If you listen closely to the wind whistling through the pristine, money-scented peaks of the Swiss Alps, you can hear the distinct sound of irony dying a painful, strangulated death. The World Economic Forum is upon us once again—that annual pilgrimage where the architects of global misery fly in on private jets to lecture the peasantry about carbon footprints while sipping champagne that costs more than your car. But this year, the circus has an added layer of greasepaint: the looming arrival of Donald Trump and the pyrotechnic welcome committee waiting for him.

Reports confirm that protesters in Switzerland have taken to the streets to burn the American flag, a gesture so trite and retro that one almost expects them to start handing out tie-dye shirts and playing Creedence Clearwater Revival on a loop. ‘Trump not welcome,’ they chant, as if the President of the United States—a man whose entire psyche is fueled by negative attention—is going to see a charred piece of polyester and suddenly develop a conscience. The performative outrage of the European Left is, as always, a adorable exercise in futility. They stand there in their North Face jackets, manufactured by the very corporate overlords they claim to despise, burning a symbol of a country that effectively subsidizes their defense budgets, screaming into the void while the motorcades roll by with tinted windows and heated seats.

But let us not pretend that the target of their ire is any less ridiculous. The catalyst for this specific round of Alpine angst is, remarkably, the President’s recent, genuine attempt to purchase Greenland from Denmark. Read that sentence again. Let it marinate in the deepest, most cynical recesses of your brain. In the year of our Lord twenty-twenty-something, the leader of the free world is navigating international diplomacy like he’s playing a particularly aggressive game of Monopoly with a cheat code. He looked at a map, saw a massive chunk of ice and rock, and presumably thought, 'You know what that place needs? A gold-plated hotel and a branding deal.' It is the geopolitical equivalent of a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving trying to buy the neighbor’s cat because he thinks it looks 'tremendous.'

This is the state of our reality: a collision between an immovable object of bureaucratic absurdity and an unstoppable force of narcissistic delusion. The Europeans are clutching their pearls, shocked—shocked!—that the American President views sovereign nations as distressed assets in a real estate portfolio. The Danish Prime Minister called the idea 'absurd,' which is a polite diplomatic way of saying, 'Are you high?' But Trump isn't high; he is simply the id of capitalism unleashed, stripped of all the polite fictions that usually govern the World Economic Forum. While the rest of the Davos attendees pretend their greed is actually 'stakeholder capitalism,' Trump puts the price tag on the table. He is the monster they created, stripped of the mask, wanting to buy the scenery while the rest of them just want to rent it.

The Swiss protesters, bless their naive hearts, believe that burning a flag sends a message. It doesn’t. It merely provides B-roll footage for cable news networks to terrify geriatrics in Florida. It validates the narrative that Europe is a continent of ungrateful socialists, which in turn fuels the very nationalism the protesters claim to fight. It is a symbiotic relationship of stupidity. The flag burners need the brash American villain to feel morally superior; the brash American villain needs the 'radical' mobs to justify his isolationism. They deserve each other. They are dancing a tango of mutual destruction on the side of a mountain while the glaciers melt around them.

And that brings us back to the setting: Switzerland. The land of neutrality, chocolate, and Nazi gold. It is rich—rich in a way that transcends mere wealth—to see moral posturing in a country that has made a national sport out of looking the other way while holding the world’s dirty money. The protesters are burning the flag of the United States to protest imperialism and greed, standing on soil that acts as the vault for the world’s kleptocrats. The cognitive dissonance is loud enough to trigger an avalanche.

So, as the private jets descend and the smoke from the burnt flags dissipates into the crisp Alpine air, nothing will change. The billionaires will network, the politicians will lie, the protesters will go home feeling self-righteous, and Greenland will remain Danish—at least until the ice melts enough for the oil companies to claim it without needing a deed. We are watching a play where every character is the villain, the script makes no sense, and the audience is paying for the production with their dignity. Welcome to Davos. Burn whatever you want; the world is already on fire.