The Daily Populous Saturday March 21st, 2026 night edition
Authored by esquire.com and submitted by zaparthes

I spent a happy Saint’s Day on Tuesday having a few jars at my local with a new friend named Dennis O’Connor, a good Kerryman who’s lived over here for some time. We talked awhile about international sport, especially about how Ireland had been hosed out of the Six Nations rugby championship by England, dammit, who folded like a cheap suit and handed the win to France on a late penalty kick. We suspected the fine hand of Edward Carson, or Lord Trevelyan, or Cromwell, working the refs from the bowels of hell.

The only time I saw Dennis get angry was when, somehow, the government of the United States came up in casual conversation. This included the World Baseball Classic, in which Venezuela was playing a U.S. team chock-full of MAGA-curious dumbasses who seemed to think they were playing ball on Omaha Beach. The intensity of my new friend’s contempt for this government surprised even me. If we’ve incurred the dislike of Irish émigrés on St. Patrick’s Day, we’ve passed a point of unpopularity that I thought we’d never come near.

Venezuela beat the insufferable cult members of the USA for the world baseball title. On Monday, when Venezuela beat Italy, this is what the president of the United States posted on his money pit of a social-media platform:

Wow! Venezuela defeated Italy tonight, 4-2, in the WBC (Baseball!) Semifinal. They are looking really great. Good things are happening to Venezuela lately! I wonder what this magic is all about? STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE? President DONALD J. TRUMP

I have watched as the entire world has responded to his appeals to help him bail himself out in his very excellent Iranian excursion by telling him that, no, can’t make it, gotta grout the tub. I have seen that the United States has been downgraded in the democracy index, a respected international survey , based partly on the administration’s continuing assault on free expression and the First Amendment generally. I have heard the president trying the blackmail Denmark into surrendering Greenland; and his towering foolishness regarding Canada, including referring to the country’s prime minister as “Governor Carney”; and how he should be “involved” in picking the next leader of Iran; and, most recently , how he could “do anything I want with Cuba.” The Emperor of Adderall, he brings to mind the passage from Exodus:

Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

And there arose up a new president over the United States, who did not give a flying…

All of this I followed as part of my professional obligation, but watching my new friend Dennis on Tuesday and seeing the contempt on his face and in his voice drove the new reality home like nothing had before.

We are hated as a nation now.

rypper_37 on March 20th, 2026 at 20:05 UTC »

If you guys elected a golden retriever to lead you, I wouldn't blame the dog.

Spicefvkker on March 20th, 2026 at 20:00 UTC »

It's cute trying to pin everything on one man, who is just a visible symptom of a much deeper disease which will continue to rot the entire country the longer it goes unaddressed.

SamtheCossack on March 20th, 2026 at 20:00 UTC »

I mean, alternatively there is 77 million, 302 thousand, 580 people to blame.

It is all about how you look at it.

I mean sure, Trump is a corrupt, lying, racist rapist, but he did get more than just his own vote. And we knew all that WELL before the election. We knew that before the 2016 election.

So when you elect a Corrupt, lying, racist rapist as President, and nobody likes him because he is a corrupt, lying, racist rapist, I am not sure he is the only person we should be blaming here. I mean sure, he is certainly one person we should be blaming. But I am not convinced he is the only one.