WHY THE LEFT ALSO NEEDS FIGURES LIKE CHARLIE KIRK

Kafka’s short story “Judgment” (or “Verdict”: “Das Urteil”) from 1912 is more actual today than ever: it provides the portrait of a weak father who drives the subject to suicide. Georg, a young merchant, sits in his room and writes a letter to his friend who some years ago left for Russia to set up a business that is now failing, informing him that he is engaged to marry Frieda, a girl from a well-to-do family. Breaking out of his reverie, George decides to check on his father who, though quite ill, appears huge. Georg informs his father that he has just written a letter to his friend, updating him on his upcoming marriage. His father questions the existence of the friend in Russia and accuses Georg of deceiving him about the happenings of the business. Georg insists on having his father lie down in bed for a while; because of this, the father claims his son wants him dead. Moreover, he admits to knowing his son’s friend, and, in fact, to having been carrying on a correspondence with him concurrently with Georg’s. He claims to have swayed the friend’s loyalty from Georg to himself, and that the friend reads the father’s letters while disposing of Georg’s without reading them. He makes Georg feel terrible, suggesting that Georg has ignored his friend ever since he moved away to Russia. The father does not appreciate Georg’s love and care, maintaining he can take care of himself. Georg shrinks back into a corner, scared of his father and his harsh words – the father accuses him of being selfish and finally sentences him to “death by drowning.” Georg feels himself pushed from the room; he runs from his home to a bridge over a stretch of water, wings himself over the railing and plunges, apparently to his death.1

Trump’s hour-long speech at the UN General Assembly on September 23 was a pure exercise of his Daddy Cool role: he unleashed an extraordinary tirade which sounds like an explosion of Georg’s father. Britain and Europe are “going