Hang ‘Em High!

If 2026 was a classic Hollywood western, right about now some lone cowboy would be riding into Big Boss Trump’s town – the one that he has under his thumb via extortion, corruption, an army of hired guns and a bought and paid for Sheriff – trying to mind his own business, but finding himself forced to face down the town tyrant and his minions. According to tradition, he’d have to start by going into the local saloon and calling out Trump’s chief henchman for cheating at cards, resulting in them stepping out into the street and finding out who is the fastest gun. From there, we’d go through all the clichés of under threat lady ranchers being rescued, backstreet beatings, attempts at back-shooting the hero, before the honest citizens of the town finally rally round the hero and rise up to run that land-grabbing, cattle rusting, stagecoach robbing varmint Trump out of town. Doubtless it would culminate with cowardly Trump holding that lady rancher hostage, hiding behind his hired guns, before the heroic cow poke guns them all down, rescues the girl once more and packs Trump off to await trial and an inevitable verdict of ‘Hang ’em high!’, then riding off vowing to bring down Trump’s buddy ‘Mean Vlad’, evil boss of the next town to the east.

Sadly, though, the reality of 2026 isn’t that simple and there are no obvious candidates to act as that lone cowboy willing to strap on his guns and do what a man has to do to deal with that international bully, Trump’s America. After all, in the face of Trump’s decision to run a bulldozer through international legal conventions, (again), by kidnapping the president of Venezuela, then declaring that the US was going to  ‘run’ Venezuela, which kicked off the year, the reaction of other world leaders was typically lily livered. Take Keir Starmer as an example – he refused to actually condemn the incident until he had ‘all the facts’, whilst simultaneously telling us that he is a lifelong advocate of international law.  Well, Keir, if the abducting of a foreign leader, the violation of another nation’s sovereignty, the threat to seize its natural resources and direct its government isn’t a pretty clear violation of, at the very least, Article Two of the UN Charter, then I’m really not sure what might be,  But hey, I’m not a lawyer – but Starmer is and quite clearly knows all of this.  (Hiding behind the fact that the legitimacy of Maduro’s presidency is highly questionable does nothing to justify the US’ illegal actions here – Maduro is Venezuela’s problem to deal with, not Trump’s).

Which brings us back to that western analogy – in simple terms, Trump’s actions were a land grab, aimed at intimidating some rancher into allowing him to take their cattle whenever he feels like it. Or exploiting that waterhole – the only one for miles – on that rancher’s land, for the benefit of his own ranch. A bit like Forrest Tucker in Chisum (1970), who not only forces smaller ranchers off of their land so that he can buy it cheaply, but also makes out sure that he controls the only local stores and banks, to better exploit the locals – US trade and foreign policy in a nutshell. Luckily, in Chisum, they have salvation in form of heroic rival rancher John Wayne, (although the real John Chisum wasn’t historically a do-gooding philanthropist, but an equally rapacious capitalist who happily employed the likes of Billy the Kid to help eliminate his rival, before failing to pay them and having them declared outlaws). Now, I know that, in actuality, we aren’t living in the lawless Old West and I know all the arguments about diplomacy and the need not to upset Trump because of our need to maintain trade and defence ties, but surely there has to come a point at which you can no longer trade these things off against the maintenance of international law?  Surely we must be at the point where we can ask our leaders to stand up to the likes of Trump, regardless of possible repercussions, in the name of maintaining internation law and standards of decency and conduct?

Because the reality of the current situation is that Trump and his ilk are, in effect, trying to destroy the principles of international law, indeed the whole concept of the ‘rule of law’ which applies universally both domestically and internationality and return the whole world to a state of lawlessness akin to the Old West. Let’s not forget that, in the wake of his Venezuelan atrocity, Trump renewed his threats to seize Greenland from Denmark and has broadened his targets to include Colombia and Mexico – and has now started a destabilising war in the Middle East by bombing Iran.  These are threats which really should now be taken very seriously.  So, if we don’t stand up to them more forcefully now, then we might find ourselves forced to resort to calling him out for cheating at cards (or golf) and out drawing him on the street. But where, exactly does the world go from here?  I’ve said before that we need to start boycotting and isolating the US which, if not clear before, is quite obviously a lawless rogue state devoted to disrupting the world order.  Maybe we now need to go further.  Perhaps, following our western motif, the civilised world should put a bounty on the heads of Trump and his cronies – every bounty hunter, mercenary, terrorist and crazy homicidal bastard could converge on the US, intent upon delivering the heads of Trump, Vance, Hegseth et al to the International Criminal Court.  Maybe Mexico, now that it is under direct threat, could do a reverse Magnificent Seven and recruit seven of the country’s top gunfighters to go north of the border and sort Trump and his bandidos out once and for all.  (Although I suspect that they’ll want more than twenty dollars apiece for the job).

But maybe, just maybe, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. It was notable that during the recent diplomatic crisis over Trump’s threats to seize Greenland, the Danes and some other European leaders finally made a stand on the issue – even Keir Starmer chimed in on their side – apparently forcing Trump to back down.  Moreover, despite his various vacillations and diplomatic contortions, Starmer has also voiced criticism of the Trump gang’s latest moves against Iran, questioning their legality and restricting US use of UK-based air bases with regard to the operation, (you just know that Starmer has done the right thing here because of the gleeful way the UK’s right-wing press – completely misreading the mood of the room – have reported all of Trump’s criticisms of him in huge headlines). Some European nations have gone further, with Trump now raging and ranting against Spain, whose government has had the audacity not just to condemn the attacks on Iran, but also to point blank refuse to allow the US to use any air bases in Spain. These are small steps and, to have any weight, they have to be backed up with further actions. But it’s a start. Maybe we can run this bushwhacker out of town yet.

Doc Sleaze