King Charles while listening to Donald Trump

I have finally deactivated my X account. This was the day after Elon Musk attempted to deactivate our democracy. Musk’s sin was greater than mine but having an X account still felt unclean.

I should have gone long ago. The app was removed from my iPhone a while back but left on my laptop where it languished mostly unseen, aside from guilty peeks.

Twitter was quite good when I joined. Then Musk bought it, changed the name and started using his immense wealth to further far-right causes, stirring up hatred and rancour.

Last weekend, Musk beamed into Tommy Robinson’s far right march in London (and, yes, it was far right – calling it anything else is to normalise hatred).

Appearing on screen rather than in person, Musk called for a “dissolution of parliament” and a “change of government”. He said other inflammatory things I do not wish to repeat, ending with: “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth, I think.”

Whatever you think of Sir Keir Starmer, the tech billionaire should pipe down. It’s just not his concern.

Why should we have to put up with Musk, an awful man of fathomless wealth and scant scruple? The tech billionaire briefly went on a blind date with Nigel Farage, only to declare him not extreme enough. He turned his affections towards Robinson, a convicted criminal who is really called Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon.

The only benefit in all this lay in seeing the hubristic smirk wiped off Farage’s face.

Our politics seem to be becoming increasingly American these days, partisan, shouty and belligerent. I used to be such a fan of American cultural imports, of the literature (Saul Bellow was a great favourite, F Scott Fitzgerald too), the TV shows (The Wire, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, ER), and the films (anything good by the Coen Brothers…). But I could do without the politics.

Musk is behind attempts to turn conservative activist Charlie Kirk into a Christian nationalist martyr, urging his millions of followers to “fight or die” (his script is consistent, if nothing else).

Like many Brits, I knew nothing about Kirk until he was shot. After his assassination I discovered all sorts of stuff I wish I’d never known. His views were vile, racist, homophobic, gun crazy and designed to stir up hatred among the young.

President Trump, who considered Kirk a key ally, immediately blamed the ‘radical left’ for the shooting, despite having zero evidence. Yet another reminder that US presidents once at least attempted to bring the country together: now it’s hate first and think later, or not at all.

In the US right now it is almost a crime to say anything critical about Kirk, or just to appear insufficiently mournful about his death. Even quoting from the horrid list of things he used to say is treasonous and an invitation to be sacked.

Just ask former Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, who says she was let go for, as she put it, “speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns”.

Now I encounter a difficulty at this point. I have never read anything by Attiah and know little about her. Much as I have rarely watched the US TV host and comedian Jimmy Kimmell, who has just been suspended from his late-night show for criticising Trump.

Someone who does know about all this is President Obama, as quoted here:

“After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like. This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent – and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.”

And what Totalitarian Trumpington doing while all this was going on? He was being feted by our royal family and prime minister on a state visit, that’s what. A curious occasion and quite low-key for such glistered gladhanding, with the Trumps kept away from political settings, London and from any likelihood of protest.

Mind you, the Led By Donkey guys did manage to project images of Trump alongside Jeffrey Epstein on to Windsor Castle on Tuesday. For which stunt they were arrested. “Orwellian” and “ridiculous”, said the group, and they’re not wrong.

I cannot see why this visit went ahead, what we gained from giving the spare room to such a troublesome guest, and why we had to endure the usual stale Trumpian lectures, as parroted in this Daily Mail headline.

Still it was a minor treat to witness King Charles frowning and trying not to giggle as Trump read this encomium from his speech: “He’s given his whole heart and everything he’s got to the parts of Britain that are beyond the realm of mere legislation.”

The King looked as puzzled as the rest of us.

Trump, being Trump, couldn’t resist the usual childish prattle, saying: “We had a very sick country one year ago and today, I believe we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world, in fact nobody is even questioning that.”

That’ll be down to that global warming you insist doesn’t exist.

Here, to end, is a cartoon by Jack Ohman as borrowed from Daily Kos on Threads.