The world is currently being treated to the spectacle of a man who views the planet as a Monopoly board, and the collective 'leadership' of the West responding with all the efficacy of a wet paper towel at a hurricane. Donald Trump, a man whose intellectual depth could be successfully navigated by a moderately athletic ant, has once again set his sights on Greenland. It is a repeat performance of a joke that wasn't funny the first time, yet here we are, watching the geopolitical equivalent of a senile landlord trying to evict an entire tectonic plate. The American president has apparently decided that international law is a quaint relic of a bygone era, much like his own grasp of basic geography, stating that the only constraint on his power is his 'own morality'—a phrase that should terrify anyone who understands that his moral compass is currently spinning wildly toward a gold-plated toilet.

Enter Gordon Brown, the UN’s special envoy for global education and a man who spent his tenure as UK Prime Minister looking like he was perpetually trying to remember if he’d left the stove on. Brown has emerged from the crypt of centrist irrelevance to pen a frantic missive in the Guardian, mourning the 'liberal rules-based order.' It’s a touching sentiment, if you ignore the fact that the 'rules-based order' has largely been a system where the powerful do what they want and the weak get lectured in iambic pentameter. Brown speaks of 'inspired leadership' and 'coalitions of the willing,' as if the solution to a billionaire bully with a penchant for annexation is a very long, very boring PowerPoint presentation. It is the classic liberal delusion: that if we just find the right words and the right committee, the shark will stop eating the tourists and take up yoga.

The absurdity is total. On one side, we have the MAGA-fied GOP, a collection of sycophants who would cheer if the president suggested towing the moon closer to Florida to improve the tides. They view Greenland not as a sovereign territory or a delicate ecosystem, but as a strategic ice-cube they can melt for mineral rights. It’s the ultimate expression of the American right’s greed—a desire to own things simply because they exist and because someone else currently has them. They have abandoned the pretense of supporting 'territorial integrity' because, in their world, integrity is just something that happens to other people's bank accounts. If Trump wants a massive block of ice, his followers will spend the next week explaining why the Vikings actually wanted us to have it.

On the other side, we have the European 'chorus of resistance,' led by Keir Starmer, a man who has managed to make the color beige look adventurous. Starmer and his ilk are 'concerned.' They are 'monitoring the situation.' They are issuing statements that have the caloric density of steam. They cling to the idea that the US was once a 'champion of human rights and democracy,' a historical hallucination that ignores several decades of Latin American coups and Middle Eastern quagmires. The 'rules-based order' wasn't killed by Trump; he’s just the guy who finally decided to stop pretending the rules applied to him. Brown and Starmer are like museum curators trying to protect a vase that was shattered twenty years ago, insisting that if they just glue the pieces back together, we can all go back to the 1990s.

The reality is that the 2020s are shaping up to be a race between terminal stupidity and terminal bureaucracy. Trump’s 'morality' is a black hole where diplomacy goes to die, and the international community’s response is to form a sub-committee to discuss the ethics of the event. We are being asked to choose between a man who thinks he can buy a country like it’s a failing casino and a group of retired politicians who think 'education' is a weapon against a man who hasn't read a book since the Reagan administration. It is a pathetic, grinding stalemate. The liberal order isn't 'crumbling'—it’s been a facade for years, and the only thing Trump has done is kick the drywall in. Meanwhile, the 'coalition of the willing' is likely to be a coalition of the helpless, meeting in expensive hotels to lament the death of a system that only ever existed in their own press releases. Humanity deserves better, but given the current options, we’ll probably just get more tariffs and a lot of very sternly worded op-eds while the Arctic melts and the world’s most powerful man looks for a 'For Sale' sign big enough to stick in a glacier.