It was a moment that, even in the era of Donald Trump, remained a rarity. On an open stage, under the full spotlight of the NATO summit in the Netherlands, political seriousness dissolved completely - with just one single, adoringly inappropriate word: "Daddy."
Mark Rutte, the new NATO Secretary General and former Dutch Prime Minister, stood beside Trump like a man who had just declared his dignity a diplomatic bargain-bin item. While Trump listened to his own stream of speech - a brew of obscenities, finger-pointing, and his usual "they violated my ceasefire" whining - arms crossed and smugly grinning, Rutte visibly struggled to sell the global audience some form of political coherence. And then he said it: He understood Trump’s "emotional reaction" - after all, the President of the United States was "the daddy of the peace process." The reaction didn’t take long. Trump beamed as if someone had just gifted him another golf course. Minutes later, a post appeared on Truth Social: "CALL ME DADDY 😎🇺🇸" - an entry that instantly became a viral cringe moment. Even conservative commentators who usually defend Trump called it "embarrassing hero worship" and an "unacceptable misuse of institutional roles."
But in truth, it was much more than just a cringeworthy moment. It was a symptom. A symptom of how international diplomacy in the Trump era has turned into a stage for vanity, flattery, and symbolic kowtowing. That a NATO Secretary General - a man whose task it is to hold a defense alliance together in times of war - voluntarily resorts to infantile imagery to flatter a hot-tempered US President says more about the state of the alliance than any summit document. Because this summit was actually about war and peace - about Iran, Israel, ceasefires, drones, sanctions. Instead, a scene dominated that would have fit better in a badly scripted late-night show. A president who wants to be called "Daddy." A NATO chief who sells this as strategic communication. And a global public that shakes its head in disbelief - or reaches for the meme folder.
The tragedy lies in the details: in the choice of words that replaces all diplomatic decorum with buddy-buddy lingo. In the self-staging of a president who prefers to be celebrated as an uncontrollable alpha male rather than as a guarantor of global order. And in a West that appears willing to surrender to populism to the point of linguistic decay. If "Daddy" is now the title for the self-proclaimed savior of world peace, then we shouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the world soon switches to "Goodbye."
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