Old Kiwi in Oz

Patiently waiting for Trump to stroke-out on his gilded toilet.

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@atrupar @joncoopertweets Canada should immediately close its consulate in DC and expel US ambassador.

[Just Steve @StephenColley18]

@Acyn

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@SenAdamSchiff And pay Trumps tariffs? You need to clean up your country

[Sarrah Bellus @sarrah_bellus]

F**cking epic. Meet Kristen Welker. She just did what all self-respecting reporters need to do. She pushed back. And the Cunt of Mostly Crisco had an epic meltdown and walked off set. Ok, less “walked.”More “staggered.” Ah, I love the smell of burning diapers in the morning.

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@ZealandEarly 20 years in NZ, Kiwi kids. Afghans are the world’s worst bickies. I mean terrible, main body is bitter cocoa powder, dry enough to choke you, overly sweet icing gets hard and falls off, then a walnut? Blech!!!

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

Orban’s security have tried to stop people filming his massive country estate. The police showed up when I was reporting in his village. That’s because he lives like a corrupt oligarch whilst claiming to be a man of the people.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with an American who genuinely believed Europe and Canada would help the United States in its war with Iran. I asked him why he thought that, given that Trump had spent months threatening to annex Canada and seize Greenland. He went quiet. Then he said he had never heard of any of that.

Not that he disagreed. Not that he thought it was exaggerated. He had simply never encountered the information. It had never arrived.

This is worth pausing on. Because in every other functioning democracy on earth, that information would have been impossible to avoid. Not because Europeans are smarter or more curious. But because of how news works outside the United States. The BBC and The Daily Telegraph hate each other. Le Monde and Le Figaro disagree on everything. Aftenposten and Dagbladet have been arguing since before most of their readers were born. But they all cover the same events. A threat to annex Canada is not a left-wing story or a right-wing story. It is a story. It runs everywhere. You hear it on the radio driving to work. You see it on the newsstand. Your colleague mentions it at lunch. Facts are not a channel you choose. They are the weather. You step outside and they hit you.

The only media ecosystems on earth that work differently are not political opposites of each other. They are North Korea and Russia. Not because the content resembles MAGA content. But because the architecture is the same. In all three cases, outside information does not get filtered or reinterpreted. It gets blocked at the door. A completely parallel reality is built inside, maintained by repetition, and sealed from correction.

This is why the rest of the world does not just disagree with MAGA voters on foreign policy. It finds them genuinely disorienting to talk to. Not offensive. Disorienting. Like speaking to someone who is absolutely certain the building has two floors when you are standing on the third.

Which brings us to today’s masterclass. And this screenshot says everything.

A Trump supporter posted: “Absolute masterclass by Trump. He got the Strait open without any help from Europe and without any boots on the ground.”

That post was written on the same day a refinery on Lavan Island burned for hours after the ceasefire was announced. On the same day Iran’s own official statement read “this does not signify the termination of the war.” On the same day Iran kept its toll system, its uranium program, its protocol over the strait, and walked away with sanctions relief and reconstruction aid.

The post is not stupid. It is not written by a bad person. It is written by someone who received a completely different set of facts than the rest of the world did. And from inside that information environment, with only that data, the conclusion is perfectly logical.

That is what makes it so unsettling. It is not ignorance. It is a sealed universe, doing exactly what sealed universes do.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@AJamesMcCarthy It’s a free world but processing a jpeg is a party trick for Twitter. Get the raw file and then we are talking

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@AJamesMcCarthy Hmmmm….contentious point. I can’t detect any loss of quality with my mirrorless viewfinder as compared to the optical viewfinder it replaced.
Some of the manual focus aides in fact have improved my work.

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@MetalheadRen @thejackhopkins Your math is incorrect, in Oz we are paying $3.11/litre or $11.77/US gallon.

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

No president in modern history has used the office to enrich himself the way Donald Trump has. That's not a political opinion. It’s the conclusion of ethics watchdogs who have spent their careers watching this stuff.

The crypto ventures. The foreign deals with the Saudis, the Qataris, the Emiratis. The $400 million Qatari jet. The $90 million in media settlements. The gold golf balls from the Japanese.

This is the man who told you he was going to clean up Washington.

For this President, the presidency isn’t about protecting our democracy or the public trust. It’s about turning the highest office in the land into a personal cash register, and he’s been doing it from day one.

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@RonFilipkowski We are preparing to run out of fuel in Australia as a result of your pedophile president. Clean up your mess.

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@JoJoFromJerz @Acyn Rich people from all walks of life vote to get richer.

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@JustinWolfers Learned to tie a ‘tie’ from a cub scout book.

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

BURGUM: “That will lower the price of gas for Americans…”

TRUMP: “Forget that, when is Venezuela gonna do the statue (of me)?”

Trump in a nutshell 🥜 ⬆️

[Just Jack @7Veritas4]

Iran won’t give him any clean off-ramps.

They can terrorize the strait for short money and hold the US and global economies hostage.

Trump is now realizing what his predecessors already knew.

In his arrogance, stupidity and desperation to distract from his pedophile scandals, he forged ahead and kicked the hornets nest.

Now the hornets will decide when it ends.

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@Acyn @MeidasTouch Again, Warner can barely compose a sentence. Frustratin.

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@cspan @SenatorBennet @DCIARatcliffe Senator can barely speak.

[Old Kiwi in Oz @JohnWMorrison1]

@TheRealThelmaJ1 We are paying $2.70/litre, which is $10.22/US gallon.

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016, and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic and depraved he is.
I don’t wonder anymore. I think he won for that exact reason. Because he carried at least one broken shard to reflect the broken shards in millions of others.
If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy.
If you’ve never done a single hour of emotional inventory, you found your guy. If you cheat, stiff contractors, bankrupt your obligations, and call it savvy, you found your guy. If you lie as easily as you breathe, you found your guy. If cruelty feels like strength, you found your guy. If white grievance is your comfort food, you found your guy. If your ego is a black hole no title can fill, you found your guy. If warmongering fuels your ego, you found your guy, If empathy feels like weakness and dominance feels like oxygen, you found your guy.
If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it.
It was never really about him. It was about the validation. The absolution. The permission. He didn’t invent the resentment; he amplified it. He didn’t create the cruelty; he normalized it. He gave millions the intoxicating relief of hearing their ugliest impulses echoed back at rally volume.
Trump is a symptom. The deeper illness is collective. If there’s one sentence that defines his power, it’s this: “He says the things I’m thinking.”
And that’s the part that should chill us.
Because what does it say about us that so many were thinking those things? That tens of millions of Americans harbored resentments so deep, so seething, that they were simply waiting for a demagogue to baptize them as virtue? That after decades of supposed progress on race, gender, and equality, so many white men felt so threatened, so displaced, so furious, that cruelty became a political platform?
Maybe we were living in a fool’s paradise, mistaking silence for healing, politeness for progress.
Now the mask is off. Now we know.
And knowing is a far more dangerous place to stand.
– Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.