Football, Villa, has been a comforting bubble for me over the course of the last year. Whatever the highs and lows, under Emery it’s been about as pure and honorable as a money-soaked diversion can be.

But the wider world in which we live persists. And I happen to be living under a burgeoning authoritarian regime headed by a lunatic. A protector of pedophiles (at the very least). An adjudicated rapist. A felon. A demented, deeply stupid and incurious man who understands only grievance and intimidation. A man with a tiny, misshapen prick and a conscience to match. A man, consequently, with a shatteringly fragile ego. An empty vessel used by ethno-nationalists to advance an agenda that is nothing less than a suicide pact for a nation that viewed itself (however inaccurately) as a force for the greater good. A nation that rather insufferably proclaimed itself the freest and greatest polity in human history.

It’s not hyperbole to say that fascism is indeed the accurate term for what the US government has come to represent. At the very least, what the cast of deeply flawed, cruel, and corrupt people running this operation aspire to.

There are many who are profoundly ashamed and enraged. We despair. We mourn the loss of the actual good things the US was engaged in (basic science, medical research, and USAID, for example). We actively wonder whether there’s any way back, how much damage has been done, what can be repaired. We dread what might be done to undermine free and fair elections in November. We feel ill and dazed. We wake each morning to some fresh outrage.

The cancer of course is not confined to our shores. I abhor the way these criminals have treated our allies and disparaged the sacrifices of the NATO soldiers and families who answered the Article Five call. How we’ve abandoned and weakened Ukraine, carrying Putin’s water as he commits war crimes on an industrial scale. The threats, the tariffs, the chaos. I applaud the nations and leaders rejecting this lunacy, however sad it makes me that they’re forced to.

Because of the wonderful years I spent growing up in London I’ve felt a deep affinity to England, and all the European countries I’ve spent so much time in. I’ve always heard and understood criticism of the US, and have never dismissed it. And of course, all nations and politics are flawed to some degree. But this breach is egregious. Serious. Dangerous. While illiberalism and nativism are not unique to the US at the current moment, what the US does has outsize consequences.

An indication of the severity is that—to hear this administration’s claims—what I’ve written above could count as ‘domestic terrorism’, ‘treason’, or ‘sedition’. That’s how surreal and unhinged it is. Those of us who have always opposed this cancer are not surprised, however. If we are, it’s only by the rapidity and brazenness.

We desperately hope Minnesota represents a turning point. The coalition of idiots who voted for this is fracturing. Americans may be deeply incurious and ignorant about the world, but they can be shocked back into some semblance of self-interest.

So at this moment, reeling and filled with impotent rage, I feel compelled to go on the record. Yes, it’s only a harmless football blog, and not everyone may agree with me or my decision to bring it up. But it feels like I owe clarity and honesty to anyone who visits, reads, or comments here because these are anything but ordinary times.

John