There is a particular brand of psychological torture reserved for those of us forced to monitor the intellectual sewage of the 21st century, and it usually involves the intersection of a narcissistic strongman and a group of retired dignitaries who still believe that 'norms' have the structural integrity of steel. Recently, the airwaves of NPR—that bastion of soft-spoken existential dread—hosted Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and current chair of 'The Elders.' They were discussing Donald Trump’s proposed 'Board of Peace.' If the title doesn’t make you want to walk into the sea, you haven't been paying attention. The Board of Peace is the latest branding exercise from a man whose previous contributions to tranquility include inciting a riot at his own workplace and treating the nuclear triad like a set of shiny toys he found in a cereal box.

Let’s start with 'The Elders.' The name alone suggests a council of hooded figures guarding a glowing crystal in a high-fantasy novel, or perhaps a very expensive brand of artisanal supplements for the over-seventy crowd. Founded by Nelson Mandela, this group represents the collective sigh of a dying international order. They are the professional worried-class, traveling the globe to express 'deep concern' as if concern were a currency that could actually pay for the de-escalation of a drone strike. Mary Robinson, with all the polite gravity of a librarian watching a frat party burn down the library, attempted to analyze the 'Board of Peace' with the tools of traditional diplomacy. It is a noble, yet utterly futile, endeavor. You cannot use a protractor to measure the depth of a hallucination.

Trump’s proposed Board is, in reality, a performative purge disguised as a Dove commercial. The plan involves a board of retired senior military personnel who would have the power to review three- and four-star generals and recommend their removal for lacking 'leadership qualities.' In Trump-speak, 'leadership' is a synonym for 'unwavering personal loyalty to a man who thinks exercise drains a finite battery of life force.' It is the Orweillian dream made flesh: a Board of Peace designed to ensure that the military is sufficiently subservient to initiate whatever chaotic whim strikes the Commander-in-Chief at 3:00 AM. Peace, in this context, is simply the silence that follows the total elimination of dissent.

On the one side, we have the Right, which has fully embraced the aesthetic of the junta. They view the military not as a professional institution bound by the Constitution, but as a personal praetorian guard. They want to fire the 'woke' generals—which is shorthand for anyone who understands that international treaties aren't just suggestions written on a cocktail napkin. They crave a military that looks like a 1980s action movie, ignoring the fact that the man leading them couldn’t find his way out of a wet paper bag without a golf cart and a team of lawyers. Their 'Board of Peace' is a HR department for autocracy, a mechanism to ensure that the only voices in the Situation Room are the echoes of the President’s own insecurities.

On the other side, we have the Left and the Global Establishment, represented here by the well-meaning but utterly toothless Robinson. They speak of 'institutions' and 'international law' with a religious fervor that ignores the last twenty years of reality. They believe that if they just explain the 'consequences' of these actions clearly enough, the populist wave will suddenly realize it's being uncouth and go home. Robinson’s worry is palpable, but what is she going to do? Issue a sternly worded press release? The Elders are the geopolitical equivalent of a 'Live, Laugh, Love' sign hanging in a war zone. They represent a world that functioned on shame, forgetting that we have entered an era where shame has been successfully bred out of the political gene pool.

What NPR and Robinson fail to grasp—or perhaps what they are too polite to say—is that the Board of Peace is not a policy; it is a symptom. It is the final stage of a society that has given up on the complexity of governance in favor of the simplicity of the purge. We are witnessing the systematic dismantling of the guardrails, and we are being asked to debate whether the wrecking ball is painted a pleasing shade of 'peaceful' blue. The absurdity of a man who once suggested nuking a hurricane now proposing a board to oversee military 'peace' should be enough to trigger a global comedy festival. Instead, we get somber interviews on public radio.

In the end, we are left with a choice between two equally exhausting delusions. We can believe Trump’s lie that this board is about efficiency and 'winning,' or we can believe the Elders' lie that the old world can be saved by a few more rounds of high-level dialogue. Both are fantasies. The reality is a slow slide into a custom-built authoritarianism where 'Peace' is just the name of the boot that’s pressing down on the neck of the future. So, let us all raise a glass to the Board of Peace. May it be as effective as a paper umbrella in a hurricane, and may the Elders continue to watch the world burn with the most distinguished and dignified of expressions. It’s all we deserve.