The thing I miss most about former US President Donald Trump, other than his Twitter account, is his way with international diplomacy.
Who can forget his masterful, statesman-like, heart-warming friendship with the Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un? The gentle repartee. The spectacular riffs. The spitballing of peace settlements. The playful hazing — all tripping off the tongue and into the annals of history. Just two great (the greatest) leaders shooting the breeze and fomenting transcontinental magic and good vibes. The "little rocket man" lobbing his choice ripostes at the "mentally deranged US dotard ... the heedless and erratic old man".
It says something that Trump understood this stream of vitriol as Kim's way of showing his "love". I suppose we all have our own love language.
Kim is back in full force. And now he's showering his verbal acuity on the world like nuclear fallout from Chernobyl. Dropping little love bombs everywhere. Invoking all of his most fecund rhetoric to gird the collective loins of the North Korean populace against the twin sins of capitalism: mullets and skinny jeans.
The state organ (not that one) Rodong Sinmum — official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea — has given voice to the great leader's great thoughts on matters of great state interest.
"History teaches us a crucial lesson that a country can become vulnerable and eventually collapse like a damp wall regardless of the economic and defence power if we do not hold on to our own lifestyle," it says.
Kim has probably been catching up on his Netflix now that he's finished shooting anyone attempting to flee the Covid-free but nuclear-heavy North Korean enclave and was traumatised by the sight of the Tiger King in all his free-market sartorial splendour — enough to bring on this flurry of declarative leadership.
There can be only 15 official hairstyles. It goes without saying that the great leader's buzz cut is the foremost choice. The mullet is definitely not. "We must be wary of even the lightest signs of the capitalistic lifestyle and fight to get rid of them." Got to guard against the "yellow wind of capitalism". Also peroxide.
In more news from the stronghold of aesthetic discipline and the North Korean fashion police, in an unprecedented meeting of minds Taylor Swift and Kim Jong-un agree on one thing. Pop artists are "bound to unbelievably unfair contracts from an early age, detained at their training and treated as slaves after being robbed of their body, mind and soul by the heads of vicious and corrupt art-related conglomerates". Or, in Swift's case, Scooter Braun. She sorted both him and Spotify out. And the great leader has got it in for K-Pop. So Take That — BTS!
