'All the reasons why Donald Trump will never win the Nobel Peace Prize he craves'
As Donald Trump wins a peace deal in Gaza, the Nobel committee denied him the peace prize he craves, says Fleet Street Fox. It comes as no surprise
Let’s start with the basics, shall we?
The dictionary definition of “peace” is: “Freedom from disturbance; tranquillity; a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended.” Peace is what you find in a quiet library, or a sleepy cuddle. It is the relaxed period between your first sip of a much-needed drink, and realising that the silence has changed from welcome to suspicious.
It is the exact opposite of Donald Trump, which has not stopped him demanding the Nobel Peace Prize, and pointing out that several world leaders have backed his call. The fact so many of them are murderous despots is by the by. Hitler was once nominated for the peace prize, but only as a badly-landed joke. Trump has no sense of humour at all, and having clinched what might turn out to be a Gaza peace deal, wants it in the same way Augustus Gloop wants all the Cadbury's Biscoff.
The problem is that the prize goes to those who, and I quote, have “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” It does not go to people who unleash geopolitical hell every time they have a bowel movement.
Trump simply makes everyone, everywhere, furious. Incandesent with rage. If you agree with him, you're angry enough to set fire to a church with people inside it. If you don't, you might just be crazy enough to get out the sniper rifle at a university debate.
He has started a civil war by ordering armed soldiers onto the streets of US cities. His police have batoned and shot at journalists. He's demanded control of other people's freedom of speech, and he's weaponised the judicial system to persecute those who brought charges against him for crimes that the entire world knows he was guilty of.
If Al Capone had been elected president, he'd probably argue he deserved a peace prize too, for ending all the crime by taking a baseball bat to the skulls of his enemies. But even by the standards of a psychotic mob boss, Trump's second term in office has been about as calm and peaceful as a cat in a blender. His tariff war alone destabilised half the planet. By laying off thousands of public workers and a government shutdown he destabilised his own country. And by randomly bombing fishing boats off the coast of South America, he's pissed off all his neighbours too.
That has not stopped Trump trying to get nominated, just as hard as a dog would try to lick peanut butter off its own nose. Mercifully, the Nobel Committee has decided that it has yet to be convinced a man whose idea of diplomacy is to shout on social media in ALL CAPS is the world’s leading light for peace.
Trump has managed to anger Canada, which is like getting a golden retriever to turn into Cujo. He’s alienated allies, cosied up to dictators, and turned international summits into WWE smackdowns. If peace is a pond, Trump is the brick lobbed into it by the town trouble-maker who grew up next to the lead paint factory.
In all his doings, Trump acts like a toddler in the middle of a supermarket tantrum. He sulks, he shouts, he stamps his feet. He fires anyone who disagrees with him, calls the press “the enemy of the people,” and has the attention span of a goldfish on Red Bull. The only thing this man's brought peace to are the wars which ended after he stopped provoking them.
The peace prize has been awarded to controversial figures before. Obama got one for doing very little. Henry Kissinger won it, which is like giving extra house points to Slytherin. But even they managed to at least pretend to be interested in peace, in diplomacy, in listening to the other guy and finding some sort of resolution everyone can live with. Trump, on the other hand, seems to think peace is what happens when everyone else shuts up and does what he says. Even in Gaza, when Netanyahu said it would never happen and Hamas said "but...", it wasn't Trump who broke the deadlock but son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Trump has threatened nuclear war, in all seriousness. He called African nations “s***hole countries,” and told white supremacists to “stand back and stand by.” He’s built walls everywhere except the Mexican border, where he'd far rather create chaos. He’s sown division, not unity. He’s the only man who would start World War III because he lost the TV remote.
Fleet Street Fox
Thankfully most humans realise that giving Trump a peace prize would be like giving Hannibal Lecter a Michelin star for his work with fava beans. A president at war with his own people and constitution will never promote peace, and a man at war with his own colon will never let anyone else rest easy. He has lost out not because the committee is biased, or the world is unfair, but because he is, quite simply, the least peaceful man on the planet. He is terror in a suit, fury in a wig, rage on behalf of the machine.
Besides, we all know what will happen if he did win it. He'd realise that a bunch of Norwegians had just decided he was as worthy of accolade as a black man, and immediately scorn it. The very concept of peace, and recognising those who strive for it, would be degraded, and the Nobel Committee would throw its hands up in despair.
They have the fjords. They have the Northern Lights. They have A-Ha, for heaven's sake. The last thing they want to do is invite Trumpelstiltskin over there to make it all seem seedy, pathetic, and pointless; he'd only start a fight.