, when asked about the contradictions and awfulness of MAGA so-called Christianity, being myself a believing follower of Jesus, much the same way an ordinary Muslim does when asked if they will condemn Hamas or ISIS.
Tyrants and tyranny do fail. Some take longer than others to fall off their pedestals and choke on their hubris. Some empires take centuries to fall into ruin. But they do fall.
My sense is that, despite the strength of your argument, the UK and other governments are still most likely to react decisively only after a clear “loss event” – for example a failure by the US to respond to a NATO request, or a serious international crisis where US support proves conditional or absent. The danger is that such an event would force action precisely at the point when it is already too late to prepare properly. That is what makes the present moment so precarious: not disbelief about the risks, but the likelihood that recognition comes only after the damage has begun.
We’ve lived through genuinely dangerous moments: the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Able Archer scare in 1983, and the later phases of the Cold War when nuclear arsenals were larger and warning times shorter. Those periods carried a serious risk of catastrophe. But the dangers now feel much more acute.
I agree with your conclusion.
This is a very powerful and, frankly, terrifying analysis. You lay out the stark dichotomy between a politics of might and a politics of care with chilling clarity. The comparison to historical fascism and the specific policy suggestions, like the tax withholdings and the removal of US military bases from Europe, are the kind of bold, necessary ideas that need to be mainstreamed immediately.
I agree that the power here lies with Europe to formulate a coordinated, strong response. But my question for you and other readers is: what is the most effective, tangible first step for ordinary citizens in the UK and across Europe to pressure our own governments to adopt this kind of “politics of care” strategy and stand up to these threats, rather than offering the weak platitudes we’ve seen so far? Where does the public pressure need to be focused?
The first step is to stop treating this as theatre and start treating it as a contest over power and resources. Current neoliberal platitudes flourish precisely because they cost nothing. A politics of care only emerges when elected politicians believe their survival depends upon it.
So public pressure has to be aimed where it bites: consent, money, and legitimacy. In practical terms, that means three early priorities.
First, force political clarity. Citizens should demand that their MPs and MEPs (where relevant) state, explicitly, whether they support practical European defensive independence: coordinated procurement, energy security, digital resilience, and the fiscal capacity to fund it. Not just by standing with allies, but through concrete commitments. The point is to remove the option of hiding behind slogans.
Second, a focus on financial leverage is needed. Most European governments are still mentally captured by bond-market mythology. So the pressure point is the insistence that defence and resilience must not come at the cost of care, and that Europe should be willing to use the tools available: coordinated central bank action, public banking, capital controls if required, and the taxation of surplus wealth. In other words: no resort to austerity.
Third, organise locally but target nationally. The effective pressure does not come from online rage. It comes from coordinated constituent action: letters, surgeries, party motions, union engagement, local press, and relentless repetition of the same demand that security includes care. If enough marginal-seat MPs hear that their voters will not trade hospitals for missiles, the political calculus changes.
The public pressure needs to be focused on one message, which is that Europe must become power-ready without becoming cruel. That is the dividing line.
[…] was asked this question on the blog this […]
Over 12,000 US military personnel are permanently deployed across Britain
At 11 so-called “RAF” bases
They are all under the control of Donald Trump
We never voted for this
We need them to leave. Now
I am staggerred it is that few, given how many fly over me everyday.