Everybody has their idea of Saudi Arabia - rich, silk-robed princes arriving in Lamborghinis at Monte Carlo, vast resources of oil, Bedouins, camels, Islam, or burkas - and they are all true.
Yet everybody seems to be griping.The Saudis control the world petroleum market for their own profit, leaving world economies in a limbo of uncertainty. They keep their women covered and locked in medieval chambers. They export radical, fundamentalist Wahabi Islam to Europe, finance madrassas and mosques throughout the region, and have the mentality of primitive desert nomads.
So when Donald Trump went to Saudi Arabia to make a deal - one of the biggest arms sales in American history - bellowing was heard from all quarters. He was cozying up to a regime which treated women like slaves, drove homosexuals into the desert where they were drawn, quartered, and left as carrion, enforced Sharia law, supported an Islamic caliphate, and ruled the most authoritarian, repressive regime in the world.
Of course the President knew exactly what he was doing, supporting a friendly regime which was fighting Iranian extremism in the region and needed the modern military resources to complete the job. Once the Saudis had American planes, missiles, tanks, and armored vehicles the US and Israel could be done with the Houthis once and for all.
The deal would not only fill Americans' pockets but would create thousands of jobs throughout the defense industry. In other words, a sweet deal all around.
Progressives were wobbly. These were brown people, Muslims like their courageous heroes, Hamas and the Palestinians, significantly diverse and part of the beautiful quilt of nations; but what they did to women was unconscionable, intolerable, so even a second glance given to these barbarians was tantamount to treason.
The Press Secretary to the Crown Prince made it quite clear what his country proudly stood for. In a clarifying, boldly patriotic press release, he said this:
Praise be to Allah and his prophet Muhammed (Peace be upon him), and may his will be done. Today, in honor of the President of the United States, a great and noble country and an indivisible ally of the Kingdom, I wish to express the warm, welcoming wishes of our sovereign and the Saudi people.
Saudi Arabia is a land of God, ruled by Him, judged by Him, and overseen by Him. We faithfully and unerringly follow His divine law expressed in the Holy Koran, given to Muhammed (Peace be upon him) here on Mount Hira by the Angel Gabriel. Women are to serve men, to be obedient to them, to bear their children, and living in their own community of child-bearing servants, provide a universally respectful environment for their masters...
He went on to describe the nature of princely rule, the deviational folly of democracy, and the God-protected legacy of The Royal House, but it was this bit on women which inflamed American progressives and for which they roundly condemned the President's trip there.
To be honest there were some in Trump's entourage who applauded the Saudi view of woman - older men who remembered the America of their youth when women were loving mothers and wives, homemakers, keepers of the hearth and above all...they of course would never admit this in public...kept quiet.
These men had had quite enough of uppity, yappy, ankle-biting women who never let men alone. From toilet seat to carousing they never let up, taking their pound of flesh in a thousand cuts, bleeding men dry, watching them suffer, and dancing on their graves.
The men were part of the Administration's advance team to dismantle DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusiveness) and relished the role. They would be at the forefront of muzzling caterwauling, race-baiting, white-hating black women who seemed to be everywhere. Shutting their traps would be a service to the American people.
Othello, Shakespeare's well-known Venetian general who killed his wife Desdemona, told the court of inquiry that he did all men a service by getting rid of yet another whoring, unfaithful, duplicitous woman, and went to the gallows a proud and unrepentant man.
Shakespeare, it seems from his devilish portrayal of murderous harridans - Goneril, Regan, Tamora, Dionyza, and Volumnia among them - that he was not unhappy with Othello's position; but he had the good common sense of an impresario to give some sweetness and light to women like Ophelia, Marina, and Perdita.
Harrison Bender, senior advisor to the President and strong advocate for the Administration's efforts to replace identity politics with the foundational values of honor, respect, discipline, and ability was particularly pleased to be able to travel with him to Saudi Arabia. This was not just a conservative country, it was the conservative country, one which made no apologies for its fundamentalism, traditional social values, and obedience to a higher power.
While he of course did not go out of his way to praise the regime for its traditional approach to women, he was delighted that at least one country had some sense. It was no surprise that all Jesus' apostles were men, and no matter how feminists might try to convolute the words of the Bible and idolize the likes of Mary Magdalene, Christianity was a man's world which had fallen prey to hysterical feminism. The Saudis had it right in one - women in the Kingdom were where they belonged.
Harrison had trouble with the 'Islam is a religion of peace' meme. How could anyone say that with ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, al-Shebab, and the Houthis raising Cain all over the world? Yet, he was never a cancel culture person who condemned someone in entirety for one fault only.
Yes, it was despicable what Muslims were doing - 9/11, the Hamas raid on Israeli civilians, the brutality of Nigerian Boko Haram, and the genocidal fire and brimstone from the Iranian ayatollahs, but their Koranic understanding of the rightful place of women should not be ignored.
The reception for the President in Riyadh was impressive to say the least - ranks of impeccably robed, bearded, elegant men welcoming the leader of the free world, paying him ultimate respect within the well-known Arab tradition of generous welcome and hospitality - and Harrison felt proud and privileged to be there.
This would show the world that the Kingdom should no longer be considered a pariah but an honored member of the commonwealth of nations, a prosperous land ruled by a respected monarchy and without the crime, drug abuse, civil disorder, and random violence of America.
At home the carping, whining, and wheedling was incessant. This trip showed the world what progressives had been saying all along - that the President was a misogynous, woman-hating, medieval-minded dictator, bound and determined to return America to the days of female subjugation and male terrorism.
Nonsense of course, Harrison Bender notwithstanding. The President loved women - look at his Cabinet filled with smart, beautiful ladies - and although he like most men wished that sometimes they would simply keep quiet, he had nothing against them as a whole in an irreversible ‘can't live with them, can't live without them’ world.
He was roundly cheered for bringing home the bacon, reconfiguring American foreign policy in a very Kissinger-esque, Machiavellian mode, and showing the world American renewed pre-eminence. Only the nasties objected, but they were becoming supernumerary and irrelevant. Most of the rest of America was quite pleased.
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