EUROPE/ USA : DISTANCE IS THE NEW NORMAL

Since the early days of the Trump presidency, it was clear that something was getting dark in the Atlantic partnership. The reluctance of the new American president to endorse NATO's Article 5 was an early warning of worse to come. Indeed, if misgivings on military burden-sharing were to be expected, the growing gap on more existential issues and free-trade is becoming a fault line which is grows larger by the day.

The behavior of this president is intolerable inside the US and outside. The insults, the lies, the pathological behavior pile up, while the democratic clout of the West is getting fragmented at an alarming pace. The UK is becoming an is land again. The Eastern flank of the EU is following a populist model. The original EU Six have no other alternative, after the German elections, but to follow the French intellectual leadership. In all those cases and scenarios, including the Eastern European ones, the United States has become the outsider, And it is becoming marginal in other parts of the world which it is increasingly alienating. There is a difference between making noise and making policy.

It is also sad to see the liberal ideas, which Europe and America shared, under siege because the follies of one. The former proximity in the arts, literature, the value system is gone. A reciprocal disaffection is actually unfair since in the US the opposition against this president is larger than his boisterous support. Unfortunately, the brutality of this permanent coup is creating some sort of stage fright which leaves the more civilized alternative on the defensive. In the original European Six there is so much repulsion versus Trump that the good is thrown out with the bad.

At times one has to take a difficult stand.  Now that a civilized inter-Atlantic discourse is becoming impossible, it is better to opt out and to go for distance. Some lonely political voices and most respected commentators in the US are speaking out against this worsening of this almost Brechtian scenario. Europe, however, had better awaken and take stock from all that separates it now from its former grand ally. The French proposals for a more existential EU are on target, a change from the old bureaucratic pattern. The clumsy politics in Washington have to be fought with better, inclusive, democratic ideas in Europe. When things got bad on the old continent, Europeans found refuge and support in America. Now, yet again in a new reversal, Americans have to find solace in Europe, which should not disappoint them!

The current American "fall" is not a Camus repeat. It is not existential. It is just plain sordid. The elections were not won, they were stolen. The virus needs to be isolated.  Experience teaches that it can be dangerous to board a ship which looks ominous and that to risk otherwise can have unpleasant consequences. Hybrids seldom respond well to appeasement. On the contrary, they become even more untrustworthy and reckless. Trump is no Minotaur: no head of a bull on a man's body.   He is just plain bullish.