Demonstration of the critical importance of soft power embodied in a ludicrous whimper (not a Tragically Hip song title, amazingly enough). What now? What next?
Dr. K brings the heat light:
[Europeans’] willingness to de-Americanize partly reflects recognition that reconciliation is hopeless: Trump is who he is, and a nation that elected him twice simply can’t be trusted.
However, Europe’s turn away from Trump also reflects plummeting perceptions of his power. At one time the world feared Trump although it never respected him. The silence that met his renewed demand for Greenland shows that the world no longer takes him seriously.
America remains an economic superpower with an enormous military budget. And the combination of a supine Republican Party, along with a Supreme Court that shamelessly greenlights Trump’s authoritarianism, has given this president more control over U.S. policy than any president has ever had, or ever should have. But while Trump is able to run roughshod over Americans, he can no longer bully the rest of the world. Thanks to Trump, the U.S. has seen its global influence plunge.
Implications of the word continue without relent. Even if even he was fit [he was not fit], hire an unprepared, incurious clown for a very complicated job and predictable results arrive only too soon. It should be noted how much he and his team make the job look so much more difficult than it already is – it’s quite the Inverse World Cup, where experienced professionals make an impossible sport look simple. So much of the grievous iniquity of ‘greatness’ had been laid bare that we would do well to lay off of it for a very long while.
Can a society beg to be humbled? The answer questions itself. Don’t be afraid of confronting faults and failings, they only wax the more dastardly. Humiliation of equality is as fake as his bluster and we’d best move on from it with some haste.