ORDER !!!

One has become familiar with the arcane goings-on in Westminster, when the Speaker tries to control the goings on in the Commons. The world looks likewise to be in need of a speaker before it becomes unmanageable. The role of "great normalizer" did belong to the United States, at times suffered rather than welcomed. Probably the Iraq war hastened the demise of the Pax Americana. Trump is only the mad undertaker of this "Rump shipwreck".

In this void, Russia might come close to overreaching. China is  trying to add seduction to fact, by spinning a Disney-like fantasy on its past glory days in art and culture.

The rest of the world adopts a "wait-and-see" attitude. Self- interest has replaced the, by now defunct, adhesion to a set of values.

What about Europe? Every day brings another indication of how bad things are becoming. The almost unsustainable backlash from Brexit has created a political anti-cyclone  wherein the negative consequences match the disastrous premises. Former P.M. David Cameron was the perfect example of a tone-deaf arrogant mindset, lost in a depasse form of hubris. His referendum gamble boomeranged in  merciless ways. The "deal or no deal" outcome is becoming the indifferent interface of a poisonous coin. There remains a monarchy which boosts the morale and tries to distract from the soap opera travails which besiege it. This downward spiral does not spare other "cousins", in Belgium and elsewhere, who compensate for their irrelevance by being a lifeline for tabloids. Prince Philip, King Lear in the driving seat, is the perfect image of England in a ditch.

The American Secretary of State has chosen to cajole Trump's Europe (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) and to ignore the free- traders lot, which is in disfavor with his mad patron. That Italy and France are on the Mona Lisa warpath shows how immune to ridicule European countries have become. Brussels is more than ever a booby-trapped place before the upcoming European elections and the makings of a new Commission, which are even more backroom-like than the Conclave. One should hope that there will be more room for ambition than for gerrymandering, but the Macron/Merkel axis feels singularly weakened, besieged by a mostly reactionary revenge camp (not unlike Trump's "base").

The European situation is actually dangerous because it lacks any form of larger unifying drama. It looks more like a remake of a Cromwell episode with no Restoration end in view. A Neo- "puritanical" overhaul wants to get rid of the former pillars of the European design: free trade, free circulation of goods , ideas and persons, pluralism. This reaction could have been expected, given that people were more often talked "at" than "with". Former priorities are no longer in favor, because their making was shared with too few and their effect was imposed was on too many. Europe must return to a form of shared ambition if it wants to renew the marriage vows that hold it together, albeit in a precarious union. The post-Brexit slimmer EU will have to reopen the hearts and minds if it wants to remain relevant, other than in too many unpopular regulations.

The ideas of Eric Zemmour in France are taking hold, not because he is that widely read out of France, but because he has the knack of dressing prejudice up in fashionable current terms which make up for trans-border ennui. Trump's wall talk is too primitive to become "trendy". Count on the French (de Gobineau, Drieu La Rochelle, Celine, Houellebecq) to make the unpleasant wearable. Mine de rien they might, by doing so, achieve the quasi-impossible:  making Steve Bannon salon material!