From across the Atlantic, it looked a little different. I saw Trump isolated and ignored as business was conducted around him, challenged in his misogynistic lie that the Italian PM "begged" for a photograph. In the choreography of the conference room, what I felt I was witnessing was a collapsed power being sidelined, ignored, and left behind.
These circumstances are no different than seriously abusive family dysfunction. An abusive, wealthy husband traps his wife. Children adjust their behavior so as not to set off any bombs. It's done unconsciously most of the time, because the behaviors get baked in. Therapy doesn't come for years. The only true escape is radical removal, either of the abuser or the abused. Our hope here in the US is that other nations see our displeasure with this administration and trust that we will correct at our first opportunity. Trump will not be in power forever. The only reason he hasn't been deposed already is his administration doesn't know how to retain its power when he is gone. The quarreling has already started. Wish us luck. Call CPS. Make house calls. Use back channels to make sure everyone in the house is okay. Don't let your investment firms support monetarily. Continue to keep a low profile until it's time to go in and get Daddy or put the family in the witness protection program.
Ugh. Here, my biggest worry and disappointment is that the monied elites in the U.S. are largely aligned with one another, that the ultimate “value” that glues American society is money and social class. Meanwhile, everyone else still believes in the structures and principles of the U.S. government without evidence that it is working or can work. A strongly worded letter here. A Saturday morning “No Kings” rally there. (Credit where it is due: many effective lawsuits - minus the S.Ct.) But like what you are describing, these efforts are - at most - performative management. We are not the French, shutting down cities because the retirement age is being threatened to be raised by one year. We think we are all temporarily embarrassed millionaires (or billionaires). We are not. But everyone - EVERYONE - the world over seems to think they can ride this tiger and win.
Extraordinary insight into the nuanced behavior we observed this past week in Évian, and excellent discussion of just why European countries act and perform the way they do. As they say in the movies (and which you’ve written about so eloquently), “It’s complicated!”
Underneath all the bluster ("I'm the Boss!") and the bs (Macron was elected as a younger Trump and still acts like it, on occasion), there is the groundwork being done by Mark Carney, to cement the value of the Middle Powers (Canada, Australia and Japan, most prominently, along with all the BRIX countries, save Russia) over the United States, Russia and, to a lesser degree, China.
I admire the restraint in the tone of your writing that does not weaken its ability to communicate.
"That was what made Évian uncomfortable to watch. Trump did not arrive as an unknown quantity or a difficult partner whose character was still open to interpretation. His approach to power has been visible for years. He has repeatedly treated courts, elections, journalists and constitutional limits not as essential democratic safeguards but as obstacles to be overcome. Loyalty to him has often mattered more than loyalty to institutions, while public humiliation has become a tool of political dominance rather than an occasional excess. The leaders gathered in France knew all of this. The question hanging over the summit was not who Trump was, but how much of that reality would be confronted and how much would simply be folded into the rituals of diplomacy."
"From where I stand, that felt familiar.'
"I am not claiming that the US is Hungary or that Trump is Orbán. Comparisons become useless when they are stretched too far. What I recognise is a political style."
"Orbán understood Trump immediately because he recognised something he already knew. For him, Trump represented the arrival of a political language that had already reshaped much of Hungary. The idea that institutions exist to serve power rather than restrain it no longer seemed confined to Europe’s margins."
The stakes are always higher in the sagging heart of Muddle EU! Very well stated in this Hungary Report, Péter Dósa! Nagyon Yo! Not easy to say, and regrettably given how outspoken American social protesters can be compared to EU protesters, yet despite the few major gains of U.S. Social Protest movements over the past 75 years, Hungary\Magyarorszag appears to be moving the needle from Authoritarian Impulses to Social Justice better than we have accomplished from the receding of the Civil Rights Movement across the spectrum of our Youth Solidarity Movements with the admirable gains made in the EU.
I hope we in the U.S. learn to leverage our once leading freedoms of high tech expression (Communication) to where we can begin to pull our weight by better supporting such movements while retaining solidarity with the advances being made on the Social Evolutionary fronts by our EU partners. Valuing that partnership will be part of the damage control we here in the west most need to fortify for gains to be made vs. the Autocrats and Proud Fascists reanimating back to life on all sides of every pond....
I totally agree with your assessment. But what do all good people do, until he is gone. I do everything I can do deter him. I hope it is enough. There has to be limits to appeasement of toxic individuals, who also have great power. It is complex.
I don't agree with you when you said that choosing between Trump and Putin is about picking between two rotten apples. Why? Because of Ukraine? Think. Europe would be worse with all cheaper energy coming from Russia? Who has broken the relationship and why? It is in the History books the roots of the foolishness of this relationship with Russia . It was indeed nauseating watching the G7 meeting. It's overdue this fake importance of 7 "most important countries". The lack of a broad vision of the changing grounds is ridiculous when these so called g7 refuses to have a broader look at the WORLD which is bigger than their ridiculous self-inflated posture as the most powerful and rich countries in this world where they have inflicted hideous crimes, wars for looting their resources. We all know that. What's very visible here is that we lost our dignity long time before Trump. He is the king of the lowest living kind without an atom of empathy for what means humanity. It has been disgusting to watch Versailles, by all means, inclusive what it represents itself. I don't write as well as you for I am not an english spoken European.Thank you.
From across the Atlantic, it looked a little different. I saw Trump isolated and ignored as business was conducted around him, challenged in his misogynistic lie that the Italian PM "begged" for a photograph. In the choreography of the conference room, what I felt I was witnessing was a collapsed power being sidelined, ignored, and left behind.
I saw that too & hope it was enough.
Jesus GOD, you write well
Yes. Thank you.
These circumstances are no different than seriously abusive family dysfunction. An abusive, wealthy husband traps his wife. Children adjust their behavior so as not to set off any bombs. It's done unconsciously most of the time, because the behaviors get baked in. Therapy doesn't come for years. The only true escape is radical removal, either of the abuser or the abused. Our hope here in the US is that other nations see our displeasure with this administration and trust that we will correct at our first opportunity. Trump will not be in power forever. The only reason he hasn't been deposed already is his administration doesn't know how to retain its power when he is gone. The quarreling has already started. Wish us luck. Call CPS. Make house calls. Use back channels to make sure everyone in the house is okay. Don't let your investment firms support monetarily. Continue to keep a low profile until it's time to go in and get Daddy or put the family in the witness protection program.
Well put.
Ugh. Here, my biggest worry and disappointment is that the monied elites in the U.S. are largely aligned with one another, that the ultimate “value” that glues American society is money and social class. Meanwhile, everyone else still believes in the structures and principles of the U.S. government without evidence that it is working or can work. A strongly worded letter here. A Saturday morning “No Kings” rally there. (Credit where it is due: many effective lawsuits - minus the S.Ct.) But like what you are describing, these efforts are - at most - performative management. We are not the French, shutting down cities because the retirement age is being threatened to be raised by one year. We think we are all temporarily embarrassed millionaires (or billionaires). We are not. But everyone - EVERYONE - the world over seems to think they can ride this tiger and win.
I am not a temporarily embarrassed millionaire. I know what I need & I have enough.
Extraordinary insight into the nuanced behavior we observed this past week in Évian, and excellent discussion of just why European countries act and perform the way they do. As they say in the movies (and which you’ve written about so eloquently), “It’s complicated!”
Underneath all the bluster ("I'm the Boss!") and the bs (Macron was elected as a younger Trump and still acts like it, on occasion), there is the groundwork being done by Mark Carney, to cement the value of the Middle Powers (Canada, Australia and Japan, most prominently, along with all the BRIX countries, save Russia) over the United States, Russia and, to a lesser degree, China.
Bullseye! Spot-on!
I admire the restraint in the tone of your writing that does not weaken its ability to communicate.
"That was what made Évian uncomfortable to watch. Trump did not arrive as an unknown quantity or a difficult partner whose character was still open to interpretation. His approach to power has been visible for years. He has repeatedly treated courts, elections, journalists and constitutional limits not as essential democratic safeguards but as obstacles to be overcome. Loyalty to him has often mattered more than loyalty to institutions, while public humiliation has become a tool of political dominance rather than an occasional excess. The leaders gathered in France knew all of this. The question hanging over the summit was not who Trump was, but how much of that reality would be confronted and how much would simply be folded into the rituals of diplomacy."
"From where I stand, that felt familiar.'
"I am not claiming that the US is Hungary or that Trump is Orbán. Comparisons become useless when they are stretched too far. What I recognise is a political style."
"Orbán understood Trump immediately because he recognised something he already knew. For him, Trump represented the arrival of a political language that had already reshaped much of Hungary. The idea that institutions exist to serve power rather than restrain it no longer seemed confined to Europe’s margins."
The stakes are always higher in the sagging heart of Muddle EU! Very well stated in this Hungary Report, Péter Dósa! Nagyon Yo! Not easy to say, and regrettably given how outspoken American social protesters can be compared to EU protesters, yet despite the few major gains of U.S. Social Protest movements over the past 75 years, Hungary\Magyarorszag appears to be moving the needle from Authoritarian Impulses to Social Justice better than we have accomplished from the receding of the Civil Rights Movement across the spectrum of our Youth Solidarity Movements with the admirable gains made in the EU.
I hope we in the U.S. learn to leverage our once leading freedoms of high tech expression (Communication) to where we can begin to pull our weight by better supporting such movements while retaining solidarity with the advances being made on the Social Evolutionary fronts by our EU partners. Valuing that partnership will be part of the damage control we here in the west most need to fortify for gains to be made vs. the Autocrats and Proud Fascists reanimating back to life on all sides of every pond....
Tio Mitchito
TM
Mitch Ritter
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I totally agree with your assessment. But what do all good people do, until he is gone. I do everything I can do deter him. I hope it is enough. There has to be limits to appeasement of toxic individuals, who also have great power. It is complex.
I don't agree with you when you said that choosing between Trump and Putin is about picking between two rotten apples. Why? Because of Ukraine? Think. Europe would be worse with all cheaper energy coming from Russia? Who has broken the relationship and why? It is in the History books the roots of the foolishness of this relationship with Russia . It was indeed nauseating watching the G7 meeting. It's overdue this fake importance of 7 "most important countries". The lack of a broad vision of the changing grounds is ridiculous when these so called g7 refuses to have a broader look at the WORLD which is bigger than their ridiculous self-inflated posture as the most powerful and rich countries in this world where they have inflicted hideous crimes, wars for looting their resources. We all know that. What's very visible here is that we lost our dignity long time before Trump. He is the king of the lowest living kind without an atom of empathy for what means humanity. It has been disgusting to watch Versailles, by all means, inclusive what it represents itself. I don't write as well as you for I am not an english spoken European.Thank you.