THE OBAMAS

The Obamas...

...The most admired man and woman in the United States...probably worldwide.

One does not need to be perfect but just to be able to communicate his or her beliefs, be it in prose or in verse.

 

2018 : FIN DE PARTIE.

Cette annee a ete l'annee de toutes les mediocrites, partout. Si les Etats-Unis ont emporte la palme d'or, plusieurs etaient en lice pour le prix du meilleur realisateur.

C'est bien entendu le spectacle Trump qui a ete retenu a l'unanimite. Le jury a voulu couronner un cycle ininterrompu de mensonges, de bluff et de vulgarite. Dans l'autre categorie, l'Union Europeenne s'est imposee par sa derive a droite, son divorce a l'anglaise et son humeur depressive, depuis que la Grande Bretagne et les Etats-Unis lui ont fait faux bond.

L'anne prochaine risque d'etre pire,  l'annee de tous les dangers.

- Quelqu'en soient les formules  finalement retenues, Brexit se passera mal. Les interrogations politiques et economiques demeurent a ce jour entieres. Par ailleurs il ne faut pas sous-estimer le dommage existentiel qui rique de fragiliser le flegme britannique .

-La nouvelle tangente Italienne est inquietante. La voie romaine qui relie desormais la droite de Rome aux partis reactionnaires de la Mittel Europa des Habsbourg  scinde l'Union Europeene en deux. Les recents developpements en Bosnie et au Kosovo ne presagent rien de bon, d'autant plus que l'Amerique de Trump ne s'y interesse plus.

-Poutine peut avancer ses pions ou il veut, quand il veut, des lors qu'il ne rencontre pas ou peu de resistance. L'Ukraine est aux urgences. Le neo-isolationisme de l'administration americaine et son antipathie envers tout modele multilateral contraignant permettent a la Russie de parachever sa "normalisation" en Europe, fut-ce au prix des engagements souscrits dans l'acte final de l'exercise d'Helsinki.

-L'Amerique entre en periode pre-electorale, ce qui rendra Trump plus agressif , soucieux de menager une base electorale composee surtout d'archi-conservateurs ou prevalent les "blue collars" non universitaires. Deja le president a donne un coup d'accelerateur a tout ce qui constitue un agenda : anti immigration, anti engagement international,  pour plaire a cette base, quitte a s'aliener les "elites" et les "allies".

- En Asie, l'Inde a du mal a composer entre une Chine qui avance et les Etats-Unis qui reculent. L'Australie et le Japon n'attendent plus longtemps pour reaffirmer des interets communs qui requierent des ajustements militaires et economiques sans les Etats-Unis.

- L'Afrique sub-Saharienne et, en moindre mesure, l'Amerique Latine sont devenues des protectorats chinois mais l'endettement cosecutif, en priorite de plusieurs pays africains, risque de porter ombrage a l'image "paternaliste" de Pekin.

-Le Moyen Orient est diplomatiquement bancal pour les Etats-Unis. Trump a fini par s'aliener a peu pres tout le monde et semble vouloir quitter la partie ou du moins passer le temoin au premier preneur venu.

En 2019 l'Europe va bouder. L'Amerique au contraire va remuer de plus belle, non par ambition conceptuelle, mais pour distraire, detourner, voir meme divertir. La base electorale de Trump ne lui demande pas de jouer a l'homme d'etat informe. Au demeurant le president est "illetre". Son electorat attend de lui qu'il invective, exagere et attaque. C'est un repertoire dans lequel il excelle et a ce jour aucun Democrate n'arrive a l'imiter. Si les Democrates veulent gagner les presidentielles en 2020, il faudra encore trouver un candidat absolument oppose a Trump dans le "look", le ton et l'agression intelligente, mais tout aussi egal a lui dans la redoutable performance d'acteur. Qu'un pays occidental soit devenu  le fief dune famille "mafieuse" laisse reveur. Il est certain que les Democrates n'hesiteront pas a voir de plus pres ce que les Republicains ont essaye d'etouffer quand ils etaient majoritaires dans la Chambre jusqu'en 2019.

Pour revenir a L'Europe. Les elections au parlement europeen et une nouvelle Commission (enfin) peuvent contribuer a revaloriser un projet europeen en mal d'idees. Faisons un reve (merci Sacha Guitry).

TRUMP TWEETS , THE BASE DIRECTS

Washington is a pretty blasé place but Trump's latest salto mortales have shaken even the more cynical observers. Unilaterally, out of the blue, he decided to withdraw American forces from Syria. He also ordered to halve the size of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resigned in protest, not without having made sure that his resignation letter was printed in 50 copies for all to see. This letter is already becoming his Emile Zola-like J'accuse against this president's unbound policies.

The president has the right to change course. The dispute is about something more important, about consultation, professionalism and warning of allies. Besides, in the Syrian case there is the dereliction of the Kurds who are left at the mercy of Turkey's genocidal intentions. The rumor goes that Trump consulted Erdogan. Allies were ignored, as usual. Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Russia cannot believe their ears...Putin was the first to congratulate the Manchurian president on his decision!

The Republicans remain tone-deaf. Individually some express disbelief, but when pushed into their usual lemmings formation, they salute. Trump and the GOP look as if both parties suffer from a reciprocal Stockholm Syndrome. Anyway the real force comes from Trump's 30% base of hard-core individuals, pro-life but at the same time gun fanatics, who are to America what the yellow vests are to France. The difference being that while they are in the streets there, they dictate policies here. Their influence is growing and obliges Trump to overreact, be it with the Fed, the Pentagon or State. The United States finds itself, for two years, in a permanent class, gender, racial, geographical, sociological civil war. Trump acts in all this like a chaos addict.

The Foreign Affairs issue of Jan./Feb. 2019 raises the issue of who will run the world. The challenge is discussed in ways that are too unilateral. It makes no sense to launch a product without prior market research. Previously, even during the George W. Bush Iraq historical, fatal mistake, people in the world still believed that redemption was possible. Obama gave the Pax Americana another (uneven) chance. Trump buried it . It does not make any difference if X rather than Y pretends running the world if there are no takers. The United States is losing its soft-power. China has more imitators now than the US and Putin's Moscow is becoming trendy. The movers and shakers in the world start to snub the Trump way. Europeans are gone, Asians return to their own model, Africans are pragmatic. The core allies like Australia, Canada or the UK will think twice before embarking again with this unprincipled president.

Trump is probably an isolationist both in his public and private persona, impervious to charm, manners, counsel, but addicted to praise and glitter. He has no others working for him but mirrors of his sublimated insecurities. If not re-elected, the damage done might still be repaired but this will be an uphill battle given that he sold out to his base. If he were to continue after 2020 the downfall risks to be steep. He will in any case continue to sabotage a global order for which he does not have any affinity and to disinvest in the virtues of compassion and creativity that made America the envy of the world. Now we may enter an uncertainty which might well affect all sectors, the economy and the rule of law in the first place.

EU VERSUS TRUMP : IDEAS VERSUS PIQUE

In less than one week Mike Pompeo, American Secretary of State,  and Gordon Sondland, hotelier and Trump's ambassador to the EU have made anti- European tirades. They betrayed both unfamiliarity and prejudice. Not that all is well with the EU, but criticism rooted in glee and class welfare might well "boomerang". The demise of civilized language from this White House is becoming the hallmark of this administration. This goes for the form but the content is equally unsophisticated, a horizontal Goya-like firing squad which shoots at all things non-transactional...values, ideas, commitments. Allies are the favorite target. Partners-in-crime get a free pass.

Yes, the EU does not do well. It has become unloved. It missed the boat when there was still time to reconsider its workings and come up with a more enlightened projection which might have woken up a wavering attention. Brexit on one side and the populist tsunami on the other have made for an encircling psychoses which is a godsend for Putin, and another alibi for Trump to downgrade the US footprint in Atlantic affairs. In 2019 EU Parliament elections and a new Commission might bring some form of rejuvenation, but innovative thinking is an uphill battle.

Paradoxically, the banalization of danger has made Europe complacent and lazy. The Berlin Wall cemented the will to resist and the need to defend alliances rooted in shared ideas. The Gulag was East, the opportunities were West. After the wall, and a transition marked by a far too paternalistic Western attitude, the will to "be" was muted in a desire to "shop". The example of Germany is illuminating. Former East Germany was integrated with various degrees of success but the disappearance of the Berlin Wall lowered both acuteness in Europe and a moral/strategic imperative in America. The Iron Curtain helped as much as it inflamed. Now everything is becoming equalized. Ukraine is just a lump of sugar diluted in a too hot tea cup. Nobody will lift a finger if...

Europe can do without drama for sure. It nevertheless needs to "face the music". Self-esteem is relevance's twin. Given that Trump killed respect for the sake of some Pharisean deals, the Europeans should start to consider the outline and the broad priorities of a second generation of Atlantic thought. This has to be done with a return of the United States and their future input in mind. The EU council should have a large mandate to come up with a European pillar concept by 2020.

Brexit is a serious European divorce, given that after the United Kingdom became a full partner in the Common Market on January 1, 1973, a referendum was won by two-to-one in favor. It is important not to allow hard feelings and resentment to take over. Too many pieces in the European puzzle are in jeopardy. Reason, plus European self-interest, should prevail. If short-term anti-intellectual sound bites strive in today's Washington, Brussels should remain open to more creative and generous terms. The voters have to come back if the EU institutions want to fulfill their mandate. The EU should get rid of the Spitzenkandidat curse and become again as in Hallstein's days a concert of excellence rather than a depository for political "have beens". Likewise, the Commission should be smaller, albeit with a Security Council rotation mechanism.

The EU should not fall into Trump's paranoid brutal reactive format. Sometimes  a touch of moral class is warranted even as it might be felt as a snub. If there is such a price to pay for being ambitious and if the Pompeo/Bolton/Navarro/ Soudland quatuor continues to play in Washington it is advisable to skip the concert for now.

BRUXELLES : GOUVERNEMENT PERDU / MUSEE RETROUVE.

La derniere crise gouvernementale en Belgique semble a premiere vue anodine, un accident de parcours qui mobilise a peine les medias.

Et pourtant, les ambiguities dangereuses sont nombreuses. Il est difficile de trancher si le Premier Ministre a ete machiavelique ou non, si les Nationalistes Flamands ont orchestre leur depart ou s'ils y ont ete obliges. En tout cas cette "crisette" a definitivement marginalise le role que jouait la fonction royale dans le passe. La redistribution rapide des portefeuilles est aussi un indicateur de l'absence de creativite et de la carence d'interet pour la fonction publique.

L'episode rique de rallumer la tendance "populiste"au sein des Nationalistes Flamands , qui ont ete des partenaires gouvernementaux corrects. Liberes de cette solidarite ils risquent de se retrouver avec un noyau dur qui trouve que la page de normalisation (relative) doit etre tournee. Le Premier Ministre risque de se retrouver en mal de "grand final" avant les elections legislatives de 2019. Garder le cap sans majorite parlementaire est un exercice a haut risque. Son chemin de Marrakech ressemble deja a un decathlon.

Le coup de grippe belge est encore symptomatique du malaise Europeen. Le mecontentement diffus qui avance partout est d'autant plus difficile a maitriser qu'il n'a d'autre identite qu'un spleen en mal d'un acte d'accusation precis. Les gilets jaunes ne sont pas un movement. Ils sont une Jacquerie a pretention nihiliste. Il devient des lors difficile de trouver une riposte a an "rien" demolisseur.

En Belgique le surreel est toujours present. Voila qu'au milieu de cette crise, le musee d'art africain, renove, a ouvert ses portes. L'histoire et la personnalite de Leopold II sont connues. Au demeurant il n'y a pas de colonialime heureux. Apres que le president Macron a plaide pour une restitution intelligente du patrimoine artistique africain spolie, les grandes collections partout dans le monde sont interpellees. Deja la Republique Democratique du Congo frappe a la porte du magnifique musee, oeuvre de Girault ( architecte du Grand palais). L'appel ne pourra etre ignore et il faudra trouver une reponse globale, valable erga omnes. Le contentieux est d'autant plus delicat qu'il risque ici aussi d'activer et de rallumer des recours "populistes" qui peuvent bouleverser la recherche, l'excellence et les equilibres qui ont autant besoin d'etre actualises que d'etre encourages.

ABOUT A FUNERAL

President George H.W. Bush's funeral was dignified. It felt also as much about him as it was about an American "story", lost for now. All the presidents present seemed aware of this "double" requiem. The difference being that the current president was "in attendance", while the others were "participants". The eulogies coming out of this administration felt like so many unwelcome intrusions. History is a tragedy and not a morality tale (Christopher Hitchens).

The former president was not a natural born leader, neither was he without failures. He was more a man who was able to learn from his mistakes and never blame others for having erred. His belief in the moral imperative in American leadership convinced the skeptics and the losers.  He was gracious in winning and reached out rather than humiliating. In all this he was the opposite of the current squatter in the White House. It was equally remarkable that the people and friends around him represented the best in America. Trump confronts us daily with the worst.

The truce in the vitriol will be short-lived as was the reluctant handshake between President Obama and his nemesis. Unlike George H.W. Bush's heart, the twitter will never stop as long as Trump is preoccupied with spewing his fake news. At least America received a pause, a short period of mourning and respite. One has to wonder what the Millennials might have been thinking, watching this procession of old men and women talking in a vocabulary which is out of place about issues that are out of value. There was some King Lear feeling under the majestic vaults of Washington Cathedral, the usurper and the mourners looked equally old and dispirited.

PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH...The way they were.

President George H.W. Bush was by excellence and example a gentleman and a type of American better books are written about. His life reads like a manual on manners, decency and professionalism. For the time being his biography can only exist in the past tense, regrettably. The deteriorated vocabulary of today's Washington cannot reach that high. It should retreat in shame. Perhaps his death might oblige Americans to revisit the current wrong choices made in their name. Being reminded the way the former president was, they might repent for the present aberrations they have failed to correct, until now.

AMERICA'S NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

In the Trump's dystopia one knows the price of everything versus the value of nothing. All the branches of government are being hijacked by the president-Don. In this lame-duck session of Congress, reckless actions are still possible before the Democrats take over the House. Trump will stop at nothing to kill the Mueller investigation, be it at the price of dragging the system down. His clan and tribal base will stay put. The Republicans from yesterday are no longer, Their successors are too busy around life, god and guns to pay attention to the existential downfall around them.

The country suffers from a collective nervous breakdown. The Trump haters and the Trump lovers are equally frustrated, for opposite reasons obviously, but meanwhile the country is in free-fall. America's international stature and influence are close to the alarm level. The fake news by the administration with regard to the benefits of the tax cut starts to be overtaken by a more somber reality test (former deductibles are disappearing). The Senate is becoming hostage to the Republican Southern strategy, vote suppression and the upcoming census. This lost democracy might end up killing the majority rule for ever.

Observers have been in denial for too long. Too many have said that the president would never dare to question the basic principles and morals that underscore the attraction of the American model. They forget that since Andrew Jackson many presidents did not live up to the lofty ambitions of the Founders. At least they still had a sense of history and understood the workings of democracy even when these were not to their liking. Now we have a man at the helm who is ignorant of, and indifferent to, all that which does not fit in his narrow egomaniac mindset. This former "builder" never cared about architecture, quality, rules, labor and tenant laws and he continues to lie, bend, disguise, avoid for profit then and now. He has no word, no vision...only pockets.

Nevertheless he is street smart. His base worships his red ties, love of coal and frank brutality and ignores his real nouveau riche persona, his trophy wives and his less commendable foibles. The opposition snubs him and often fails to confront him directly with the lies that cover his statements like some acid rain. Is there anyone in his close circle or administration whom one might still forgive, occasionally admire or tolerate? This syndicate of saboteurs is made up of crooks but they all excel in one objective: dismantling the rule of law and of checks and balances. The mostly white angry, homophobic, racist male rules, unchecked.

Trump will be attending the G20.  Strange meeting a la Bruegel. Blinds leading blinds in a G20 which has become nothing but a cover-up for quick dating without consequence. Trump's pas de deux with Putin, Xi, MBS or Macron will be catnip for Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately, this Buenos Aires tango might be a sad Habanera one should have avoided.

THE AXIS OF BRUTALITY

The new normal:  Trump+Saudi, Filipino, Brazilian and other offenders of norms and decency.  Nice club!

THERESA MAY'S WEEK IN HELL

If America is stuck in a bad Bertolt Brecht remake of Arturo Ui, the United Kingdom is hostage to a Shakespeare drama. The Brexit deal that the British PM arrived at is dividing the Westminster Parliament and is "gerrymandering" party lines. To avoid the Irish problem, the PM decided to keep the whole United Kingdom in a customs union with the EU for now. Hence, the UK would be part of an EU mechanism without being able to exercise any form of  control since it is no longer a member.

Her dependence on the DUP (Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party) stood in the way of more clear-cut solutions. She returns yet again to Brussels, trying to pre-empt the bad vibes that already appear before the European Council later this week. In her absence, the gloomy atmosphere in London might get worse and the rumors of plots and rancor could further multiply.

Some suggest a second referendum. Probably a majority would reverse the chosen exit path. Nevertheless, the majority risks being again razor thin, creating another wave of discontent in the opposite direction. One way or another, London can expect difficult days ahead. If one considers all options, Theresa May's proposal, as unglamorous and precarious as it is, might be the only way out of a situation "full of sound and fury". If not, as the bookmakers predict, the PM might end up "dead as a doornail".

All this misery is the direct result of former PM David Cameron's reckless decision to submit the UK's membership in the EU to a referendum, which was both risky and frankly ill- conceived and managed (like many referendums in history). The "miscalculation" is of an historical importance. Nothing has been as politically devastating since the unglamorous loss of the Empire. Theresa May today is only the undertaker, not the villain in this Shakespearean tragedy.

The EU cannot fall prey to the very "domestic" worries which are currently stoked by the narrow-minded populist mindset. It would be tragic to look inward when the American administration acts clueless and when China is in sophisticated overdrive (watch the imperial Xi Jinping versus the hapeless Pence, who was even ignored for the traditional opening photo of APEC). The EU's recent economic inroads with China and Japan have to be complemented by a more political input so that the void left by the US is not underwritten by China alone. Maybe the EU should reconsider some form of steering committee for political/strategic initiatives. Some might fear a return to Gaullist thinking, but in retrospect de Gaulle was often prophetic.

PARIS : !! NOVEMBRE TRISTE

Le 11 Novembre a Paris etait lugubre, tres Verlaine "Il pleut sur la ville..."

Si le president francais etait a la hauteur de cette commemoration, d'autres semblaient egares, voir meme absents . Seule le chancelier allemand etait en symbiose avec la solemnite de l'evenement. Voir toutes ces excellences sous la pluie avait quelque chose de poignant. Au demeurant,  beaucoup sont "partants", plusieurs sont politiquement fragilises, tous semblaient egares dans un scenario dont ils n'avaient plus la maitrise.

Comme d'habitude Trump etait Trump. Il n'etait que ca. Au demeurant l'histoire et l'emotion bivouaquent mal dans le dereglement psychique permanent d'un homme sans qualites. Seul Putin etait amuse, il y avait de quoi!

Ce cortege funebre etait encore traverse par des lignes de demarcation entre nationalistes et "pluralistes", entre adeptes du "moi" et fideles au "nous". Le message du president Macron a ete entendu. La mauvaise humeur de Trump a ete enregistree. L'Europe a desormais l'accent francais.

Il est evident que le monde imagine par l'Amerique apres la seconde guerre mondiale n'est plus. Les Etats Unis ont enterre leur propres ambitions anterieures et privilegient desormais  une politique internationale de troc, cas par cas, demunie de toute forme de philosophie ou d'ambition superieure a l'interet immediat. L'Europe devra choisir la distance sans couper les ponts. Elle doit aussi menager les courants (Italie, Europe du milieu) opposes au camps classique. ( France/ Allemagne/ Benelux). Un nouveau G9 (France, Allemagne, Italie (?), Royaume Uni, UE, Australie, Japon, Coree du Sud, Canada) peut  contribuer a proteger et a amender le modele liberal existant, jusqu'a ce que une nouvelle administration americaine redevienne frequentable et fiable.

Il est probable que plusieurs participants aux ceremonies de ce 11 Novembre se sont interroges sur l'identite des fossoyeurs et des "presque-enterres". Il faut remercier le president francais d'avoir ete clair et d'avoir reaffirme la pertinence du choix occidental. Cette pavane n'etait pas destinee a un modele d'alliance bancale, defunt. Son denier mouvement renouait avec les "lumieres"...apres tout on etait en France.

TRUMP PRE-MIDTERM = TRUMP POST-MIDTERM ...ONLY WORSE

The midterm elections gave the Democrats a majority in the House, while the Republicans increased their hold over the Senate. The votes only confirmed the split which exists between town and country and the sociological changes in the suburbs, which highlight an increasing Democrat political urban profile. Trump is already his former pugilistic self, acknowledging that he will have to deal with a Democrat House Speaker but threatening her from the start. His first post-midterms move is to send Jeff Sessions packing so that he has a free hand in dealing with the Mueller Russia probe. It is going to be an unpleasant bumpy ride. 

Trump feels vindicated in his chosen message and will continue on the path of the culture wars, against press and city.  None of the Democrat star candidates for a Senate seat made it. The Democrats had better beware of Trump's traps. Their new House majority coming without a Senate bonus does not give them the blank check they hoped for. Theirs will be a difficult high wire act. Nancy Pelosi risks becoming some Maria Stuart, waiting for the ax which might very well come out of her own ranks.

It is becoming tiresome to have to return again to America's fall from grace but the fact remains that the downward spiral looks unstoppable as long as this pathological persona stays at the helm. Shakespeare would be at a loss of iambic pentameters to describe this ersatz composite of Lear, Richard III and Macbeth. Trump, not unlike former or current strong leaders, lives exclusively in a truth of his own making. He might even believe in it. After all, the grotesque poses of his former "Ivana" days were then already considered over the top. The Trump posing then in Playboy attire on a courtesan bed is not different from the Trump/Liberace you get today. The difference is that the pillow might now hide a gun.

Soon the president will depart for Paris (WWI remembrance, he knows nothing about) and Buenos Aires (where he can be the "ugly American" he is). He likes the pomp but not at the price of doing his homework. Besides, he does not particularly like the Europeans who snub his lack of manners and Godfather style.  Furthermore, there are serious issues (Iran, Cuba, climate, aid, NATO, environment, Russia, trade, human rights, immigration...) where the allies politically and philosophically diverge.

The Senate majority leader must be a happy man.  McConnell got a larger majority and was able to cash in on a swath of conservative judges who will enact hard-core priorities.  The Republicans are smart. They let the Democrats wage zombie wars while they push their own agenda, unhindered.

These "historical" elections were anything but. They confirmed that the United States is more divided than ever. Two years from now Trump might be re-elected in a real "historical repeat.  Biographies about America's former presidents and leaders multiply lately. The present is so scary that readers prefer to escape to the past rather than try to correct the present.  History is good for remembrance but an overdose can lead to denial regarding the present.

 

MERKELEXIT

The announced departure of the German Chancellor, coming after Brexit, is another blow to European values and ambitions. The populist derailment continues to create havoc. Trump, Putin and the Mitteleuropean crazies will rejoice, just as some did in the past when the Kaiser got rid of Bismarck...giving us the First World War as a bonus.

Without the United Kingdom and now losing Angela Merkel the EU is becoming more vulnerable. Only President Macron can try to steer the European project further, but his chances look slim. In reality the former Atlantic world is disappearing fast, battered under the selfish nationalistic shock waves coming from Trump and contaminated by Putin's Machiavellian touch of evil.

Western Europe may well be reduced to a sort of Eurasian archipelago under a Chinese/Russian board of  trustees. President Xi's grandiose new Silk Road ambition, together with Putin's energy policies (encouraged by, i.a., Germany's former chancellor Gerhard Shroeder, chairman of the Russian Oil giant Rosneft)), are reversing the projection of Mercator's map of the world. Like it or not, if the United States can do it alone, Europe cannot. With Trump, who has only a transactional outlook, Western Europe might end on its own. The American commitment to NATO can no longer be trusted since this loony president is devoid of any philosophical/strategic or moral fiber. He is only skilled as a consummate liar who gets away with "histrionics by repetition." He is of the same mettle as the former Idi Amin who ruled by exaggeration. Other leaders look pale in comparison. Under Trump, matinee entertainment has displaced enlightenment.

Trump already hijacked the mid-terms by his own knack for triangulation. If the Republicans win, it will be his doing alone. If they lose, he will blame them--not himself--for the loss. Until Tuesday he will shamelessly use the "caravan" for all the ills to come, accusing the Democrats of being complicit in letting in a fifth column of rapists and terrorists.

One has to be in Trump's America to fully understand the possible irreversible downfall of a great power. Mike Pompeo, secretary of State and certified Clinton hater, wrote a kind of elegy of Trump's genius in Foreign Affairs. He swooned over the highlights of the administration:  Iran--a debacle, and North Korea--a farce.  He stayed clear of even more embarrassing issues: the MBS/Jarred Kushner hotline, the "Russian bear" in the room, the latest Pyongyang cold shoulder, the Middle East peace plan or the Chinese and Russian aloofness toward an American president, too amateurish to be taken at his word.  In fact, America lost Latin America, Western Europe, Australia and Africa...speaking of accomplishment!

Chancellor Merkel could talk to Putin, Trump cannot. There is the difference. Europe had to cope before with unrest and brutal change in the East. Helmut Kohl found in President George W. Bush and the American administration support, diplomatic skill and historical know-how. Angela Merkel can likewise take a courageous and bold stand, but now without American support. Her successor will need clout and luck to measure up against the hostile headwinds East and West. The French president is brilliant but as happens with most things French, they mesmerize but do not last. International affairs are not seasonal!

THE MID-TERMS IN THE USA

The mid-terms next week are very important. They will give an indication of the sustainability of the Trump agenda. The outcome is still hard to predict because the campaigns do not follow the usual scenario of choice and concrete alternative.

The president has let loose a war machine against precedent and civility. As a result, this country is split in parts. Recent events and international discomfort continue to take the glamor out of America. The rampage in the Pittsburgh synagogue, the "bomb stuff" (quote from Trump) against prominent Democrats are a clear indication of an overall mental health crisis in this post-2016 United States. The advancing "caravan" in Mexico is like the chorus in a Sophocles play which carries the weight of everything that is unjust.  The immigration problem should be managed by way of a multilateral approach and legal, medical supportive measures. It needs an existential empathy rather than the repeat of Trump's preferred cage "solution" . 

The American order lies in agony. The administration's fracking boom is ruining the landscape. The battle against access to the ballot box is yet another takeover of the democratic process. The voters are psychologically tired and existentially disgusted. The danger is real that many might prefer to have nothing to do with this downfall, experienced by many as irreversible. The permanent attack against the media is slowly weakening the only pillar (almost) that withstands the onslaught.

Trump's base (the so-called frustrated white blue-collar males)  gets its daily witches brew from Fox News and the truth killer- in-chief. There are individual Democrats and former Republicans who are formidable, but an overall counter punch message is absent. Michael Avenatti (running in 2020 for the presidency?) said in non-ambiguous terms that only a slingshot might work against Trump.  A sledgehammer might be better...

It is to be hoped that this internal negative will not lead to miscalculation externally. In foreign affairs, Trump & Co. have nothing to brag about. Foes and allies are equally perplexed by this American nightmare which feels more like a spasm than a muscle. The parade of visiting favorite strong men and clowns in the White House goes on and the the Saudi "roadblock" will not deter Trump from continuing on his chosen path as long as it is paved with nefarious intentions.

If the Democrats take over the House, life for this administration will become difficult but Trump cannot be discounted. A win in the Senate would be close to miraculous but god is on holiday. If the president were able to keep a majority in both houses hell will break loose. He might change his cabinet anyway and get rid of the Mueller investigation. His primary instincts would bring up the "bouncer" in him, with all the unpleasant consequences here and there.

The Republican party should change its name. Was McCain the last Republican?  Even the reasonable ones--Senators Flake, Collins, Murkowski --bend and Romney, waiting in the corridor, is in hiding. The GOP is dead, long live the DOA (death on arrival), where the enablers come home to roost.

 

THE HUMOR TRAP IN THE TIMES OF DONALD TRUMP

Trump is a god send for comedians.  Americans who can excel in political satire "laugh" while the clown-in-chief is in the White House. Humor can be a form of exorcism, a catharsis of sorts. It is also the ultimate illusion, that "laughing at" equals "getting rid of the cause". Comedians are polymaths who can address many issues--without solving any.  They are relief doctors. Their role is relevant, but oh so relative.

Too often the public that has a chuckle is under the illusion that a problem democratized by way of a shared smirk is a problem half-solved. The communal laughter becomes a placebo for a trauma cured.

In reality nothing is further from the truth. Larger issues were never solved or in the long-term alleviated by humor. Revolutions--also the welcome ones--are mostly serious if not painful. The great changes in history were not the result of wit.  They were pushed by dour men or catastrophic events. Beaumarchais might have hinted of looming corrections but they were enacted by often unpleasant characters . The American independence is supposed to have been the outcome of an enlightened Zeitgeist--as verbalized by Thomas Jefferson--but it was enacted upon by less lofty considerations and actors. And one could go on.

Often one hears that the American comedians have taken hold of the counter- narrative. As much as one should applaud their role one should also remain cognizant that the situations they lambast continue and amplify, unhindered. The real opposition must come from the ranks of institutions scorned or demonized, from the intelligentsia which is in de facto exile and from the motivation of voters. Comedy can help fight the fever but it cannot cure the illness. One should be aware of the perverse ambiguity of political humor.  In the end it can boomerang, normalizing the aberration and prolonging the lifespan of a disease it is supposed to cure. It ends up trivializing, by repeating over and over an argument which loses its pertinence because of fatigue. By the way, the same can be said of the opposite.

America needs a cognitive recovery. Comedians do help, but the answer is more complex than a sound bite or a bon mot. Besides, one might ask oneself if this "resistance" by way of humor remains pertinent, given that Trump's maniacal assaults spare nobody and nothing. Now that the LBGTQ community is under attack and that the "caravan" of refugees might encounter Trump's genocidal wrath, the culture war is getting harsher. The mid-term elections will only further polarize an America in a civil war by stealth.

EUROPE / USA: OCTOBER 2018

Most Europeans are repulsed by the behavior of this American president who acts more like a bouncer than as a statesman. The erratic is overtaking the rational. In less than one week, Trump overruled decency (yet again) in the Saudi "Ekaterinburg" nightmare, hit multilateralism in another bilateral trade blackmail with Japan, departed from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty without real NATO consultation, and let the gutter rule his vocabulary. Americans will have no better alternative than to run for opiates if the mid-term elections were not to bring some form of solace.

European disgust is hard to disguise but it cannot be allowed to divert from ominous developments closer to home. The populist tide is rising and tensions in hard-core EU--the Franco/German arc--are multiplying. The Brexit talks are stuck along the Irish border issue and the skills of the EU negotiator Michel Barnier cannot overcome the political impasse Theresa May finds herself in. As a consequence, the EU also looks stuck, all the more so in that Claude Juncker, president of the Commission, lacks both charisma and empathy. Another president--Margrethe Vestager?--, and a more aggressive Commission are urgently needed.

In the short term only Benelux, the Nordics, and Greece are able to stem the contrarian waves, but for how long? Anyway the Franco German engine must continue to lead, be it with a French accent. Unfortunately President Macron has more IQ than an inclusive touch. In Europe too, "Fake News" and alternative truths, multiplied by covert action (from Russia) and histrionics from Trump, rule the waves. Rightist pressure groups multiply and a toxic air starts to invade the corridors of power and the transparent ways of democratic debate. If there is no short term intervention, the Italian or Polish scenario may well proliferate. Nobody will miss Juncker (who?) but the repetition of the scenario of Churchill or de Gaulle's sendings off - for who or what under the present circumstances - would be disastrous. Also, Europe cannot let itself be lead on the anti-American path, which would accommodate the agenda of many. At present it has no other alternative than to consolidate its own profile, proximity, identity, and projection until the Trump/Pence "Strindberg couple" is demoted.

In the future the Atlantic "Commonwealth" of ideas, values and interests needs to be revisited. This can only be done between mature, informed, professional partners. The United States must address this current cultish take and the EU had better handle its internal Fourth French Republic-like problems and looks. A future waiting /cool off period is needed so that both sides can come to terms with the damage done. In America, the Trump/Cromwell coup will have longer term consequences before the governance can return to normal. Too much has been sabotaged or overtaken. The territorial gains of the extreme right will be difficult to fight. The memory of a country was given away to a pawn shop.

Europe has not come to terms with the absolute nihilism of Brexit, which is creating such a headache because it was the result of a hangover, not the qualitative algorithm for history books. The withdrawal is heart- and brain- breaking because the outcome is too bleak for all to imagine. There is no Shadenfreude in watching Theresa May veering from panic to denial. Besides, this will be a deal between two losers. The United Kingdom lost an empire. It need not lose its dignity. Europe without the UK will miss a debatable but certifiable expertise, more familiar with the world at large. Former Prime Minister David Cameron tried to play Faust but lost. One cannot fool the devil.

The near future might hold unpleasant surprises for a divided West and events will be closely monitored by mainly (but not exclusively) two onlookers--China and Russia--who see Trump stumbling and Europe repeating the usual soliloquy made by Donald Tusk, president of the European Council. Bad movies are hard to watch. Bad actors might hasten their unhappy end.

THE SAUDI FAIRY TALE

The case of the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul is giving rise to shifting story lines which contradict each other by the minute. The gruesome speculations resembled a Stephen Sondheim "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" scenario. Now they start to look more like the perfect vehicle for an Eric Ambler "Dimitrios/Colonel Haki" crime story.

Of course, given the overlapping interests of Trump & Co. with Mohammed bin Salman, the White House tries to salvage this connection by every means conceivable, the last being the "rogue killers" fable. The attempt for cover-up is the more ludicrous after the Saudis repeatedly said that Kashoggi had left the Consulate safely.

Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State is in Riyadh, probably more concerned about billions of dollars of weapon sales to the Saudis, than to embarrass them. Turkey, which pretends to have graphic evidence, has not come clear regarding the sharing thereof.

The American president is always reluctant to criticize his "soul mates": Putin, Duterte, Erdogan, al Sisi, Mohammed bin Salman, and the new flirts in North Korea or Brazil.  His inclinations follow a temperament which is transactional and non-normative as well as an insecure nouveau riche psyche, with a Midas touch. These United States are all about short-term gains devoid of any philosophical consideration. Former larger alliances based on shared principles are experienced as cumbersome and costly. Trump chose likewise a cabinet of mostly saboteurs who are supposed to hasten the end of rules and policies which might stand in the way of the quick gain and buck. Climate, health care, environment, education, energy, culture, justice, housing, have been given over to professional political euthanasia proponents who slash, disinvest and kill.

It is doubtful that this latest episode will resonate with the electorate at large. Republicans have no appetite for the exotic or the far abroad. They will look at the Saudi's "Embarrassment of Riches" like some episode of Aladdin and forget all about it.  Congress might show some discontent but Republicans, being what they are will, as in the Kavanaugh episode, turn the page. Under Trump, nothing lasts but the decibels.

KAVANAUGH IS MORE DISQUALIFIED BY WHO HE IS THAN BY WHAT HE IS ACCUSED OF..

Brett Kavanaugh is the new justice on the Supreme Court. Trump has let, yet again, another icon of the American system fall prey to his creepy agenda. Kavanaugh certainly has the intellectual and professional qualifications for one of the highest functions in the land, nobody disputes that. However, he lacks gravitas and character. Instead of filling a vacancy, he will further undermine one of the pillars of the American democracy. The former Alistair Cook epic saga regarding America is now definitively a thing of the past. True, he was an Englishman, hence an "immigrant", unfit for the current Zeitgeist.

Trump gambled and won,  turning the tables and altering the discourse, hijacking the topic and replacing it by an ersatz. His base followed suit, sacrificing truth for another cultural take-over. Women in general got a black eye, while Melania was sent to Africa (in Tintin/Indiana Jones gear) and Ivanka was under house arrest. 

In Trump-land the insubstantial rules. More seriously, this Supreme Court might have to deliberate on very existential issues at a time when the independence of the judges--both Democrats and Republicans--is in doubt. Presidents George W. Bush and Johnson tried to fill vacancies on the Court with some very dubious personalities. President Obama made sure that more liberal--albeit highly qualified--judges were considered. Here, a judge morphed into a partisan hack in real time.

Trump's strategy works in this American Gotterdammerung. The relentless war against "the other", in and outside, accelerates, with the support of alliances built on quick gains or partisan agendas.

Former groupings built on principle give way to moves rooted in whims. At the current pace the world might be a total different universe after six (?) more years of Trump. Part of America is in denial because of the positive economic data, but the country nevertheless often looks like some old radio found in the garbage bin. The numbers do not translate in new A.I., infrastructure, environment, salaries or health care. This structural gap between numbers and facts will bite some day, with a vengeance. The Trump base (the "white blue collar worker") will find out, too late, that coal sucks, that pollution kills, that a Neanderthal slogan only leads to the consolidation of alienation.

In theory it should not be difficult to predict the outcome of the mid-term elections in November. The Democrats should win and retake control of the House (if not of the Senate), but Trump is a good poker player and a formidable campaigner. His vocabulary might be limited, his facts false, but his arsenal of chosen taunts is deadly.  However it remains doubtful that many Republican women will rally around Kavanaugh's beer and puke performance, so wholeheartedly embraced by the cultural warrior-in-chief.

Democrats had better get back into attack mode and return to the only issue wherein they might have the upper-hand: the Russia connection. Republicans will resort to any trick and alternative to distract from an issue which is potentially deadly for Trump & Co. The major scandal of the nexus between a corrupt gang of too many and the shadow of Putin cannot be relegated to a second tier. The press will not allow this to happen, but the Democrats may yet again choose the wrong battle!

 

SUPREME COURT : THE GAME OF CLONES

For the second time the Republican majority has sent a man under suspicion to the Supreme Court. After the Clarence Thomas debacle, judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination confirms the total downfall of the American ambition, under Trump. Thomas is getting in the person of Kavanaugh a twin clone. The so-called pro-life party has aborted truth in the back alley of this White House.

It rests that Brett Kavanaugh will live under the cloud of a hearing which looked more like a plot to hide than a process to enlighten. He lost his calm and self- control, acting Trumplike.His reputation is in tatters, forever. The Republicans showed themselves at their hypocritical best with no empathy for the accuser and total disregard for the rule of law. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is yet another woman who has shown courage, dignity and conviction.  

Kavanaugh shall be considered "presumed innocent" (until ulterior developments) while the accuser will join the growing ranks of Americans who are becoming aliens in their own country. Trump's war on the independence of justice is in full swing. This blog warned that an autumn surprise was in the making. This sad episode was the first leaf to fall.  Others will follow. The fools, after all, rule the waves for now, but their days might be counted.

FDR WAS KILLED ON SEPTEMBER 26 ANNO 2018

Trump acted triumphant in the U.N.  In full denial, distortions, lies and loose talk he was able to bury America's foreign policy in less than one hour. In his anti- globalism rant he suggested an America with no allies (and no morals), only interests. The American past century was based on a vision of incremental shared values with others in a "win/win" model of a Commonwealth of nations bound together by mutually agreed principles. Policy, trade, culture were built as tools for connecting diversity and accommodating a variety of situations in terms of durable development, democracy and human rights.

Franklin Roosevelt--with Winston Churchill--was the great architect of this arc of progressive thought which spanned Europe, post-Mao China and the the Asian tigers.  He expanded Woodrow Wilson's ambition and left a heritage which despite the Yalta ambiguities hastened the demise of the Soviet Union, a cosmic event which took the world's breath away.

Trump is not a historian. His moral compass is deranged. He permanently disguises his insecurities in an apoplectic stream of bad grammar and disruptive vocabulary, not unlike Idi Amin. Actually, he excels in this extravagance, leaving his audience incredulous and exhausted. The president is short on facts but he has an ability to inhabit in one sentence the opposites of an assertion, so that he arrives at the finish like a winner. His tour de passe passe regarding Judge Kavanaugh is actually brilliant, albeit on the back of morality. He can flip either way and pretend he was right again. He slaps China on the wrist (for now) while professing his "love" for Xi Jinping. The Russian lover hiding behind the curtains remains "off limits".

The audience at the UN smirked while Trump performed but he immediately turned the tables, pretending the laughter was with him, not at him. Europeans looked embarrassed, others appeared to be amused. That is how empires die, choking on their own ridicule. Actually this Manchurian president is dangerous for the world and for the US.  America was the Primus inter pares, liked or tolerated by many, loathed by some. But in the end there was some form (often misguided) of leadership. Now Trump's America is unambiguously despised for its crass vulgarity and egotism. China is becoming the glamour successor in spe. Russia under Putin bluffed itself back in the front row.

Normal America is running for cover and the majority tries to fight the overall nervous breakdown with the hope that this too will pass.  Hope is mere a lite life-raft when so much is being destroyed, overhauled and sabotaged. The Republicans look like patients in an urology wing and the Democrats hesitate  to call the situation for what it is, out of fear of being seen as unpatriotic.  Still, the mid-term elections might create an opening for change.

Here as elsewhere the growing sense of impending catastrophe might actually create a space that a rejuvenated opposition could call its own. History shows that a steep fall often leads to transformative change. The event more often makes the leader, rather than vice-versa. This president may very well make an impulsive move which might awaken the anger and the revulsion that cannot longer stay dormant. For now, only the press stands for truth and principle. When will the claimants in the intelligentsia wake up?

Trump has a knack for invasion at all costs but there are indications that people are getting tired of the permanent buffoonery. Unfortunately, the vice-president, next in line, admittedly less colorful but equally undesirable. Who talked again about the Germany '30 s atmosphere? Is there a Van Der Lubbe redux in waiting ? 

EUROPE / IMMIGRATION

En Europe le president americain est generalement mal aime... Mais ...

Ce serait une erreur de meconnaitre le " ras le bol '', au demeurant plus spontane que reflechi, qui fait tache d'huile.   Il s'en suit que plusieurs se tournent vers des partis ou des obediences peu frequentables, plus pour des raisons de representation que d'affiliation. Il s'agit moins de se solidariser avec une personnalite ou un programme que d'emettre un vote de protestation contre ce qui est ressenti comme le "vol systematique de l'ordre".

Alors que l'Occidental voyageant dans les pays avec une DNA coranique essaye tant soit peu de s'adapter a des usages et tabous en vigueur, le contraire est  rarement vrai. Les services sociaux, les hopitaux, l'enseignement en Europe sont confrontes a des situations absurdes ou l'utilisateur venu d'ailleurs entend beneficier de tout mais refuse trop souvent de se conformer a la culture et aux normes existantes.

Aux Etats Unis les immigrants souhaitent - dans leur immense majortite- passer pour Americains. Il semblerait qu'en Europe ils entendent beneficier de tout sans vouloir poser le mondre geste d'assimiliation. Certes il ne faut pas generaliser. Plusieurs intellectuels et ecrivains d'origine musulmane critquent les exces d'une religion trop frequemment manipulee, devoratrice et repetitive. Il ne faut surtout pas oublier non plus que les immigrants (en premier lieu originaires d'Asie) representent souvent une valeur ajoutee !

Um peu partout su sein de l'UE, la droite , vaguement inspiree par la "mouvance" Steve Bannon, gagne du terrain. Il faut bien admettre  que l'immigration est mal geree en amont et mal vecue en aval. Ce malaise se repand. Il est difficile d'imaginer une strategie coherente, eu egard au debat de societe difficile qui divise l 'UE.

La gestion de l'immigration est devenue un enjeu existentiel. Si l'on n'arrive pas a trouver une reponse coherente, le divorce entre pouvoirs et electeurs risque de remettre en question l'universalite de principes agrees ou de modeles d'inclusion reconnus. La droite n'apporte pas de solution credible. La gauche ignore les consequences destabilisatrices d'un malaise mal maitrise. L'avance de cette crise, pourtant annoncee, devient methodique, si pas irreversible.

Il manque des "juges integres"pour suggerer une solution "eclairee" qui evite autant le "laissez aller" insupportable que le rejet erga omnes , contraire aux valeurs des "lumieres". Comme dans le retable des Van Eyck ils restent introuvables. Il est temps de relire" Les Justes" de Camus.

DIABLES ROUGES

NUMERO UNO MONDIAL !!!!!! Ils etaient les meilleurs...Ils le confirment ! Quand l'esprit sportif  se conjugue au  pluriel la realite l'emporte sur l'accidednt.

TRUMP BEING TRUMP

What more has to go wrong before Trump meets an inglorious, sordid end? In a normal democracy he would already have been sent to the gallows or returned to his shady business. In these United States post-2016 he remains (for the time- being) unscathed, like a brooding Sardanapalus in Eugene Delacroix's painting, in denial of the surrounding havoc of his own making.

This week should have been a via dolorosa for any normal politician. The negatives multiply on all fronts and this president only holds firm because of the opportunistic cowardly Republicans and his base of "Brown Shirts." His pathology which was ludicrous, nouveau riche, is becoming dangerous. His tendency to veer off script and norms is no longer laughable. The just-published Bob Woodward book and the anonymous Op-Ed in the New York Times give an alarming insight into the broken mind of a man who appears to be close to dementia.

No wonder the world-at-large observes this meltdown of the American system fascinated and worried. This White House has been compared to Charenton or to a Goya nightmare...wrong. These goings-on come out of a cheap Goodfellas scenario. There is no need to upgrade what is in the gutter. One has to dig deep to come close to what there is to be found. Unfortunately this foreseeable farce might well lead to even more threatening disruptions regarding Iran, the Middle East, Asia and Europe. In Washington politics are now driven by whims and impulse, by unreasonable antipathy rather than by measured consideration. It has been said that to leave the nuclear code in the hands of Trump equals tempting mayhem...rightly so. These last days are sending a warning that should not be ignored. It appears that in Trump's inner-circle there are individuals who are alarmed enough to resort to a guerrilla warfare, aiming to neutralize the unpredictable outbursts of this ever fuming character.

Unfortunately the president is becoming his own cult. He escapes by attending rallies in the American no-man's-land, where the gullible live, procreate and believe in god and guns. In the collective fallacies of the "deplorables" he finds his solace and the confirmation of his (shaky) legitimacy. If only he were capable of doubt, of questioning, he might have been able to overcome the plural of personal negatives. The next months might see him more unhinged than ever.

Those who see the dangerous shift in the world order are shunned. Europe is out, Asia is largely ignored, Africa--well--is Africa (China's hinterland). Australia knows were its interests lie. Latin America is left to its own devices. There is no lofty or intellectual flair in an administration famous for putting kids in cages under the vengeful eye of Stephen Miller (a Harry Potter arch-villain). The president now seeks to change the Flores rule, a change which would allow the administration to detain minors in the custody of Immigration for extended periods of time. Imagine?

Maybe the mid-term elections will punish the Republicans, as they should. Could one count on the Democrats to strategize a smart, creative alternative? The bets are open. Both parties should read some of the Federalist Papers (this illiterate president will not know what they are about).  President Obama suddenly sounds almost out of touch, because the ruling discourse has become so vulgar that the correct vocabulary has left the scene....with the rest, and the best.

DECOMPOSITION

Apres la mort, le corps ne s'arrete pas. Meme considere parti, une  autre activite demarre, clandestine, voir meme subversive. Des organismes tertiaires prennent le relais et une autre vie succede a l'existence anterieure.

Il en va de meme pour les systemes politiques, les meilleurs comme les moins bons . On peut vouloir les garder, les bouleverser ou s'en debarasser mais d'inombrables mecanismes continueront a proliferer, a lutter, a se defendre.

L'Occident semble etre entre dans un  stade pre-comateux. La democratie est en recul. L'hegemonie americaine est arrivee a son stade terminal. Elle ne maitrise ni ses demons interieurs ni les pressions venues de l'exterieur. Son president accidentel agit plus comme un George III fou que comme un homme d'état rationnel. Il attise les feux et cree un cenotaphe de societe. L'opposition n'a d'autre resort que de conduire une resistance (the "deep state") qui essaye d'enrayer la progression du Mal.

L'ephemere monde unipolaire a fait long feu. La pensee unique est enterree. Qui plus est, la creativite americaine incontournable apres la seconde guerre mondiale est aujourd'hui passee dans l'armee des ombres. Un syndicat successeur qui produit une " sous culture"d'argent, vulgaire, demagogique, occupe aujord'hui le terrain. Le nouveau pouvoir livre un combat permanent contre les "ennemis du peuple", sous la banniere de la "fake news". Dans le monde, les Etats Unis sont devenus les mal aimes, meme aupres des allies qui etaient encore inderacinables il y a deux ans a peine.

La decomposition actuelle de l'Occident est inconteestable mais elle n'est pas terminale. Il est vrai que les interests communs, politique, moral, financier, strategique, craquent. Trump aura ete l'entrepreneur des pompes funebres d'une idee. Encore faut-il qu'il arrive a tuer le patient. Au demeurant ses actions ne repondent aucunement a une reflexion intellectuelle. Elles relevant d' une antipathie structurelle envers une culture et un concept normatifs, don't il s'est toujours senti exclu. La "nonchalance intelligente" d'Obama constitue une barre trop haute et elle est donc a rejetter. Trump est une personnalite pavlovienne. Il est exclusivement reactif et donc facilement influencable ou previsible. Tout est la. Sa tempete reste ephemere. Shakespeare ou Giorgione n'en ont que faire.

Faut il etre defaitiste pour autant ? La guerre est loin d'etre perdue. En Amerique il reste un nombre considerable de "checks and balances" pour bloquer ou retarder des mesures, qui sous l'apparance de gestion, cachent un agenda reactionnaire, sounent inspire par les "Evangelicans" qui teleguident cette administration. Les elections partielles de Novembre risquent d'etre sans merci et sans consideration. Elles pourraient mene degenerer, au cas ou le president voudra s'en approprier le ton et le message. Ailleurs l'intemperance risque d'affaiblir dadvantage l'ordre consensual existant avec les allies (EU, OTAN, multitateralisme), et d'accelerer la montee de la Chine et de consolider le role de la Federation russe. Les presidents chinois et russe ont trouve en la personne de Trump une dupe sortie d'un libretto de Da Ponte.

La decomposition des orders existants ou des anneaux de Saturne est un concept cher a Steven Bannon, guru (en disgrace) de Trump, proche d'Orban et de ses pairs. Cet intellectuel etait l'exception dans l'entourage presidential generalement adverse aux considerations metaphysiques. Il ne cache pas son antipathie fondamentale envers l'ordonnance occidentale et semble vouloir reactualiser Jean Jacques Rousseau et  Thomas Hobbes. En realite la force du message reside surtout dans sa simplicite elementaire. Il interpelle l'individu considere comme marginalise, injustement penalise par une conspiration international progressiste accusee de sacrifier l'autochtone a l'ailleurs. Dans ces conditions, l'immigration, le libre commerce international, le multiculturel, l'AUTRE, deviennent les cibles d'une coalition assez disparate qui rassemble les frustres de tous bords. Il exile l'idee de choix et de diversite et decrete un requiem pour le temps present, accuse de toutes les turpitudes. 

Il est difficile de conduire la resistance alors que les leviers de commande aux Etats Unis sont occupes ou assieges. La Cour Supreme risque de devenir un bastion reactionnaire pour un temps indetermine. La mort de senateur John McCain est actuellement le seul evenement qui rassemble encore tant soit peu un pays polarise, l'espace d'un enterrement. L'absence de Trump - par decision du defunt et par depit du president- est un symbole d'un l'affrontement devenu permanent. Elle est aussi une defaite pour un president qui, chez lui comme dans le monde, reste un homme rejete par la majorite "reelle". .

Tous ceux qui regrettent la disparition de McCain, homme inegal mais jamais banal, posent un acte de resistance. Les Republicains qui ont choisi desormais le parti de Judas n'osent trop critiquer le dedain que Trump a toujours manifeste envers le senateur decede. Ainsi ils ont une nouvelle fois donne la demonstration de leur faillite morale collective.

JOHN McCAIN

This very complex man--often infuriating, sometimes mistaken, always larger than the sum of his courage, beliefs and temper--looks, in retrospect, as one of the great Americans. After his passing, his shadow now dwarfs the current antics going on in this betrayed America.  The political class, which has lost its ways, looks even smaller now after the giant in their midst has left them to their own mediocre devices.

TRUMP: WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE (The Tempest II.1.245)

Misdemeanors, offense or lies by this president and his cronies multiply. Slowly Trump & Co. are creating an alternative reality which confuses most and showers the "base" with the vitriol it craves. For now, the endangered checks and balances which are under this administration's "carpet bombing" still hold. For how long?

Trump is a master of deception.  His method of contradictory narratives blurs, confuses and equalizes truth and lies. Rudy Giuliani, court jester-in-chief, plays his Rigoletto act with shameless brio. Former confidants, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen are thrown under the presidential limousine until final time for sentence, or pardon. The more Trump feels cornered, the more his deregulated aggression will rule, unchecked.

Some start to wonder how a president who is a junky for tweets and sordid trivia is still able to steer a foreign policy. Actually he doesn't, and just keeps undoing what Obama did or follows his primitive psyche with zero conceptual interest. It appears that other leaders who might have some sympathy for his bizarre antics start to show a degree of anxiety.  The Republicans will still follow him until their extinction looms too close.  His "base" who feed on coal, God and guns remains supportive as long as he entertains them with the "us versus them" Leitmotiv. In the outcry of the Roman circus atmosphere in his rallies, he switches on the culture war. In fact, he operates in a nihilistic mindset. It is possible that violence might erupt, directed against the press, Democrats or establishment Republicans.

The Democrats do not want to go on the impeachment trail for fear of making Trump look like a martyr in the eyes of cookie-baking America. The Republicans want their man in the Supreme Court and will look elsewhere as long as the Manchurian president delivers them the judge who might overturn past progress. He returns the United States to some avatar of Polish or Hungarian mettle but they look elsewhere. Some hoped that the new secretary of State might be more pro-active than Tillerson but this is just an other naive gamble. In this cabinet of crooks (De Vos, Ross, Sessions (for how long), Carson, Perry (yes, he is there), Zinke, etc.) the wise man/woman perishes, the coward survives. The cult does not allow creative thinking. The best image for what this ship of fools stands for is the image of kids in cages.  "Mission accomplished."

The justice apparatus still works but the MRI shows that nefarious "plaques" start to alter judgment. Paula Duncan, the one member of the jury who could not rally her peers in Manafort's trial, is proof that tribal commitment becomes more important than moral responsibility. This is yet another indication of the ways in which the American experience descends to the level of nightmare.

There remains one very important change in the American landscape. Trump has killed (for the time-being) the legitimacy of the saga of white America. The former leading strand is going under-cover. Other forms, norms, creative "outbreaks" are claiming their space and time. There is a kind of proud self-consciousness, especially in black culture, which obeys now to its own voices and goes for expression and style that are "home grown".  Black culture is becoming the leader in so many fields, including the expression of "self". Asians and Latinos start also to reclaim their own place in the American puzzle. This is a most positive change, even if the cause for this acceleration is not a pleasant one. It might feel paradoxical, but the Trump dark-age has acted as a multiplicative for the diversity it portrays in such negative terms. Black Lives Matter opened the path for black culture that owes nothing to anyone.

This blog said that the fall will see more than falling leaves.  Indeed, "the time is out of joint".

KOFI ANNAN

This former UN Secretary General had an old fashioned class which is only found in Downton Abbey fiction nowadays.

His control of words and gestures was almost hieratic.  Nevertheless, his shaky and faulty grasp of the absolute magnitude of the tragedies in Rwanda or Bosnia remains an existential question mark.

Still he made the United Nations a partner which was no longer tolerated but indispensable. Principled without being preachery, distant without being aloof, he might have come over as belonging to another era, while, in fact, he was mostly above and beyond pedestrian categories.

OMAROSA MANIGAULT NEWMAN

The book of Ms. Manigault Newman Unhinged: An Insider's account of the Trump White House is the talk of America. This unpleasant account of the goings on in this Trump cowshed further confirms the most unpleasant rumors that besiege the reputation of this administration.

Omarosa Maniguault Newman is a most attractive, articulate personality. She is also a dubious character. That she suddenly saw the light after her dismissal from the White House, like Paul on the road to Damascus, requires an effort in believing. For a long time she worked in Trump's shadow and was given mostly a "prop" role when he was elected, acting as a liaison to black Americans. She acknowledges that she woke up from some form of induced coma and that she arrived belately at the realization that the father figure she worshipped was in reality the conman others had seen long before. She nevertheless played her Mata Hari trick and made secret recordings which violate every rule of deontology under the sun. It tells a lot about the total lack of ethics in this White House turned mafia den and about a former aide turned avenging angel.

Some see in her a Jeanne de la Motte Valois type who hastened the downfall of the Bourbons in France. Contrary to other whistleblowers, Omarosa is a formidable reality star who knows how to seduce, bite, and stoke drama. The dull White House Maginot defense wall cannot compete with a woman who can make the vocabulary blush or the president furious. The latter will use every mean, insult or lie to contain the damage and his infamous "base" will certainly stick with him. Another problem is that Omarosa, given her own U-turns, risks being seen more as a savvy entertainer than as a witness for the prosecution.

The truth is that the Americans have become tone-deaf. The permanent intrusion of lies, scandals and insults creates a situation wherein 55% (if not more) run for cover. Not a day passes by without some form of outrage, be it in the US or in foreign or trade policies which only obey to the erratic outburst of a man who tweets, fuming, at 6 am. The ever-spreading chaos is creating a Tsunami which spares nothing and nobody and is isolating the United States from every normal or professional restraint. Trump is left being Trump with all the nefarious damage that comes with it.

This new "tell all" book ads little to the reigning unpleasant narrative and might soon be overshadowed by yet another affront already in the making.  Autumn might see more than just falling leaves.

EEN VRAAG VOOR DE STANDAARD

In de berichtgeving lees ik hoe success, exploot, enzv.  worden toegeschreven of aan een Belg of aan een Vlaming, onverschillig of hij of zij ( meestal met Belgische vlag) de wens hebben uitgetdrukt te worden gecataloriseerd... Is dit misschien een ingefluisterde Bourgeois / Homans " Pallieter "revanche na de Rode Duivels euforie, of is de Standaard slordig ?

LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK....CASTOR and POLLUX ?

A lot has been said and written about the New York/Los Angeles Kulturkampf. There are more clichés than truths in this repetitive, often hilarious saga. Let's stick to the essential: in New York people still walk, in Los Angeles they drive. In the former the streets are too clogged anyway, in the latter people are not "born to run" but to sit.

When one is in Manhattan, one senses Europe is close but one is mostly aware of the proximity of the formidable American cultural multiplier. When in L.A., one feels the breath of Asia and a spontaneous, deregulated new home-grown  creativity which no longer feels the need to be legitimized by others.

The visitor who travels the eastern Washington DC/Boston corridor finds him or herself often lost in a page of Dickens and suburban decay. California, even when boring (the Valley), overwhelms by size and opportunity.  When at its best, California is over the top, be it in natural beauty or in the realm of the new generation "intelligence".

Both share the same problems and challenges and are in the forefront of social, environmental, and political engineering. While there is a wide-spread strategy of vote and issue suppression in large parts of America, both states champion changes for the better in race relations, gender equality, minority rights and dignity.

At the end of the day humor is probably the best equalizer but they share also the prevailing worry regarding an endangered American democracy. The lies and alternative facts are being stockpiled at their doorstep.

Both suffer the onslaught of awful movies, abysmal food and outdated infrastructure. They are nevertheless the best laboratories for social change and research. They are the proof that America is not just a Utopia but an attainable working experiment.

A zone of high pressure commentary covers both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Their strength lies also in their contempt for needing to prove or demonstrate (the favorite routes for the insecure). They cannot wait for Trump's grandiose military parade planned in Washington D.C.   SNL and the comedians will have an opportunity of a lifetime to lambast, spook and kill.

Remember Annie Hall when Woody Allen poked fun at the East/West coast divide? Everything was made clear in what was then his best Voltaire-like satire. Not much has changed. Those two halves thrive on their mutual envy. They would feel diminished if they were deprived of their twin to rally against the other America (which will not be named).

AMERICA : THE UNDESIRABLE ALTERNATIVE

In 1946 Winston Churchill made one of the ultimate speeches in modern history, saying that "an iron curtain has descended across the continent". His prophecy endured until the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November, 1989.

It looks now as if another iron curtain is being built in America, splitting the country in halves and causing it at the same time to severe former ties with allies, who begin to consider the United States as an acquaintance turned rogue.

In two years the lies and the vitriol coming out of Trump have created a toxic atmosphere in the US. That a minority president was able to create a rock-solid base which supports his alternative facts, his overt war against the press and a suicidal deconstruction of the world order (American made) leaves observers dumbfounded. Now that Brett Kavanaugh might become the newest judge on the Supreme Court, the coup d'état is almost complete. The warfare against the press, the judiciary, the welfare state is accelerating. The Republicans have no longer shame or beliefs, while the Democrats are just cry babies.  40% of the country has become Trump's private Stormtroopers.

America's two halves (more or less) are no longer on speaking or hearing terms. For the first time in a Western democracy, a major cable news network, Fox News, has become the official preferred filter/organ/outlet of one party. Sean Hannity, Fox's star apparatchik is this administration's guru. His unsophisticated commentary is becoming the Bayeux tapestry of the Trump saga. Fox devours the competition and has become the most watched cable program. CNN is the arch enemy by now and its reporters figure high on Trump's "most wanted" list, together with minorities, science, culture, the EU (Germany mostly), and the "play foe" of the week (China, Mexico, Germany....etc.).

The world is divided. There is one silent winner: China and the BRI - Belt and Road Initiative -. There is one cynical voyeur: Russia. Many don't know anymore where this unhinged American president stands. Europe, shell-shocked after Brexit, does not know what to make of a situation in some form of permanent flux. It hesitates to verbalize too loud its total disdain for this new rude political stone-age but is nevertleless tempted to take an alternative route as long as the undesirable alternative lasts. There are risks, strategic and political. In this advanced stage of nausea, Putin starts to look more polite, shrewd or statesmanlike. Already his fans in central Europe and Italy have awakened to the sound of the populist chorus. The United Kingdom seems to have no future other than getting, at regular intervals, pomp and parades out of the mothballs. The old continent looks forlorn, with a political deficit at its Eastern and Western borders. It wants to distance itself from a pathological partner but cannot risk jeopardizing it all, throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Actually, the situation is more alarming in the United States itself. An incident at a Trump rally can quickly degenerate, since the arsonist-in-chief strives on fury. The "Black Lives Matter" movement is becoming  an ever larger rainbow and is a force to be reckoned with. Many college educated men and women start to see the more non-benign DNA of this power grab. The Trump plutocrats cynically manipulate an often clueless mass of drifters stuck in social stagnation and religious glue.

The future looks bleak. Even if Trump were impeached, a Pence presidency could be even worse,. The vice-president has the look of a man ready for Kristallnacht. He may have the uniform in his closet. He and his wife should be made honorary citizens of Salem. This ultimate bigot, who fetishists the Bible but gives the "president sinner" a free-pass, is a Yago without the verse.

The mid-term elections in November are a big question mark. The Democrats should make considerable gains, but...Trump will campaign non-stop and experience shows that he is a formidable contender, the more so when he smells blood or fear. His repetitive lies (No collusion, fake news, witch hunt, hoax...) and use of "ear worms" (Crooked Hillary, Little Marco...) create a narrative which sticks. The Democrats will have a uphill battle and might be catnip for this predator. Something is rotten in the United States.

THE RULE OF THE DON (TRUMP)

There are more Russians in Trump's closet than there are terracotta warriors in Xian. The former were supposed to protect the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang in afterlife. The latter were supposed to see that their candidate, Donald Trump, was elected. Under every stone of the brick road that lead to the White House there hides a Russian. Nevertheless, Trump continues to deny the evidence. The dirt, the corruption, the vulgarity and the president's Erdogan -like behavior are becoming more ominous by the day. This administration is acting like other "non rule of law" actors, Turkey, Russia, the Caucasus...sending out malware and disrupters.  Steve Bannon, formerly Trump's Svengali, is landing in Brussels now, with the overt aim of launching an AltRight crusade against the EU.

The truth is that this "non-ideology", this package of resentment, inferiority complex and cultural tabula rasa is winning now. The war against all social and intellectual/moral achievements is stoked by this Trump "putsch", which finds its troops in the Neanderthal reserve of the country wherein the tribes roam free with their rifles, their bibles and their bile. A Trump rally is like a Diane Arbus photo-op, a Daguerreotype of freaks.  Maybe, the "elites" in the West and East coasts had it too good, forgetting fast food America while feasting on bons mots and canapes. After the elections President Obama is supposed to have said that he might have misread America, that his administration might have been over-optimistic regarding the socio-cultural changes in the fly-over states.

Indeed one lived in a bubble, believing that the reign of the multiple had arrived. Some spoke of a post-racial golden age, of absolute equality shared by all, of non-discrimination, of a new intellectual dawn, more rooted than the Kennedy sparkle, mobilizing the LBGTQ community as never before. The White House became a rallying point for creativity and intelligence.  Alas, now it is just another funeral parlor where ideas and truth are massacred under the angry eye of the Harpya/spokesperson from hell.  Soon abortion might be excommunicated because the operating room is needed to abort truth, courtesy and manners. The ghosts of the White House must feel sick in the stomach...another John Corigliano opera?

The daily, almost hourly occupation of the media by this Dr. Frankenstein's monster is relentless. This permanent invasion of the living space (why do the correct media let this happen?) is relentless. This Twitter drip drip war of attrition, the FOX Kulturkampf , and the coalition of all frustrations led to this real catastrophe. Few saw it coming but all (almost) misjudged Trump's grasp of the momentum. Like no other, he was able to weaponize the insecurities of people who saw in Obama not the man who lifted the country up but were freaked out by this messenger of an unwelcome change. Trump became inevitable after his campaign was just about deconstructing almost everything--including the Republicans who look now like former royals with no clothes- .  As a consequence he can (and will) further sabotage order, not out of strategic choice but because this is what he is about, since ever, from his casino days, to his hotels, to his bankruptcies, to his sex life, and one can go on.

Putin looks and acts as always, composed, distant, in control, while the American looks like some face-lift in free fall, botched.  Surrounded by his cabinet--who are those "revenants" by the way?-- like a Mafia boss by his lieutenants he looks the Corleone part (minus the savoir faire). Some wonder what might be on the Cohen tapes? Dirt!  What else?

21 JUILLET....DE LOIN

Il est un privilege d'etre Belge !

BELGIQUE : 21 JUILLET, SA MAJESTE ET MONSEIGNEUR...

Le prince Laurent, frere du roi, attaque l'Etat belge devant le Conseil d'Etat. Il a bien choisi son moment, celui de la fete nationale et du cinquieme anniversaire de l'avenement du roi Philippe.

La Belgique se porte plutot bien. Le gouvernement Michel a la quote, le moral est bon et la machine tourne. Les equilibres restent neanmoins toujours aleatoires.Il faut se garder de gestes et propos a risques. Le roi l'a bien compris. Il paye pour la sagesse politique un profil oblige gris, qui, au demeurant, merite d'etre reamorce.

Son frere est un caractere fragile mais fondamentalement genereux et abruptement intelligent. Il n'a pas la maitrise de ses emotions. Il faudrait qu'on lui suggere de ne pas attirer sur sa personne des regards qui pourraient rapidement devenir critiques, voir meme fragiliser l'institution monarchique en Belgique. Celle-ci a deja du mal a passer le test du "contemporain". Il faut eviter que des accidents de parcours  ne viennent renforcer une image de comportement atone. Les royals neerlandais, scandinaves  et, en premier lieu, anglais, donnent la demonstration qu'il est possible de concilier style et pertinence cool.

Les moindres faux pas sont a eviter. Il faut esperer que le prince Laurent adhere au principe de la subordination de la frustration personnelle au sens de l'etat. Certains regards frustres et vengeurs (n'est-ce pas monsieur Bourgeois et madame Homans ?) n'attendent qu'un derapage pour en faire un plat !

(clavier americain, sans accents)

ABJECT

Trump's spokesperson said that the president "considers" letting Russia question former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who served under the Obama administration.

Everybody is by now used to these White House transgressions, but coming after the president's in and post-Helsinki lies, this might be, even for Republicans, a step too far.

Everybody knows by now Trump's disregard for ethics, morals and truth.  The "consideration" of another escalation in transgression, rather than the immediate "rejection" thereof, speaks for the absolute absence of norms in this Mafioso White House.

Trumps coup d'état may backfire this time and meet its (diplomatic) match. Sarah Huckabee Sanders might have to choke over her pearl (?) choker in her next press briefing...or not, since this is the place where truths come to die.

TRUMP OVERDOSE

This American president is an unstoppable train-wreck. He continues to booby-trap America while he also torches the world order. He disrespects truth both home and abroad and becomes ever more the Manchurian villain or the undercover "mole" set to destroy the fabric of the accepted Western value system. He is alienating allies and stoking divisions which might well finish the American experiment.

The Republicans act like lemmings. The Democrats look lost. Former values are under daily attack by a Ponzi-scheme president hooked on undetermined spite. This ignorant man may well bring the US down, out of pathological unpredictability. No doubt countries are looking for the exit from the Trump- made panic room. Europeans and Asians are now actively considering alternative routes since they find the former trusted highway no longer desirable. The qualitative and quantitative colossal trade agreement between Japan and the European Union is a "marker" in this respect.

The Helsinki meeting was a good gauge to measure how things have changed in the last two years. Putin rules the waves and basks in his post-World Cup glory. The images of Crimea and Ukraine made room for Moscow as a place of fun, sophisticated staging and beautiful people. Trump's America by contrast is all about fury, immigration made into hell and friends scorned. The press conference after the summit showed again Trump's descent into unconditional denial of facts. Putin, who could afford to look benign, must have relished this moment of American descent into slavish sycophantic unction.

For the Europeans there are few good choices left.  While it is difficult to remain stoic or committed to the defunct FDR or JFK-type of grand Western alliance, they have to find both a way to stick  to their "difference" with the US while not getting trapped in Putin's strategy (aided by Trump's disregard for legitimacy or history).  It is absolutely imperative to reject any form of European "Finlandization" or to let this American's histrionics get in the way of sober assessment. NATO remains a strategic added-value for both the Americans and the Europeans. Putin will continue to test and tease the Alliance as a whole, but also ad rem in the Baltic states. Every deterrent must be used to show resolve against the Russian Machiavelli. Trump is too superficial and too lazy to think in conceptual terms. Nevertheless he is certainly tempted by the (vague) inductive idea of some World Directorate together with Putin and President Xi Jinping. Europe must remain alert and speed up its forward-looking outreach to third parties (India, Japan, Brazil, Africa).  Europe is the benign alternative to a fundamentally non-enlightened governance, be it by stealth. Only a proactive form of European diplomacy can achieve both the enhanced continuity of NATO and an alternative to the rise of a non-liberal world order.

Trump is an unreliable player.  His nefarious gut instincts cannot be brought under control. He can even count on the servile or willing support of some in the more unsuspected corners. Nevertheless Europe can deflect some of his "punches" by occupying political, cultural, trade, military territories before he makes his own impetuous advances. One should not underestimate the allure of a Western model embracing pluralism and rejecting ostracism. To make the choice simple:  pick one of the alternatives...  Trump's Access Hollywood tape ("locker room talk") or the EU's Hymn to Joy (thank you Beethoven) and see who will salute.

PUTIN REX

World Cup : Putin wins

NATO meeting : Putin wins

Helsinki Putin / Trump summit : GUESS ?!

THE KOREAN FARCE : ACT 2

Trump came back from his Singapore summit with Kim Jung-Un with nothing to show for, other than having given the North Korean leader a pass to "normal". Since then, the Korean tomcat sits puring, observing, while the American president is in his usual incoherent overdrive on all fronts. His secretary of State was sent on some errand to Pyongyang and is on his way back with nothing achieved. All this was predicted but, in the mad president's court, truth and professionalism are unwelcome guests. Given that the bluff will be hard to disguise, one could hope for a sobering regrouping. Not with this White House. Next week will lead up to another summit, with President Putin, which will be a sort of repeat of the Canossa formula wherein the Holy Emperor Henry IV made his submission to Pope Gregory VII.  Likewise Putin will receive Trump's penance for...for what? Nobody knows the roots of the Freudian slips the American president continues making when confronted with the name or the presence pf Putin.

Trump will otherwise be busy, giving the Supreme Court the kiss of death, snubbing NATO in Brussels and receiving the cold shoulder in London. All those events will lead to the Helsinki summit, not a great omen since Finlandization stands for all that the Russian side wants, and for all that Western Europe fears.  Putin and his counselors are highly informed, skilled and professional. They will have in front of them a team of bible freaks, lazy truth haters and a historical tabula rasa. To leave Trump alone with Putin is playing with more than fire. It is a one-way ticket to disaster. The American ambassador to Russia, who is remarkable for once, must wish this nightmare to pass.

It has been said may times, here and by others, that in the Trumpisphere there is always room for worse to come. Trump is on a quasi-permanent campaign trip in his heartland wherein he can be himself, killing vocabulary, steering the presidency away from the high ground and giving his lamentable base an overdose of vitriol, trade wars, immigration dirt, personal attacks, hate and lies. He has given up on culture, responsibility, reliability and rules over this 40% of Americans who he feeds with his home-made spam. He kisses the flag but in reality the flagpole stands empty in the wind and the clanking sound is all there is.

In Brussels, the Europeans will be polite even if he chooses not to be. Anyway, all attention will be with the World Cup. In London an inflated Trump balloon is readied for shaming the unwelcome visitor.  Her Gracious Majesty will certainly teach the real estate joker some manners. Maybe he will even leave his red tie home and close the buttons of his jacket for once. If only he could also close his mouth.

POBRE MEXICO, TAN LEJOS DE DIOS Y TAN CERCA DE ESTADOS UNIDOS (PORFIRIO DIAZ)

The victory of Manuel Andres Lopez Obrador (AMLO) was expected. His win came easy because the other candidates were unconvincing and repetitive. Not that AMLO is a great personality. He is not. He is even dubious, but Mexico overdosed on corruption, drugs  and violence and he was able to play the part of the White Knight.

The country is more complex than the usual Sicario representation. It is a cultural wonder. Its middle class is growing. The economy is becoming a major player in Nafta's northern hemisphere. Unfortunately, structural inequalities remain unattended and the drug cartels are able to control a narco shadow economy which bribes and controls part of the population.

The new president has a murky record. He has also shown he can be a pragmatist. After all, when mayor of Mexico City he made a deal with Carlos Slim regarding the restoration and preservation of the historical center.  Overall, the USA will have a touchy neighbor at their southern border.

Mexico had extraordinary presidents in the past (Gortari, Zedillo) who came from the PRI. Only Fox (PAN) was able to put an end to this political one-party rule. Unfortunately he was an unconvincing president.  Obrador's leftist credentials lack intellectual stamina (Cardenas) or ruthless brio (Gortari). His program is high on old populism and low on new ideas. The majority of Mexicans who felt, rightly so, stuck in stagnation in the midst of a economical/social vortex benefiting others, will certainly feel vindicated.  It is doubtful that Obrador will roll back the uneven progress achieved for the sake of reforms which rest on old ideological frustrations. He might better cleanse the judicial and police apparatus, local government, education and health services. However this new president has shown in the past that he is more stubborn than political/intellectual savvy.

In this Western Hemisphere Mexico made the historical choice to be a North American country first, a Latin American country second. It has a hard time asserting itself with formidable contenders like Argentina and Brazil. The pendulum in the Southern Hemisphere is also unpredictable. Colombia turned right, Bolivia left. Mexico lost its former influence in Venezuela and Cuba. When Fidel Castro visited Mexico City, the street went for the Cuban, embarrassing President Fox.  Obrador's populist message is paradoxically not all that different from Trump's. Both are vindictive, demagogic personalities. The overall  loathing of everything the American president stands for might still create a danger zone for the US at its southern border.

AMLO will certainly follow a "Make Mexico Great Again" path which will have socio/cultural consequences. There might be a return to more Mexican-rooted accents in most forms of creativity and antecedent.  Frida Kahlo will have a comeback. The Jumex-type of global art dialogue is not in line with a more narrow inward- looking pattern. The narrative will dwell more on differentials than on parallels. Mexico will revisit again the lost magic of J.M. Le Clezio (The Mexican Dream) rather than attempting to be a protagonist in the world civilizations of Carlos Fuentes (Destiny and Desire).

The United States will be kept at arms length whenever possible. Europe will receive the usual cultural embrace, albeit with sub-titles. The winner, here as in other parts of Latin America and the Pacific, will be China again. The Chinese are the suitors who bring gifts without asking much in return. They have already a network of agreements with almost all countries in Latin America and they will be too happy to oblige AMLO. The Monroe Doctrine is long since forgotten but the Chinese will undoubtedly relish rubbing another geopolitical win in America's face.