Trump's spat with the UK reveals the bottomless depths of his insecurities
Inept and dysfunctional are two of the more diplomatic words you could choose to describe the Trump administration.
Colossally moronic and self-defeating might be more accurate, but would surely count as a tad unvarnished.
So it is more than a little ironic that the British ambassador to Planet Trump should have turned into the diplomatic equivalent of the walking dead for saying what the entire world (outside the Oval Office) knows to be true about the 45th president of the United States.
If there were lifetime Oscars for stating the blindingly obvious, Sir Kim Darroch would surely need to prepare his acceptance speech for reporting that Donald Trump was “radiating insecurity.”
Trump radiates insecurity much like the Chernobyl reactor scatters gamma rays: obviously and without regard to anyone’s safety.
If there were any dispute about Darroch’s statements of fact, Trump himself – God bless his colossally moronic and self-defeating nature – confirmed them with a couple of tweets.
Related: Donald Trump: UK ambassador is 'a very stupid guy' – live updates
Yes, tweets: that most statesmanlike forum in which to rebuke the rowdy rabble of rejects, losers and lowly ambassadors.
“I do not know the Ambassador but he is not liked or well thought of in the US,” tweeted the commander-in-chief. “We will no longer deal with him.”
Admit it: you don’t even notice this mindless stream of consciousness any more. It’s like the sight of a garbage truck crushing a street’s worth of kitchen waste. You have chosen to avert your gaze.
For good measure, and to complete the historical record, Trump explained his Cyrano de Bergerac-style insults with some context about British leadership.
“I have been very critical about the way the UK and Prime Minister Theresa May handled Brexit,” the presidential thumbs typed for our pleasure. “What a mess she and her representatives have created. I told her how it should be done, but she decided to go another way.”
Sorry to break this to you, Mr President, but you’re not the only one to be struck with this precious insight. There are pub bores in Birmingham that could have told you this some time ago.
“While I thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent State Visit last month,” Trump concluded, “it was the Queen who I was most impressed with!”
You and the rest of Britain. From the surviving Sex Pistols to the intellectuals who want to end the monarchy. It’s a low bar right now, but they’re hoping it’s temporary.
In the real world that exists beyond the sofas on the set of Fox and Friends, the British ambassador is nothing if not a world-class diplomat.
For years Darroch has blended into the background with a blandness as forgettable as Theresa May’s keynote speeches. Until the last few days, he left no footprint visible to future historians.
He entertained a scrupulously bipartisan crowd on mind-numbingly frequent occasions, just like all his predecessors. He organized a state visit that was most memorable for the set of ill-fitting tails Trump obviously snatched from the nearest thrift store.
If he was not liked or well thought of, it is a mystery why Trump’s own staffers enjoyed all the free drinks and food offered at Darroch’s residence for the last couple of years.
Of course the leaking of Darroch’s emails are embarrassing. But not nearly as embarrassing as president who can’t distinguish his friends from his foes.
Is there a loyal American ally left in the world who has been treated with as much love and affection as the Stalinist tyrant of North Korea? And no, the bone saw-wielding Saudis don’t count.
Even in normal times, diplomacy is surely one of the least diplomatic jobs in the world. Behind a veneer of insincerity lie the cold realities of powerful countries abusing their inferiors – or worse, ignoring them altogether. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it mostly is.
In the old days, the diplomats themselves could compensate for all the simmering resentment and ritual abuse by sharing precious intelligence with the bosses back home. But that was before the bosses could read The New York Times online or read all the tweets from an unhinged foreign leader.
Back in the days of the bromance between Bush and Blair, London’s instructions to its Washington ambassador could not have been more clear. “We want you to get up the arse of the White House and stay there,” said the prime minister’s chief of staff.
This isn’t exactly what the British like to call the special relationship between the two old allies. It’s not what most people would consider much of a relationship at all.
But it has been the reality of the transatlantic alliance since World War Two. The Brits used to balance this sycophancy with some pro-European blather and a bloody-minded sense of cultural superiority.
At least that’s the basis for the only half-stirring moment of joy in the otherwise abominable Love Actually: that cathartic point when a British prime minister tells an American president to get his dirty hands off his love interest, actually. It’s all so very Rule Britannia.
Back in the fantasy world that is Trump’s so-called diplomacy, the Brits are now faced with two miserable options, much like its choices of how to leave the EU.
Either London admits its impotence and forces Darroch out of his job early. Or it leaves him in place with a president who treats him like he ought to treat a bone saw-wielding Saudi or an email-hacking Russian.
Naturally Trump has already chosen Darroch’s successor, as well as May’s for that matter. He long ago suggested Nigel Farage should be his British ambassador to himself, and Boris Johnson to be his Churchill.
If that doesn’t work out, he can always carve up Europe, Yalta-style, with his best friend in Moscow. That should teach the unpopular ambassador a thing or two about diplomacy.
Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist
