Hush! I must hear! It’s an election year, I am a voter, and I need to know the president’s answers to the most pressing questions facing America today: How upholstered are the chairs in the Rose Garden? Is the helipad at the White House any good? How are things progressing with the ballroom? And is the golf course going to be ready soon? No, do not ask about affordability. That is a made-up word. I could not care less about the price of eggs! What am I, a hen?

My concerns are more basic. I demand to hear: HOW IS THE HELIPAD? AND IS THAT GOLF COURSE IN EAST POTOMAC PARK BEING DEVELOPED TO THE HIGHEST STANDARDS OF GOLF, TURNING THAT TRASH ISLAND INTO AN ISLAND OF BEAUTY AND SUCCESS?

I was up late last night. I looked at my bills. Pretty high—but that just means the economy is booming. Still, it was hard to rest. I walked down the hall and looked at my sleeping children. How long could we hope to survive, knowing that at this very moment, in Washington, D.C., a judge is preventing East Potomac Park from becoming one of the world’s great golf courses, instead just letting it lie there, old, tired, beaten up, and useless?

My children say, “Father, Father! When will we be able to afford hamburger?” And I say, “How can you talk about hamburger when you know that Trash Island still needs to be developed to the highest levels and standards of golf?” And they say, “Do you even play golf?” And I say, “Silence!” They don’t have their priorities straight. But I’m glad we have a president who does.

The other day, I was at the gas pump. I hate going to the gas pump, because the numbers there are so high, which I know is a deliberate distraction from the real problems Americans face: the hazardous, dangerous trees on East Potomac Golf Links. No one is safe from those trees.

After that, I stopped by a restaurant and ate some salad. Immediately, I felt sick to my stomach. “That was tainted lettuce,” my family said. “No,” I said, “it is because of the shame, pertaining to the golf course.”

I don’t need a fully staffed FDA monitoring lettuce-borne diseases! I need to know that we are stopping our assistance to Ukraine in defiance of Congress. I need to know whether Vladimir Putin seemed happy when our president talked to him. I really hope that our president impressed him; Putin is a big, important man. Maybe someday, America will be a world power too. If we can just get this golf course in shape, we can build on that momentum.

Don’t you dare say that this isn’t a kitchen-table issue. You haven’t seen my kitchen table, on which a replica of the president’s plans for a truly beautiful arch have sat for the past six months, gathering dust. That arch holds all my dreams. “Why did you buy that and not food?” my children ask. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

Don’t try to appeal to me by talking about the cost of living. IRRELEVANT! I want to know: Does the president have a nice-enough plane? Are the right letters on all the buildings in the capital? Good, beautiful letters, such as T, R, U, M, and P—not bad, subpar letters such as K, E, N, N, E, D, Y? These are my concerns, just as they are the concerns of the whole electorate.

For years, I have been unable to hold my head up high, knowing that we don’t have the greatest ballroom slash military complex ever built. How do you think that feels? Every night, I toss and turn, asking myself: Is New Mexico going to keep its disgusting, embarrassing name? Or will it change it to something nice, like New America? Will they ever manage to cut down those terrifying trees in East Potomac Park, so we can finally feel safe? Hurry, Mr. President! Please, hurry! I don’t know how much longer I can keep living like this.

© Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Jim Watson / AFP / Getty.

After Russia released an American prisoner, President Trump’s special envoy praised President Vladimir V. Putin as “a humanitarian.” Our White House and national security correspondent, David E. Sanger, describes how the release comes amid Mr. Trump’s broader shift toward Russia and away from Ukraine.

Guardian Europe columnists Rokhaya Diallo and Alexander Hurst answered your questions about the recent protests in France, the role of the French police, foreign influence and the upcoming presidential election.

Michael Wolfcarius asks: I cannot understand why the Guardian is selecting dots instead of joining them. France may have developed into the big story for many reasons, many of which have yet to be discussed, but it is not the only place where seemingly small incidents grew into massive protests, some also quite violent; Spain, Italy, Serbia and Albania come to mind. The crystallising reason may be different but the conditions leading up to it are quite similar. Can you put all these events into perspective, context and relation? There are obviously underlying currents making it difficult for people to refrain from making themselves ‘heard’.

Rokhaya: I agree that these movements deserve to be considered together, while at the same time, recognising their different specific national contexts. Housing in Spain, living costs and public services in Italy and France, and corruption in Serbia and Albania are bringing people onto the streets. These concerns touch the foundations of a decent life and people’s ability to shape their future.

What connects them, in my view, is the widening gap between what people need and what political institutions seem willing to deliver. These incidents that have led to protests are not “small .” Serbia’s movement began after a deadly railway-station canopy collapse, which became a focus for anger over corruption and accountability. My reading is that these protests express a crisis of political responsiveness.

Alexander: I think people in all these places – Albania, Spain, France – feel that the political systems that exist aren’t capable of dealing with the sheer scale and nature of the crises facing us, and they’re responding to a sense of ‘loss of control’ (the Brexit campaign really did strike upon a brilliant slogan) over where their societies are headed. There is a general social sense that has flipped from “this is broken, but things can and will get better”, which gives people a stake in the institutions around them, to “this is broken and things can and will get worse”.

The impact of the arrival of AI has been understated. Not just on labour markets, or on the environment, but ontologically. The investment pitch of the most powerful companies in the world, the ones amassing trillion dollar valuations, isn’t just that X-subset of jobs are replaceable, it’s that human beings themselves are replaceable. That the things we do fundamentally don’t matter, and that their goal is to bring this into being. I think that feeling is there even if we don’t immediately put our finger on it in those terms.

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© Composite: Guardian Design

© Composite: Guardian Design

© Composite: Guardian Design