When an escalator at the United Nations momentarily stopped with President Trump on it, you might think the incident would warrant little more than a shrug and a quick call to maintenance. Escalators stop all the time – they’re machines, after all. But no. This has been elevated into a full-blown international incident, complete with a White House investigation, claims of sabotage, and even suggestions that the UN headquarters should be levelled.
This is where we are now – a minor mechanical fault is treated as an existential threat to the Republic. According to reports, administration officials are demanding answers: was this an attempt on the president’s life? Could this have been the work of a hostile foreign power? The fact that Trump was never in any real danger, beyond perhaps a moment’s awkward pause, doesn’t seem to matter.
Let’s be clear: an escalator stopping suddenly is mildly inconvenient, not a national security crisis. Yet the rhetoric coming out of Washington would make you think this was a repeat of Pearl Harbor. Calls for retaliation, vows to teach the UN a lesson, and conspiratorial mutterings about anti-Trump plots are being thrown around like confetti.
This obsession with turning every hiccup into a headline-grabbing drama is exhausting – and dangerous. It cheapens the language we reserve for real threats. If everything is treated like an attack, then nothing is.
The idea that the United Nations headquarters should be bombed over a stalled escalator is beyond parody. It’s not just ridiculous – it’s reckless. The UN, for all its flaws, is not a hostile state plotting the demise of the United States. It is a place where the world’s problems are supposed to be hashed out, not a building waiting to be punished for a mechanical malfunction.
There was no assassination attempt. There was no conspiracy. There was no plot hatched in some shadowy UN basement. There was just an escalator, doing what escalators occasionally do: stop.
This moment should have been a footnote, not a firestorm. The fact that it has become a controversy says less about the UN and far more about an administration addicted to outrage. Not everything is a crisis. Not every mishap is a conspiracy. Sometimes, an escalator really is just an escalator.
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Every second shout from Trump’s mouth is the cry ” WOLF!!”
From later information I understand it was one of his own security personnel that tripped the emergency stop … so is he now going to go to war with his own security … just like the teleprompter failure …. it was his own staff that couldn’t operate it correctly … but then again all the staff he gets for every post are incompetent just like he is … what else can one expect!!
There was no malfunction; one of TacoTits’ own staff – possibly the videographer – tripped the emergency override. But trust the Fanta Menace to make the most of it; his base will lap up the conspiracy/threat claims the same way they lap up the rest of his outlandish bullshit.
SHOCK! HORROR! It’s triple sabotage aimed at The Childish Orange Emperor and he’s demanding arrests! HORROR! SHOCK! GASP! GASP! The added gasps are the sounds the flabby one made having to walk up the escalator. You look at the photo of the pair and it’s almost like Melania’s hoping The Donald has a heart attack or stroke at having to exert himself.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/triple-sabotage-trump-seeks-arrests-over-united-nations-escalator-drama-20250925-p5mxro.html
in this case it was an escalator just being stairs 😛
Another example of the fascile nature of a captured mainstream media that prefers to report an electrical hiccup as a potential world shattering event rather than focus on the current world wide humanitarian tragedies that continue in plain sight.
Maybe if the UN building is such a threat to the US, the whole thing should be moved to, say Switzerland. Problem solved.
The interesting thing about the U.N. escalator incident is that Trump’s name appears in the Epstein files.
Last night Russian jets were seen approaching Alaska.
Today Trump called for the arrest of whoever caused the escalator to stall.
Priorities.
Meanwhile, last year China Bought $12.6 Billion in U.S. Soybeans, fifty two percent of the crop. But this year thanks to Trump’s meddling in world markets and his silly tariffs, China has bought zero American soybeans [but Australian growers are doing quite well].
You sock it to them, Donald!
Terry, it’s almost unbelievable stuff.
You would think that upsetting so many sectors financially would spell the end for him, but I recall that Howard also upset just about every sector of Australian society, and yet was able to cling to power for what seemed like an eternity.
I wonder what South Park will do with it.
Oh the grand ‘old’ Duke of York https://allpoetry.com/poem/15308266-The-Duke-s-Rhyme-by-Barddylbach
…and back in Windsor again to polish his boots or was this another Humpty Dumpty moment?
The escalator at Woollies in Katoomba is always breaking down! Trump stepping onto the UN escalator surely was a subtle message from the Universe, not the UN.
‘The UN, for all its flaws, is not a hostile state plotting the demise of the United States’. But I fancy the United States has become a hostile state plotting the demise of the UN, along with its traitorous murderer and ally, Israel.
‘This obsession with turning every hiccup into a headline-grabbing drama is exhausting – and dangerous. It cheapens the language we reserve for real threats. If everything is treated like an attack, then nothing is’.
But it goes further than that, our ancient prophet from Greece, Socrates allegedly said, ‘The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.’
‘He wasn’t talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth.
A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper’.
~Ursula K. Le Guin
Not so politicians, bankers, advertisers and influencers, not even religion, and Trump… heaven knows he’s no camel!