Lord Vetinari reflects on current affairs on the Roundworld….
I can see Vetinari's dry comments on Donald Trump's policies... possibly something along the lines of
"I am watching the experiment, via the omniscope set up to monitor the Roundworld, with great interest. Of course, it is not for me to tell any other Head of State how he ought to organise his country. that would be unwarrantable interference. I do, however, recall when Ankh-Morpork had the sort of robust no-nonsense attitude towards immigrants from outside who were perceived not to share our core values and who were thought of as undesirable. We were then composed of a homogeneously white-skinned and human population drawn from the Central Continent. We were in the main dirt-poor, living in abject poverty, looking inwards, with no input of new ideas and concepts that could revolutionise our outlook and life and permit innovation. But at least we could proudly say we were racially and ethnically pure, with no threatening foreigners upsetting the applecart. It was also impossible, for those who esteem such things, to get a decent curry, a kebab, or an Agatean takeaway. At the time we also had the sort of permissive attitude to taxation that allowed very rich people to pay little or nothing. Surprisingly, this surplus income, freed from the dead bureaucratic hand of a monolithic State thieving it to fritter away wastefully on the wrong thing, did not trickle down to benefit all. Instead it languished uselessly in bank vaults, often a very long way away from this City. We also had a Royal Bank chairman who lived for opportunities to, as the saying goes, "grab small cats", as often and as inventively as he could, to the detriment of all his other duties. such as managing a significant part of this city's economy. Previous Patricians also believed that external wars, often based on flimsy pretexts in the manner of a drunken belligerent seeking a fight after the tavern closed, would somehow make everything right, or at the least provide distraction.
"Of course, these reflections are completely coincidental to President Trump's stated intention to "make America great again" , even though I do recall Patrician Snapcase saying something similar on the first occassion he declared war on Pseudopolis. I do wish Mr Trump luck in his endeavours. I shall be watching with interest."