Germany in trouble, EU in trouble, transatlantic relationship in trouble: what else could go wrong?
Seems that we're living in times of free-floating anger. One way to look at it is that the Trump revolution has opened all floodgates.
Trump is undermining or unraveling orders and institutions he doesn't understand, and resistance is weak.
Trust between nations, the precious glue that holds international orders, is receding; instead of it anger is rising, just the kind of process Steve Bannon wanted to set in motion.
The idea of everybody-for-himself is permeating everything, weakening and threatening the architecture built since 1949 in the west and since 1990 on a global scale, the so-called liberal order which was based on the idea of win-win cooperation.
This system has been conceived and built mainly in the US, and guaranteed by US power. It can equally be dismantled by US power. A president who either doesn't understand the system or disliked it can destroy it.
Many European countries thought the US would underwrite this order forever, and based their own internal (European) and external relations on the partnership with the US. As we see now there is no plan B; Europe is deeply dividid at a time of transatlantic crisis.
If Europe had a fallback option based on strong nation states, these things wouldn't matter so much. But if the European order unravels, the process of unraveling in itself will be ugly.
Moreover, as past experience shows, a Europe of nationalistic nation-states is not a recipe for success. The kind of Europe Orban and Söder seem to prefer is going to lead to conflict among European nations.
So what can be done? Europeans need to get back to the basics and understand what's at stake. They need to resist populist anger, push back like Macron has done successfully in France. And they need to strike bargains amongst themselves to balance diverging interests.
Europeans need to do the hard work of figuring out how to overcome divisions over migration, economic order and security; and they have to do this without outside unifier and partner.
They need to dedicate themselves to the hard work of cooperation, to keep the destructive forces in check, forces that always lurk beneath the surface. Far less attractive than what populists promise, but far better for security, prosperity and freedom in an interconnected world.
