• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, February 7, 2017

Sweet and sour at the same time, several nations have now produced humorous videos responding to Donald Trump’s call at his inaugural address. That’s when he said, “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first."

Surely you heard it, even if you were standing way, way back on the Mall among those 2 million spectators all cameras missed?

Jokers in the Netherlands did. Producers of a Dutch comedy show produced their own response video, conceding first place to America and using a narrator who sounds like a Dutch Donald Trump and speaks with his unusual sentence structure to take runner up. 

Their video concluded, "We totally understand it's going to be America First. But can we just say, 'The Netherlands Second?' Is that OK?"

It’s gotten more than 20 million views in the last two weeks, and spawned a mini-industry in travelogue/parody videos in which major European nations have all pleaded their case, in a Trumpian voice, to be number two to America’s number one.

Some weren’t that choosy. “We totally understand it’s going to be America first. And Netherlands can have their second place--and we shall take third,” says the polite video from Lithuania.

Taken all together, the videos show how YouTube and online video have let the world talk to each other. And on the other hand, almost all of the videos show how citizens of all nations love their land, history and heroes, and how badly Trump’s lack of statesmanship is being received around the world.

War-torn Bosnia Herzegovina makes its plea, but a printed on-screen announcement warns: “Due to great financial situation in our country, we couldn’t afford Donald’s voice.”

Switzerland brags about how it kept women from voting until 1971, and, noting Trump’s white supremacist support, points out, “You might want to know, your friends got [their] flag from us.”  

Germany, after making its case as the nation that gave the world one of its worst tyrants--who also was a best-selling author--ends by acknowledging Trump may someday want to “press the red button” to destroy Germany, and provides a graphic noting its location on a map. (It’s Italy.)

The German video, featuring a kind of Deutsche Stephen Colbert, also includes a good roundup of how the second-place derby started, mostly among the writing staffs of other comedy talk show writers..

All of the videos seem to be fascinated by Trump’s stated penchant for grabbing at women’s anatomies and his orange hair, plus his ordinary interest in making trouble.  

“We enjoy war so much we repeat it approximately every 40 years,” the Bosnia/Herzegovina video exclaims. “It doesn’t matter if we don’t have an adequate enemy. We fight between each other. Isn’t that great?”

The videos have their own Website, Everysecondcounts.eu, though the European entries are coming so fast, not all of them are there. And by now, not all of the places pleading for second-place status are in Europe. Australia has entered.

As of Monday, Morocco has a video, notable because it is a nation with a 99% Muslim majority, which seemingly would make it a long shot for second place.

But its video says that choosing a European No. 1 would be a “huge” mistake. “Europe is weak, total losers. With all the refugees and immigrants that have invaded their lands, at this rate, Europe will become part of Morocco soon.” Also, Morocco notes, it “has the best Islam. Just the best. It’s called Sufi Islam, and it’s so fun. You should try it sometime. You’ll love it.”

By the way, Mars has now been heard from.

pj@mediapost.com