There are historic moments that shake humanity: the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall - and now the escalator apocalypse of New York. Donald J. Trump, president, martyr, allegedly the most stable genius of all time, entered the United Nations not with diplomacy but with a \u201cTriple Sabotage\u201d thriller. The stage: the glass palace on the East River. The weapons: an escalator, a teleprompter, a loudspeaker. The circle of perpetrators: presumably the world conspiracy that has been working for years to steal Trump\u2019s show. First the attack on the open escalator: the steel beast came to a screeching halt as if it had decided against its passenger. Trump later described in biblical gravity how he and Melania had almost been hurled onto the \u201csharp steel teeth.\u201d Only the iron grip on the handrail had saved the presidential couple from a disgraceful end in the spirals of the UN machine. The world breathed a sigh of relief, gravity had lost - this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hardly had the president recovered from the stair trauma when the second conspiracy struck: the teleprompter went out. \u201cStone cold dark\u201d - the teleprompter was completely dead, without image or display - Trump lamented, as if the sun had been stolen from him. That of all things the White House was responsible for operating the device was immediately relegated to a footnote. In Trump\u2019s cosmos, machines do not shut down by chance - they are struck down by hostile hands. A dead screen as an assassination attempt on freedom of speech. But the worst was yet to come: when Trump thundered into the hall, he said the sound was \u201ccompletely off.\u201d Only those with headphones and interpreters could hear his words - an affront of the highest order. Melania, Trump said, had not understood anything. What is a statesman without the echo of his own wife? A victim. And victims, the man from Queens knows, deserve investigations, prosecutions, preferably special tribunals. \u201cTriple sabotage,\u201d he thundered, demanding the release of UN surveillance videos, as if it were Watergate 2.0, only with an escalator and power strips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the rest of the world shrugged its shoulders, Trump declared the episode an international intrigue. The UN - a nest of saboteurs. The Europeans - traitors anyway. The Russians - in the text of course to blame. Out of three technical mishaps a new charter of conspiracy was born, an atlas of malice against the chosen one. Thus what remains of the 80th General Assembly is not his speech about wars, climate crises or poverty, but the image of a president who sees himself pursued by stairs, light bulbs and loudspeakers. The world might \u201cgo to hell,\u201d he proclaimed. And perhaps the UN building thought silently: the escalator was only self-defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n