Random Musings: Why Donald Trump's Washington is the New St PETERsburg

Manchester United legend Roy Keane – the inspiration for Ted Lasso’s Roy Kent, if Gen Z is confused – once summed up Sir Alex Ferguson’s innate ability to read the room and lead his men by recalling a particular match when United were hosting Tottenham Hotspur, and how the gaffer simply walked in and said: “Lads, it’s Tottenham,” summing up how the opposition needed no other introduction. “Lads, it’s Tottenham” became as much a leitmotif in Premier League lore as “Prawn Sandwich Brigade,” “Parking the Bus,” and “Doing an Arsenal,” capturing the zenith and nadir that Manchester United and Tottenham once represented.

Those heydays are long gone, as evidenced by the recent Europa League final between the two clubs, when Manchester United huffed and puffed and still failed to beat Tottenham Hotspur. “Lads, it’s United” might now be the punchline instead.

The truth is that, since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013, Manchester United has been a masterclass in incompetence – whether it’s signing players, deciding player wages, picking managers, determining which jobs to cut, or even deciding what food ought to be served in the cafeteria.

And right now, there’s only one establishment in the world that can match that level of ineptitude. Unfortunately, it’s the most powerful entity in the so-called free world, with access to the largest nuclear arsenal.

In fact, it’s not hard to argue that Washington – the living, breathing city that has been taken over by the Trump swamp – is now St PETERsburg .

For those who didn’t go to business school, the Peter Principle refers to the notion that, in a corporate setup, every individual rises to their level of incompetence. And right now, everything is rising in Washington, which has become a swamp unlike any other.



Let’s take a roll call of the Trump swamp.

We have a Director of Homeland Security who can’t protect her own handbag, shot her own dog – training apparently not included in the job description – and thinks habeas corpus means the president has the right to remove people from the country.

Then there’s a Secretary of Education who thinks AI is a steak sauce (that’s A1, for the uninitiated), and whose claim to fame is running an organisation of make-believe wrestlers.

Next up, a Secretary of Defence who might have a drinking problem, leaked classified strike plans in a Signal chat to his wife, brother, and lawyer, and once famously hit a man with an axe on live TV.

A National Security Adviser (since removed) who was so confident in his operational security that he added the editor of a major publication to a Signal group chat about dropping bombs.



A Director of National Intelligence who was raised in an obscure cult, and an FBI Director who writes children’s books with himself as the protagonist, ostensibly prefers nightclubs to offices, and has questionable ties to Chinese firms.

Then you have the national BFF who dismantled much of American soft power in one fell swoop, lost a lot of his wealth thanks to his BFF’s random tariff formulas, left his company in shambles, and became so toxic that even the swamp decided to eject him.



And finally, there’s the selfie-loving millennial Vice President who keeps asking foreign leaders to say thank you and has developed a reputation that would make Death think twice about meeting him in Samarra.

All of this would be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that this motley crew now runs a machine with untold wealth and power – one capable of starting a world war or collapsing the global economy on a whim – in the service of a leader whose principles can be bought with a luxury jet or a Happy Meal.

In its heyday, Old Trafford – Manchester United’s ground – was called the Theatre of Dreams.

Today, Washington is the Theatre of Nightmares . Not just for America, but for the world at large.

Welcome to St PETERsburg – where incompetence isn’t an accident, it’s a qualification.