When the Babysitter Becomes the Bully
by Don Hall
A former reality TV star, a former best selling author with Netflix money, and a former actor famous for playing an actor with ambitions to become president walk into the Oval Office and all hell breaks loose.
My buddy texted me:
“I just watched the president and vice-president give a Russian dictator a blow job in the Oval Office and it wasn’t AI.”
He’s right. The spectacle of Trump, his lackey VP, and the press ganging up on the leader of an ally was grotesque and embarrassing. What has been pretty obvious up to this point is now super obvious: Trump loves him some Putin and resents anything less than fawning fealty from those he feels are freeloading off of America’s largesse. Like a modern bro dating, he feels if he’s paying, she better fuck or else.
Sure, the weird and troubling allegiance to a strong man dictator is the lede but underneath the surface of the moment is that, if your country has been relying on that American largesse—money, military, trade—the free ride is nearly up. It means Europe is fucked. It means those most in need within the citizenry of the US are fucked. Or, we can all accept the free meal (and maybe have our date buy to-go meals for our kids) and lay down for the horrifying loss of agency as our benefactor raw dogs us in the bathroom.
Let’s start with a simple fact that’s going to piss off all the right people: Europe is a 30-year-old burnout living in America’s basement, and American citizens are whiny toddlers screaming at the government for a binky while simultaneously demanding independence. Neither wants to admit it, but both are hopelessly dependent on their respective sugar daddies, and neither has the guts to stand on their own two feet.
It’s a weird and twisted dynamic that plays out in different but eerily similar ways. Europe, with all its cultural sophistication, historical grandeur, and self-important intellectualism, still can’t function without big, dumb Uncle Sam standing over its shoulder with a loaded shotgun and a wallet fat enough to pay the rent. And meanwhile, Americans—big, loud, self-proclaimed pioneers—fluctuate between demanding government handouts and shrieking about personal liberty whenever they’re asked to pay a dime in taxes.
This isn’t about ideology. It’s about dependence, the kind that sneaks in quietly and wraps its hands around your throat before you even realize you’re being choked.
Zelenskyy is in a bizarre chokehold himself. On one side is the brutal dictator hellbent on invading and taking his country from him and he has been battling it out for three years with his people. In order to maintain the ability to be defensive, he’s had to rely on the benevolence of Biden, a president with a moral compass beyond dollars and cents, who saw a broader threat to the stability of the globe. Trump does not have that moral compass and, thus, Zelenskyy has on the other side an angry thin-skinned asshole with a checkbook who demands that, if he wants the cash and the backing, he must bend the knee. Both NATO and the American public is in the same boat but haven’t realized it yet.
Let’s break it down: Europe likes to pretend it’s the wise old mentor, the Socratic philosopher watching the bumbling brute that is the United States trip over its own shoelaces. Europeans will wax poetic about American imperialism, consumerism, and cultural shallowness. They’ll sneer at our healthcare system, our gun laws, our inability to name more than five countries outside of North America. Trump is the embodiment of everything they choose to see as truly American—a fat, loud, obnoxious jackass with money.
And yet, when the wolves show up at the door—whether it’s Russia getting ambitious or some Middle Eastern warlord deciding he wants to play empire—suddenly it’s all “Please, America, can you spare some tanks?” Europe has had decades to build up its own military, its own defense strategy, and yet NATO is still just a polite way of saying, “We’ll pretend to be an equal alliance as long as you foot the bill.”
WWII ended in 1945, yet the American military never really left. Bases are still scattered across Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, like an overprotective parent who can’t quite let go of their kid even though the kid is 70 years old and really should be able to handle himself. The European Union, for all its pretensions of global influence, still relies on American military might to keep it from getting bulldozed by the next lunatic with expansionist ambitions.
And yet, the European political class still gets their rocks off on moral superiority, lecturing America about ethics, climate change, and foreign policy while quietly pocketing the benefits of U.S. military spending. The EU might as well be a theater major who scoffs at his rich uncle’s lack of sophistication while still cashing his checks every month.
Now, let’s flip the mirror around because if you think Americans are immune to the same kind of dependency issues, you’re out of your goddamn mind.
The typical American citizen is in a perpetual identity crisis. On one hand, we are the rugged individualists, the bootstrapping, self-made pioneers who don’t need no stinkin’ government telling us what to do. On the other hand, we are the first in line for subsidies, tax breaks, and bailout money the moment shit gets tough. “Thanks for the free stimulus checks but fuck off if you think I’m gonna wear a mask on a plane!”
We whine about big government but freak out when our Social Security checks are late. We scream about socialism but demand that our roads be paved, our police be funded, and our military remain the biggest, baddest force on Earth. We decry the horrors of child labor in other countries and thumb-type about on the very phones made with those tiny fingers. We intone land acknowledgements to honor indigenous people but certainly won’t give the land back. Half of America seems to think taxation is theft, while the other half wants the government to function as an all-encompassing safety net. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.
It gets even more ludicrous when you look at the red(neck) states—the ones that bitch the loudest about federal overreach while sucking down more federal aid than the blue states they claim to despise. Mississippi, West Virginia, Kentucky—bastions of anti-government rhetoric, all completely dependent on the very system they rail against. If they actually got what they wanted—truly small government, no welfare, no federal assistance—half their populations would be starving and the other half would be dead from preventable diseases. Voting for Trump, they’ll soon see how that scenario plays out.
But you can’t tell them that. No, they’re independent. They’re free men. Just ignore the fact that the infrastructure, education, and healthcare they take for granted is funded by the very system they claim to loathe.
The most beautiful, absurd, and tragic thing about all this is that neither Europe nor America wants to admit how deeply dependent they are on their respective overlords. Europe wants the U.S. to play bodyguard while pretending it’s the smarter, more cultured older sibling. America wants government subsidies and protections while screaming about tyranny. It’s a ridiculous, self-defeating cycle that neither side has the guts to break.
And the truth? The truth is that no one is going to break that cycle.
Zelenskyy, after being humiliated by a man who dodged military service because of bone spurs in front of the world, will bend that fucking knee because what else can he do? Without the backing of the global one-percent, Ukraine will eventually look like Gaza and become Putin’s backlot.
Europe isn’t going to suddenly develop a spine and tell the U.S. military to pack up and go home because they know that the second America pulls out, they’re at the mercy of whatever geopolitical psychopath decides to roll the dice. They can talk all day about ‘strategic autonomy,’ but deep down, they know they need America’s guns and dollars more than America needs their critiques.
Meanwhile, Americans aren’t about to give up their cozy reliance on government programs, even as they stomp their feet and demand lower taxes. The same libertarian who rages about socialism is the first to cash in on Medicare the moment they hit 65. The same free-market warrior who screams about government interference is first in line when the banks need bailing out.
So here we are, locked in a mutually parasitic relationship, neither side willing to admit how deeply they need the other. Europe continues its act as the wise old sage while cashing America’s security checks. Americans keep howling about independence while desperately clinging to their federal benefits. Anyone attacked by the monsters of the planet (including Ukraine) will hope for Big Brother to show up while clinging to their own illusion of autonomy. And everyone will keep pretending they’re in control, that they’re self-sufficient, that they’re not just bigger versions of the same helpless, dependent messes they love to mock.
The biggest joke of all? They’ll both keep doing it. Europe will keep playing intellectual superior while secretly hoping America never actually leaves them to fend for themselves. Americans will keep screaming about big government while sucking at its teat the second they hit a rough patch. It’s a comedy of hypocrisy, a farce of self-delusion, and no one—not the Europeans, not the Americans, not Zelenskyy—has the stomach to be honest about it.
