As I think I’ve mentioned before, every morning as I drink my first coffee, I’ve fallen into watching clips of Stephen Colbert on The Daily Show from the night before. It seems like a good way of catching up with what’s going on from an American perspective. The thing is, watching it for the last few days has really started to jar. Colbert’s nightly monologues are full of the usual mixture of political satire and wit, but to be honest that now seems gravely misplaced. It’s as if Americans are behaving like everything is normal: that the problem lies with Donald Trump rather than with their country, and that once the current crisis is over everything will return to normal. Thus guys like Colbert make jokes at Trump’s expense, seemingly not realising that their country no longer occupies the position it did. Americans are no longer the good guys; they are no longer the arbiters of right and wrong – insofar as they ever were. They are no longer in a position to make fun of the nightmare which is currently unfolding, because they are the ones who caused it. Americans elected Trump as their president, so the whole country bears responsibility for the turmoil he has caused. I’m afraid that means they no longer have a right to joke about it, mock it or attempt to give some kind of third person commentary on it, as if they are distanced from it and will regain the world’s respect once this is all over.