Illustration: Carl Godfrey/The Guardian
Let him eat cake! Birthday greetings for President Trump as he turns 80 – from Greta Thunberg, Piers Morgan and more. The 47th president celebrates his 80th birthday this weekend, a milestone that deserves recognition. Artists, activists, writers, and thinkers send their messages to the man of the hour, even if they are unlikely to receive a party invitation.
Cory Doctorow
Dear Comrade Trump: On this occasion of your 80th birthday, I extend sincere thanks for all your work. After decades of deadlock, you have inspired global action! You have done more to de-dollarise the world than any American leader in history. Without you, Ethiopia would not be revaluing its national debt in yuan. You have done more to end global dependence on oil than any leader except perhaps Comrade Putin. Without you, India would not be replacing gas hobs with induction tops. And you have done more than any president to end American dominance over the internet. Without you, the EU would not be racing forward with projects like Eurostack and European Digital Infrastructure Consortium, with nations ditching American tech exports like Microsoft Office 365 for free, open, auditable alternatives. Comrade Trump, you are ushering in the post-American world, and a grateful planet salutes you! Cory Doctorow is a journalist, author, and internet activist.
Piers Morgan
Happy 80th, Donald! I think I can be that familiar, Mr President, given our 20-year friendship. The world will mark your big day in many ways. But birthdays are celebratory, so I focus on one aspect everyone can agree on: your extraordinary resilience. You have been shot, prosecuted, impeached twice, endured two scandalous divorces, survived a financial crisis, bounced back from political oblivion to win back the White House, and faced more mockery and vilification than any public figure in modern history. Yet here you are, alive, surprisingly well (thanks to never touching alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes), and bursting with energy. When we spoke a week after the assassination attempt, you had just come off a rally stage. 'Were you not apprehensive?' I asked. 'I couldn't let myself think about that,' you replied. 'I had to get straight back out there.' Few would do that days after a bullet bloodied their ear. You may be the most polarising president in US history, but nobody can deny your resilient skin. Piers Morgan is a journalist and broadcaster who grew close to Trump after winning The Apprentice in 2008.
Jennifer Egan
Happy birthday, President Trump! By any measure, you have accomplished a staggering amount in 80 years. You have nullified the bulwark against fascism that our three branches of government were meant to provide. You have transformed the presidency into an orgy of corruption and self-dealing. You have erased American goodwill and respect internationally, ceding relevance in science, medicine, and climate technology. You have elevated racism and xenophobia into law, hobbled higher education, and gutted women's rights. The sheer quantity of your assaults has left detractors punch-drunk. I like to think your rampage exposed weaknesses that needed exposing. When you are gone, we will know how to ensure your like never hijacks our country again. But I am an optimist. One thing is certain: you have earned an early retirement. Take it! Enjoy your golden years on the golf course, knowing you have exceeded everyone's expectations. Jennifer Egan is a Pulitzer prize-winning author.
Greta Thunberg
My initial thought was to give you a one-way ticket to The Hague as a birthday gift, but that comment would probably go over your head. I will instead give you a can of alphabet soup; the sentences you produce will be more coherent than anything you have ever said. Now you can finally participate in meaningful public discourse. Greta Thunberg is a climate activist, about whom Trump tweeted after she was named Time's Person of the Year for 2019: 'Greta must work on her Anger Management problem … Chill Greta, Chill!'
Ai Weiwei
Life in the universe is the most precious common value we share. Anyone who regards it as a tradable commodity harms the advancement of human civilisation and will be remembered only to be despised. Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist, documentarian, and activist, and an open critic of the Trump administration.
Jon Sopel
Happy birthday, big man! I wanted to get you something really big and extravagant. I thought about a gold bar, but the Swiss already gave you one. Or a jumbo jet, but the Qataris beat me to it. Then I thought about a gold peace medal, but your mate Gianni from Fifa has done that. How thoughtful of your acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, to announce that tax authorities are 'forever barred' from looking at your tax returns. That is amazing, and it applies to the boys too. How lucky, given how your family has gotten richer off your return to the presidency. Hope it was lucrative to have Eric accompany you on the state visit to China. Can you imagine how much every American would love to fill in whatever they wanted on their IRS return? You could write: 'Income, none. Gifts, none. Tax due, none.' And the auditors could do nothing. I thought it was unusual when you sued your own government for $10bn over the leak of your tax returns, but you have been proved right. There is nothing I can think to buy you now; you seem to have everything. It is legitimate, isn't it? Jon Sopel is a presenter on The News Agents podcast and former North America editor of BBC News.
Siri Hustvedt
Dear Number 47. You are ageing fast, plagued by bruising, memory holes, verbal incoherence, and unwelcome sleep. Although plain to many who did not vote for you, your age and inevitable death have been invisible in the Magaverse. Maga magic transformed your real, fat, old man's body into the spectacular body of fascism: bulletproof, muscle-bound, eternal. The superhero costumes worn by your January 6 terrorists were testament to that fantasy of invulnerability. 'White Americans do not believe in death,' James Baldwin wrote. He understood the belligerent blindness to history, the mad belief in racial hierarchy as projections of self-hatred. Ignoring the universal reality of death turns human beings into amoral monsters. Yet birth is also a problem in the Magaverse. The fact that you were born from your mother, a bloody, wet, helpless infant, must feel awkward. The realities of gestation and birth are realities of dependence, whereas the Maga man is self-made, violently rejecting all things feminine – compassion, empathy, ecology, democracy. Not such a happy birthday, then. ICE murders, immigrant concentration camps, pregnant women bleeding out, measles outbreaks, huge deaths after USAID vanished, broken alliances, and an unwanted war are the consequences of delusion. But time is inexorable, your fantasy body is cracking, just as your real body shows infirmities of 80 years. Siri Hustvedt is an American novelist and essayist.
Jonathan Freedland
The temptation is strong to discard convention and curse and mock you on your birthday. Curse you for the poison injected into the US and the world, for your corruption, for the damage to democracy, for tens of thousands of lies, for lives destroyed through USAID abolition and the failed war on Iran. Mock you for your absurd vanity, statues, ballrooms, and arches designed to fill a hole in your soul. As Gavin Newsom put it, 'Trump's not enough. And he knows he's not enough.' That temptation is strong, especially given your insults to Rob Reiner after his death and your reaction to Robert Mueller's passing: 'I'm glad he's dead.' Yet for that reason, to stand against your erosion of social standards, we should not give in. So here it is: happy birthday, Mr President. Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist and host of Politics Weekly America podcast.
Bill McKibben
On your birthday: It was unnecessary to launch a cruel, ridiculous war to convince the world of the benefits of wind and solar energy. But you deserve one small gold trophy as electric vehicle salesman of the quarter. Enjoy. Bill McKibben is an American environmentalist.
Anthony Scaramucci
I found this birthday message for you outside Trump Tower: 'You sold me your soul. You got what you wanted. The tower. The power. The money. The name in gold. But you left a trail behind you, and it leads to the ninth circle. Goethe said any soul, while still living, can be saved. Will yours? Happy Birthday – Mephistopheles.' Anthony Scaramucci was director of communications at the White House, 21-31 July 2017.
Dom Joly
Hey Donald, You locked me out for insulting you on Twitter back in 2014. I was right then and I am right now: you are a narcissistic, lying fraud who has convinced people you care about them when you only care about yourself. Enjoy your birthday while the world burns. Dom Joly is a British comedian denied entry to the US due to his social media posts.
Afua Hirsch
Dear Donald Trump, You have reached 80, an age at which, in my culture, you should be celebrated as an elder. As an octogenarian, you should sit under the shade of the tree you planted and watch children flourish. But you have spent your life chopping down trees, figuratively and literally. You are the ultimate anti-elder, a cautionary tale of age without wisdom, cultivating hate instead of love. Instead of building up the village, you have tried to set it on fire. This does not mean we do not value your life. Every age needs its cautionary tale. For our generation, you have modelled destruction: rolling back gender equality, racial justice, judicial independence, promoting economic chaos, greed, corruption, and genocide. You have exposed the fragility of your country, waking millions from their slumber. Your legacy must never be repeated. On your birthday, let us recognise that is quite an achievement. Afua Hirsch is a writer and broadcaster.
Edel Rodriguez
Edel Rodriguez is a Cuban artist behind satirical anti-Trump covers for Time and Der Spiegel.
Sidney Blumenthal
Donald: After writing nice thank-you notes to your three wise men – Kash Patel for the bourbon, Pete Hegseth for the Ten Commandments, and Bobby Jr for the cocaine golden toilet seat – please consider Swedish death cleaning. Decluttering can save your family trouble. In the coming year, Democrats who assume control of Congress will subpoena your business records. Do not forget the suppressed 3 million documents in the Epstein files, especially those with your name redacted. Avoid chaos, legal expenses, and accusations of cover-up. Organise your files now to cooperate. Do not be a hoarder. Do not pile boxes in the Mar-a-Lago bathroom again. Prove your innocence, achieve retribution, and prevent the crown jewel of your East Wing from being renamed 'The 8647 Joseph Robinette Biden Ballroom' through Swedish death cleaning. We know you appreciate neatness. Be best! Four more years! Sidney Blumenthal is a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.
Oliver Bullough
Mr President, Your 80th year has been huge, especially with hundreds of millions from cryptocurrencies. But for your birthday, I want to give you some history. It is no accident the US currency became central to global business; your predecessors laboured to establish a dollar standard, gaining veto power over financial flows. Anyone moving money had to go through New York, with US permission. Britain found out in the Suez Crisis, as Russia is finding out now, that you cannot do much in global finance without US approval. Crypto marks the end of that. Privatised money means a future where the US has no more power over financial flows than any other country. Washington will be a supplicant, reduced to begging for powers it once kept. That is what crypto bros are buying with the money they give you. Once they have those capabilities, they will never give them back. Is selling national influence for personal profit really going to Make America Great Again? Oliver Bullough is an investigative journalist who has written about cryptocurrencies.
Peter Frankopan
On your 80th birthday, your thoughts might turn to how history will remember your presidency. Like many, I have much to be grateful for. Perhaps most important is your commitment to renewable energy. Your decision to attack Iran accelerated a shift away from hydrocarbons. Fears of global warming were not enough to concentrate minds, but the shock from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz convinced governments to think about energy security. I am also grateful for the legacy you have given historians. You have offered many gems: telling the Norwegian prime minister you no longer felt compelled to think 'purely of peace' after not winning the Nobel peace prize, posting images of yourself as a Jedi, as Jesus Christ, and walking hand in hand with a penguin in supposed Greenland (where penguin population is zero). My favourite is the line I would use to start a book about this period: 'Pope Leo is WEAK on crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy' you posted on Truth Social in April. That is as good as anything I have read for any period. It is primary source material made of solid gold. Thank you, Mr President. Peter Frankopan is a professor of global history at the University of Oxford.
Arwa Mahdawi
Judging by the popularity of Mar-a-Lago face, everyone in your orbit is terrified of ageing. But you should remind us that growing old is a privilege. There cannot be many 80-year-olds trying to survive in the ruins of Gaza, where life expectancy for men has dropped from 73.6 to 35.6 years since October 2023. Your government's enablement of Israel's genocide is to thank for that. Meanwhile, the gutting of USAID has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths; an Oxfam analysis shows a child under five could die every 40 seconds by 2030 due to USAID cuts. On your 80th birthday, your legacy appears to be mass immiseration and death. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist.
Jason Stanley
President Trump, congratulations on your birthday. You are one of the most consequential presidents in American history. Thanks to the Supreme Court you appointed, you have shut the door on multiracial democracy and given the country's fortunes to billionaires, including yourself and your family, ensconcing their power in perpetuity. In true American tradition, you have used racism and xenophobia to draw working-class Americans behind your billionaire agenda. You have taken the most damning Soviet propaganda about the United States and made it a proud statement of America's values. The American people have elected you twice in free and fair elections. More than anyone else today, you represent America. Your face adorns government buildings, and you are placing a permanent stamp on the nation's capital. The next step is to place your visage on Mount Rushmore as a permanent reminder of what America can be. Jason Stanley is Bissell-Heyd chair in American studies at the University of Toronto and author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future.
Mick Lynch
Dear Donald Potus on your birthday. Hair is wispy, Skin's gone crispy, Now you're 80, Don't be so hatey. Mick Lynch is a trade unionist and former general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers.
