The Melting Bullies: From Village Tyrants to Oval Office Tantrums

There’s something deliciously predictable about bullies. Whether terrorizing village newcomers or occupying the Oval Office, their tactics remain as transparent as their fragile egos.

Last night, like many worldwide, I watched the grotesque, toe-curling one-man show that was Trump and his Vain trumpet bullying Zelenskyy.

The spectacle transported me back to a particularly insufferable chapter of my childhood; our move to that sanctimonious little village where being different was considered an offence worthy of biblical proportions.

Despite my dear, darling, and most esteemed mother having reconciled with the town pastor after accidentally poisoning him and his family with soup gone bad (these things happen), the holier-than-thou followers made it abundantly clear we weren’t welcome.

Our neighbours, those paragons of Christian charity, allowed their son and friends to demolish our fence and use our driveway as their personal parking lot while my father was at work.

Fortunately, nature blessed me with height and strength, which proved helpful in the occasional brawl. But the harassment continued because my mother, with her aristocratic sensibilities, refused to “stoop to their level”—a phrase that echoes eerily when I watch America’s diplomatic approach under Trump.

Like my family eventually purchasing a house outside that wretched village, the world is now seeking alternatives to America’s bullying leadership. Europe builds its diplomatic resilience, China extends its economic tendrils, and regional powers form their own alliances—all while Trump stands there, overplaying his hand like a village tyrant who doesn’t realize his kingdom extends only as far as the town limits.

The absolute defeat comes later, though.

Years after we’d moved, I encountered my primary tormentor on a bus. There he sat—grotesque, ordinary, still shouting to be heard. Silence fell when I entered (having blossomed quite magnificently, I must say).

I sat behind him, the one who had bullied my mother and with whom I had exchanged the most slaps and kicks.

As I rose to exit at my stop, I leaned in close and whispered: “Who’s the loser now?”

The look on his face—that devastating realization that his “kingdom” was nothing but a sad, provincial puddle while the world expanded beyond him—that’s what I see in Trump’s America today.

A bully who doesn’t understand that his ice cream cart is melting while others build their own.

He had nothing going for him beyond the confined boundaries of that village mentality. He thought his little town was his oyster when reality was already moving past him. Children grew up, stopped following him, and excluded him from games and new friendships.

Did I really like Alex, aka Vaine Trumpet, enough to press my pink lips onto his after school? Naah, not that much. Though I did rather enjoy the effect it had on Trump—I mean Hans.

Because that’s the thing about bullies: their power exists only as long as we believe in it. Once we recognize their ice cream is melting, the spell is broken.

And right now, on the world stage, America’s ice cream is forming quite the puddle.

May harmony find you,

Irena Phaedra