Interesting article with a different take. T is going to be a transformational president (already is) and as I have mentioned many times before, he is setting the world agenda. I think the Europeans will have to ‘go to the dentist’ as mentioned in the last paragraph, but I think they increasingly will be willing to do that. They will eventually see the Chinese dictator for what he is, when they fully realize that ‘1984’ is being implemented in China. Further, Europe is on the ropes economically. Look at the pathetic growth rates, which until very recently China was propping up. No longer. The Europeans will need to pull up their own socks and I agree with Bannon that the European elections next year will be the first ever consequential ones.
Stand by for a ‘tack’.
/Snip
VIENNA — For a European, visiting the United States these days is a bit like going to the dentist: Your mouth is agape, you smell trouble, and you leave with a lingering bad taste.
I recently spent three months in Washington as the Henry A. Kissinger chair at the Library of the Congress. My job, ostensibly, was to make sense of a world that has gone wild. But I think in my time there the only thing I really achieved was high-level confusion.
This wasn’t my first visit to America, but it was my most disturbing one. What I found so disconcerting was the pervasive political polarization afflicting the country. It was also clear that America has become inward-looking and conspiracy-minded. And in Washington now, people are incapable of discussing anything but President Trump. They talk about Mr. Trump even when they pretend to be speaking about something else. It’s all Trump, all the time.
The only people who refrain from Trump talk are those who work for him. It used to be when I visited Washington, people in the government were eager to talk to me, an analyst, about everything from the war in Ukraine to trade with the European Union. They wanted their talking points heard on the Continent, and they wanted outsiders’ perspectives on world events. But officials in the Trump administration shy away from many — especially foreigners like myself. Perhaps they fear that we might figure out that even senior White House officials have little clue about what the president plans to do next.
