The time has come for another international journey for our standing president, Donald Trump, a man who resembles in both disposition and appearance a microwaveable cheeseburger. Earlier today he delivered to a Polish audience a clash-of-civilizations speech about our impending apocalypse at the hands of religious extremists, after which he and First Lady Melania Trump exchanged the requisite handshakes with that country’s leader, President Andrzej Duda, and his wife, Agata Kornhauser-Duda. At which point:
Look, let’s not over-sell this. This is a weird angle, and their positions may be skewed due to the camera lens. It’s difficult to read malice into the actions of Kornhauser-Duda (unlike, say, the white-knuckle handshake Trump shared with French President Emmanuel Macron, which was clearly antagonistic). And yet there is no doubt that Trump was left hanging here, as the video indicates, accidental or not. Look at the crestfallen blankness on his face as he stares expectantly, waiting for a handshake never to come. In the full video, he sort of dodders off shortly afterward, presumably to be fed a meatloaf or an episode of Property Brothers.
The stage is set for a truly ferocious handshake between the president and Vladimir Putin tomorrow, which will take place shirtless atop horses, as their fragile egos dictate, followed directly by nuclear war.