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 ?