For a few glorious days, the world found itself debating one of the great geopolitical questions of our time. Did presidents really travel thousands of kilometres to New York only to pose for photographs with a wax figure of Donald Trump?
The controversy erupted after a series of United Nations General Assembly photographs appeared online. In each one, Trump stood in almost exactly the same position, wearing almost exactly the same expression, with the same smile and the same thumbs-up.
The photos were so eerily identical that social media detectives concluded world leaders had been photographed next to a cardboard cut-out, a wax statue, or perhaps the diplomatic equivalent of a shopping mall mannequin.
Even President Duma Boko found himself caught in the great Waxgate mystery, posing beside what many internet sleuths were convinced was not the real Trump at all.
One can hardly blame them. Most humans blink. They shift their weight. They change facial expressions. Trump, however, appeared to have discovered the diplomatic power of becoming a government-issued passport photo.
After all, we live in an era of artificial intelligence, deepfakes and social media conspiracy theories. The truly shocking part was not that people thought Trump was made of wax.
In fairness, maintaining exactly the same pose for dozens of leaders may be an underrated presidential skill. It saves time, reduces confusion and eliminates the risk of accidentally giving a different smile to Albania than to Botswana.
Perhaps the real lesson is not that world leaders were fooled by a wax figure.
It is that modern politics has become so strange that the theory sounded perfectly plausible.
After all, we live in an era of artificial intelligence, deepfakes and social media conspiracy theories. The truly shocking part was not that people thought Trump was made of wax.
The shocking part was that everyone immediately agreed it seemed possible.
One imagines presidential aides frantically reassuring the public: “No, Your Excellency did not fly across the Atlantic to pose with a mannequin.
That was definitely the real President of the United States.” The fact that such statements even had to be contemplated tells its own story.
In the end, the cardboard cut-out was not fake. Reality was simply doing a remarkably good impression of satire.
And somewhere in New York, a perfectly real Donald Trump may have accidentally achieved what no wax museum ever could, convincing half the world he wasn’t actually there.
