AFTER HIS COMPLETION of the Epstein Ballroom, President Donald J. Trump went to work on a new building to house Scott Bessent’s Treasury Department. The old Federal and Georgian-style Treasury Building, the central and east wings of which were erected in 1835 through 1842, was reduced to rubble and a new castle-like fortress was constructed on its foundation, as tall as the Sagrada Familia. This, strangely, contained elements of New York City’s Trump Tower, and its walls, escalators, and stairwells shined with gold-coated plates.
I was one of the first journalists allowed into the new Treasury Building, escorted inside with a North Korea-style sightseeing group. We were led up the stairs, which were gleaming with gold, to the second floor, which had the décor of an ancient Scottish castle, with moist, dripping stone walls and antique tapestries. Trump was there himself, bedecked in a Highland Tartan, and several other Scotsmen and women sat around an open fire. Trump seemed preoccupied with something and stared intensely into the air. He was whispering to himself and his blue eyes reminded one of a beached fish running out of oxygen. The Scottish guests only stoked the fire and talked loudly about how they felt comfortable in the new Treasury. “Aye, it’s not too opulent,” a bald man in a sweater said. “Only parts are covered in gold! What’s the fuss about?”
Downstairs, I discovered that a food court had opened. There were people sitting all around on wooden benches, the kinds that you might find at an ice skating rink. Here I encountered some Trump supporters in winter coats who were boasting loudly about how decisive their leader was. “Biden could never make up his mind,” one jeered. I intervened and said that, in reality, their president changed his mind almost every day if not minute. “Yes, I will give the Ukrainians Tomahawk missiles. No, I won’t. Yes, well, actually I will. Let’s see what Putin says.” For daring to bring this to their attention, I was cursed out, but I didn’t care. “The only thing Trump’s consistent about,” I shouted at his supporters as they dispersed, “is his love of tariffs!”
Down the gold escalator rode my old friend Eamon O’Toole next, with his loving Irish grin. He was dressed in a white sweater and gold chain, as if he had just got back from a wild house party with Kid and Play. The first thing Eamon O’Toole did upon meeting me in the new Treasury Building was laugh and say, “Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here!” He had sprouted a slight red beard in the meantime, and there was a crazy gleam in his eyes. I told him about the Trump supporters and the tariff comment. Eamon O’Toole only laughed more. “All of these people suck,” was all Eamon said with an irrepressible delight. “I hate them all.”
We were then interrupted by Rory Lapp, an Estonian writer and poet and coffeehouse ghost who said, “Excuse me, but do you know where a bestselling author might get a decent espresso?” We went over to the coffee machine, but the first cup was full of a strange, milky liquid, and we realized the machine was cleaning itself, so we pushed the button again. Rory stood there in his black button-down shirt, waiting patiently to taste his first Treasury coffee. Funny that I would rendezvous with some of my best friends in such a gilded, tasteless place.
I noticed then a small gray mailbox by the coffee machine and opened it. Inside, I found a single letter, addressed to me, which I opened as well. It was a postcard with a picture of Ronja Rippsild, a prominent Estonian photographer. She was standing there, in her red shirt and green coat, a winter’s hat on her head. She was as pale as ever — I don’t think Ronja was capable of getting tan — and her dark hair hung around her shoulders. The note read, “Goodbye Justin,” and I scanned it intently, hoping that Trump’s demolition of the Treasury Building hadn’t caused my Estonian friend to commit suicide. Instead she said that she had had enough of the world’s problems and was going on a pilgrimage of sorts, which she intended to wrap up by the year 2049. “By that time, I’m sure we can live happy lives again,” Ronja had written. In the meantime, she planned to embark on a global Camino de Santiago.
“Well, that’s one way of coping,” I said to myself. I was going to miss Ronja while she was away. I sighed and returned to the coffee machine, where some loud Trump bashing was underway.
I HAD SEX with Julie Andrews. At least, I think it was her. It happened on the second floor of an old theatre in London and it happened during a right-wing putsch against the Starmer government led by Elon Musk. Out in the streets, it was Unite the Kingdom Day and then some. There were union jacks fluttering everywhere, and the crowds swarmed into the theatre, up and down its regal staircases. British fiends helped themselves to free concessions.
Up on the second floor, I encountered Julie Andrews and we began to make love on some old chairs upholstered in plush red velvet. She looked just like she did in the Mary Poppins and Sound of Music era, except her hair was gray. This part I couldn’t understand. Why was her hair gray but her body had not aged? She had very long, supple, and tan legs. Maybe she had just returned from a holiday to Santorini or Tenerife? Some place where British actresses go.
The lovemaking was tender and sincere, but had a passionate, hurried quality to it. I told her, “I think we’re on the threshold of a new era in international politics and this is a part of it.” Julie Andrews gasped. Her legs were in the air. That’s all I remember, truly. I don’t think I will ever watch those old classics the same way again. Knowing what I know about Miss Julie Andrews.
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER CHARLIE KIRK MEMORIAL. The “stadium tour” had been a boon to the president’s sinking approval numbers. And with each pyrotechnics display, each series of rousing speeches, one could almost forget that he had promised to end the war between Ukraine and the Russian Federation in one day, or to reverse inflation, or to do many other things that never seemed to bear fruit. This however did not dissuade young women like Elspeth from watching the Charlie Kirk Stadium Tour. Rather, she curled up on her couch with a box of tissues, sobbing each time they showed the Charlie Kirk “That’s why I am a Christian” montage, pieced together from diverse podcasts and various debate spats. After drying her eyes, she would clench her fists and stammer something angry about the “radical leftist left.”
“But it’s not just the left that has its radical elements,” I would caution her. “Think of Bison Man and January 6. Surely, you must admit that the Proud Boys were just as hostile an element in US politics.” This might have made sense in a less emotionally fraught situation, but not to someone who had just lost, as she saw it, the 13th apostle of Christ. I felt ever more like a unrepentant, mate-sipping Che Guevara. And like Guevara before me, I leaned in and began to work my vulgar Latin socialist charm on Elspeth. There have been passionate kisses in history. Think of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra or Cleopatra and Mark Antony. But this sudden melting away of toxic political distress into a very steamy couch lovemaking session won them all.
On the TV set, there were more pyrotechnics. One of Trump’s rotten children cried out, “Je suis Charlie!” By this time, I was just about to consummate my relationship with Elspeth. She was a flaxen-haired, freckly lass of Highlands descent. A Presbyterian turned evangelical, a dedicated follower of god. She was unsure though and she called in her assistant, a young Siamese woman who carried an appointment book with her. “Miss L. can you tell me how far I am into my cycle?” Elspeth requested. “Yes, madame,” said the Siamese assistant, who quickly paged through the book. “It is an inauspicious time for making love, madame,” she said. “Thank you, L., that will be all,” she told her assistant. “You are dismissed.” The woman bowed and left.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Elspeth whispered to me on the couch. “But I just don’t want to risk it. I do hope you understand.” “That’s all fine,” I said. “I’ll just lick your breasts.” “Fair enough.” Elspeth pulled up her t-shirt, revealing two very soft, very pink breasts. They looked like a treat you might find in a Helsinki bakery, tucked in between the cinnamon buns and fluffy Napoleons. “You know,” Elspeth said a moment later. “This is probably the best sex I’ve ever had. And we don’t even share the same politics! If more of us just had sex, we could reconcile all of our differences.” I kissed Elspeth, pushing back her sunny-colored hair, and said, “You’re a genius.”
THE HOTEL WAS LOCATED in a most exclusive area of the city. To get there, one had to follow a winding road through a pine forest which led down to the waterfront. It was a gray, cool day in Alaska, but that hadn’t discouraged the fleet of news vans and journalists from milling by the chain-link fence that had been installed. There were other parties, cult members, UFO truth seekers with binoculars around their necks, true believers, true doubters, and just random indigent folks who had, exhausting the homeless encampments down south, worked their way up the coast to the pristine nature surrounding Anchorage and Cook Inlet.
Luckily, I was accredited to cover the summit, but that didn’t mean I was free to roam the premises. After being let through the first gate, I was ushered into a tent, where a man in a military uniform sat at a desk. I showed him my Edasi press card, but as I looked up and down the table, I noticed that there were various tubes and lateral flow tests. I wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the summit unless I submitted blood, saliva, and urine samples. “You have to be kidding me,” I told the man in uniform. “Putin is a war criminal and you’re afraid that I’m going to get him sick!” “This is standard procedure for the Alaska Summit, sir,” said the uniformed man. “We want Mr. Putin to feel comfortable, welcome, and entirely at home here in the great state of Alaska.” “No, no,” I said. “I refuse to submit any samples to anyone,” I told him. I exited the tent, which oddly was unguarded, allowing me to creep closer to the hotel.
At this point, some musicians from Estonia who had also breached the security perimeter encountered me. They had planned an intervention along the road leading into the hotel. We wrapped ourselves in Ukrainian flags and lied down in the road in the rain, only to see several small armored vehicles approach. “Disperse!” one of the commanders shouted from somewhere. “Disperse! You are disrupting the high-stakes Alaska Summit!” The musicians groaned on the asphalt, but did not move. Then came the bursts of and blasts of tear gas. There was a scramble, some chaos, and in a moment of fear and cowardice, I stood and fled and was followed by some others. I ran toward the hotel complex, turned toward a posh waterside café.
There, behind the café, there was some space between two stone walls. The walls were made of beige brick decorated with natural motifs, such as bears, whales, or caribou. I hid myself between those walls and groups of soldiers went marauding by. I put my head down and realized that my journal was still there in my bag. My precious journal, purchased last September at Rahva Raamat. I pulled my journal from my bag and decided to write a little.
AFTER DISEMBARKING at the railroad station, our group was ushered through the city by heavily armed security. We were brought into a large room, almost the size of a gymnasium, not far from the presidential palace. It was underground and connected by a series of zigzagging tunnels with the metro. There was nothing else in the room and the walls were black. The floors had been painted black as well. Lighting was provided by a series of lanterns. They revealed to us a large frosted sheet cake.
On top of this sheet cake slept the president, dressed in the black combat outfit he most recently wore to the Pope’s funeral. He was set on his back, his legs pointing down, his arms at his sides, but his hands folded upon his chest. His eyes were closed. He had a tranquil, beatific look on his face. Everyone in the room was entirely still, and we were allowed to walk around the giant frosted cake on which slept, I hoped, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Or was he asleep? I watched his chest for any sign of a stir, any giveaway sign of life such as a sigh or the gentle rise and fall of respiration. Zelenskyy was stiller than still life, more wax than flesh and blood. One of his representatives whispered in my ear, “This cake was made by the finest confectioner in all of Kyiv.” “The president?” I nodded at its curious centerpiece. “Is he among the living or the dead? He looks like Lenin. It’s a bakery crossed with a mausoleum.” “Just take a closer look,” one of the Ukrainian minders said. “All will be revealed to you in time.”
We circled the cake once again and I could see that a vast chocolate death’s head had been imprinted at one end. The death’s head, a combination of a skull with wings, well known to any son of New England as it can be seen in relief on gravestones in any number of ancient Puritan burial grounds. Some of the most venomous brigands of the Golden Age of Piracy flew this emblem as their flag. The death’s head could mean death itself or symbolize one’s defiance of death. “What is it then?” I asked the Ukrainians. “What is the fate of President Zelenskyy?”
One of the Ukrainians, a lovely woman who happened to be the deputy minister for eurointegration at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, stepped forward and said, “But President Zelenskyy is not dead, sir. He is just meditating on the future of Ukraine.” “Why is he lying on a cake?” I asked. “He says that cakes help him meditate,” she said. All eyes were on Zelenskyy as he meditated on the cake. Then, as if he could hear us talking, his eyes opened. “Принеси мені ложку!” Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian. Prynesy meni lozhku! “Bring me a spoon!”
Soldiers of the Continental Army, a 1781 sketch by a French officer
THAT SAME DARK, misty, and evil-feeling November night when the outcome of the American elections became clear, I fell violently ill. I’m still not sure if it was because of the election results or because I had eaten too many pumpkin seeds. It took me weeks to recover. Half of the time I was couch ridden, staring up at the ceiling, the other half, I sat in cafes peering out of windows while strangers tried to engage me about politics. All of November passed by like that in a half dream. I was numb and I felt at that time that something had broken or had died. Something had vanished. But for all eternity? What the hell was going on?
November has become the line though, the line between before and after. It’s only recently that I have understood that everything that has happened since is mirroring what came before. Everything that has happened after has happened before, but in other ways. We’ve just forgotten about these things, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen. Why we now have to relive them is lost on me, but maybe this is all necessary. Maybe we have to relive all of this.
As I write this now it’s a bright March morning. The daylight is streaming through the curtains and the coffee has come to a sumptuous boil. The alarm clock told me that it was six when I woke but the news has informed me that I must be still dreaming, because the news is absurd. Trump’s envoy to Moscow Mr. Witkoff says that Putin is a wonderful person. Maybe he would like to say that to my neighbors who fled a bombarded Kharkiv three years ago? Vice President Vance and his wife Usha and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz are en route to Greenland where Usha will take in a dog-sledding event and Vance and Waltz will visit a military base. The Greenlandic prime minister has already called this a provocation. He’s from there. Greenland is home. So why do the Americans then say that they have the right to take it away?
By now, I don’t remember how many times Trump has said that Canada could be America’s 51st state. They could keep their national anthem. The American president has promised them at least that. He’s such a generous man that he would even allow them to keep their flag too. America would cherish its 51st state in the same way that it would cherish its Gaza hotels and casinos, he has said. For Trump, Canada is an illogical political entity. For him, the Canadian and American border was drawn at random “decades and decades ago,” as he said recently in the White House. In reality, the border was fixed in 1846 between Great Britain and the US. In reality, the US received its independence from Great Britain in 1783. It was not Canada that drew that line, because Canada did not have its own prime minister until 1867. The math tells me that this all happened 180 years ago. Eighteen of those many “decades and decades.”
That was all in reality, but reality is no match for Trump. He also said that a Dane once sailed to Greenland 200 years ago and that’s why Denmark doesn’t have a legitimate claim to Greenland. But the Scandinavians were living there in the Viking era, and those who remained joined the Inuit. That Danish ship sailed 300, not 200 years ago. Why do I even waste my time arguing, I wonder. Everyone knows that reality doesn’t matter. Trump said in his March speech that we will get Greenland one way or another, and the Republicans only stood and applauded. Trump even has his own explainers and supporters in Estonia who appear each day on social media to explain to the Estonian people why the Orange One is always correct. It’s been strange to witness how they do this and they do it with such enthusiasm. Maybe they had nothing better to do than to hand over their souls in exchange for nothing. A shame, because America was in its bloody moments of birth against authoritarianism, or so I was taught.
When you read Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, it’s all well explained. Americans no longer wished to live under a hereditary monarchy, Paine wrote. Their desire was liberty. “Give me liberty or give me death,” were the words of the Virginian Patrick Henry in 1775. Henry also said, “There is no retreat but in submission and slavery.” But some Americans want to be slaves. They wish to share their slave joy with their Canadian and Greenlandic brethren. Even when they don’t want to be Americans, they shouldn’t have the right to decide on the matter. Rather, they should be the competent, loyal slaves of their spiritual master. This is their logic.
The same logic also underpins Russian foreign policy. The Ukrainians have forgotten how wonderful it is to be the slaves of Moscow. One day they will forget who they are and they will only think the thoughts of their tsar and speak in the language of their tsar too. This is how the Russians think, but can the people who think in such a way really be Americans? America isn’t just flags, eagles, guns, and money. America is, or was, an idea of the Enlightenment. Just as Estonians still live in part in the 1920s with their land reforms, bowties, black cars and state officials, because that is when their country was created, Americans have one foot in the end of the 18th century when debates raged over the Rights of Man. I must admit, I am starting to understand the tumult of that era more. The old questions are resurfacing. We have been here before, haven’t we? We’ve just forgotten all about those days, but we are remembering them.
When Trump speaks about Canada, I am reminded of General Benedict Arnold’s ill-fated expedition to the north in 1775. It was the desire of the Americans that Quebec would join in their cause against the British. Two armies were sent to Canada the summer before American independence was declared. One army went north from New York. This was the army of Richard Montgomery. Arnold’s army went through the wilderness of New England. At first it must have seemed simple. If you look at a map, it looks that way. But the route was treacherous and there were a lot of waterfalls. Arnold’s forces carried small boats along the way, with the hope they could use them upstream. A third of his army deserted him. The others fell ill and were starving. In the end, just half of his army made it to Canada. In the pitched battle at Quebec City, Richard Montgomery was slain and Arnold was wounded.
The Americans had to retreat back home.
I don’t know why this one event stands out in my mind. Most experts are talking about Germany and the 1930s these days. In London, there are even signs on the Tube that show Elon Musk giving the Roman salute and which proclaim his Teslas can accelerate from “0 to 1939 in 3 seconds.” People look at Elon Musk and think about Adolf Hitler. I listen to Donald Trump and think about Benedict Arnold’s futile march through the wilderness into Canada. Some thought the Canadians would be on the side of the Americans, but it was all an illusion. They were deceived by their fantasies. The Americans did control Montreal for some time and the French disliked them because their administration of the city was poorly organized. When Trump now talks about how Canada could become the 51st state, I wonder if he has even read any history? Of course not. He will continue to tell us his tall tales. We must sit uncomfortably on the couch, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the infamous meeting with Zelenskyy, looking for a way to hide ourselves inside of the furniture. Surely this current discomfort will pass. Surely our generals will realize that it was foolish to invade Canada.
By now, you might have figured out that I have read a little too much about the American Revolution. But the Revolution has always fascinated me since I was a little boy. All of that bloody drama and all of those three-cornered hats. All of those bayonets and buxom ladies in poofy dresses. At that time, I probably wanted to live through such a momentous period of time. As I write this, I’m not so sure that was such a good thing to wish for anymore. I am often asked as an American here what I think and I have to answer that all of the uncomfortable questions about the American project are now resurfacing. All of the old ghosts have been stirred and are restless. We are starting to sense these ghosts and to understand them.
The greatest question raised by these restless ghosts concerns America. Because, while we talk about the right of Canada to exist, the right of Greenland to exist, the right of Ukraine or Taiwan to exist, one also wonders what right the United States has to exist. An America true to the ideas of its founding exists as an idea, and therefore as a kind of country. An America denuded of its basic premises, one that deports people without due process, just as the British Empire removed the French from Nova Scotia, is no longer its old self, but just a bunch of territories patched together, where the president is something like the owner of a large estate. It loses the qualities that distinguish it as a country and so it becomes cosmetic, the kind of fake country that Putin railed against in his mad rambling treatise on Russians and Ukrainians.
Without its ideas, America is just the land it took from its indigenous peoples. No matter how many nuclear warheads it has, or how many people it deports, or how many federal workers it lays off, no matter how many dissidents are jailed, this truth cannot be ignored. Here I am reminded of an interview I heard not long ago with Joe Stahlman, a scholar and researcher of Tuscarora descent, who remarked on the attempts of his ancestors to create peace with the restless Europeans who had turned up on their shores. They called these Europeans “younger brothers,” because they were the newest peoples to live on Turtle Island. In the belief systems of the Natives, it was believed that the Earth existed on the back of a turtle and that this giant turtle was swimming through space. “They tried to educate their younger brothers on how to conduct themselves on Turtle Island,” he said, without remarking on whether or not this attempt had been successful. Probably not. Perhaps someday. It is hard for me to watch America without thinking of that troubled younger brother who couldn’t be reasoned with.
They tried to teach their younger brother how to behave, but he just didn’t listen.
An Estonian-language version of this article appears in Edasi. Special thanks to Dea Paraskevopoulos for helping to translate it, and to Joe Stahlman, for advice and wisdom.
TRUDEAU, whatever you may think of him, gave Canada a face for 10 years. Everyone in the world knew who the prime minister of Canada was. For me, it elevated my first name from “Canadian pop singer” to “Canadian prime minister” status. Justins the world over were no longer ashamed. Due to some vague, beer goggles-induced similarities, I was even asked a few times if I was the Canadian prime minister. And I didn’t even need to don blackface or fall backwards down the stairs.
Quick, who were all those prime ministers before Trudeau? What? Can’t remember? Maybe it was the ultraboring Stephen Harper, the even more boring and boringly named Paul Martin. The last one who rings a bell is Jean Chrétien. Brian Mulroney? I mean, please. The last interesting Canadian prime minister before Trudeau was his father. And now he’s getting out to avoid online bullying by The Orange One.
In Trudeau, we saw pieces of ourselves. Our interfamilial vaccine feuds. Our health and fitness obsessions. Our hyperfocus on appearing youthful and ageless. Our smiling selfie poses. Our attempts to look respectable. Our collapsing marriages. Our bizarre Indian government assassinations. Nobody’s happy, but there was a brief thought that if the world was run by happy people, its leaders might very well look like Trudeau and Macron, youngish Frenchmen who it seemed just wanted to hang out and have something good to eat. And maybe go skiing.
north! 