It's more boosterish than warranted, and glosses too lightly over the cruelty of Europe's refugee policy--although he is also right to say, "Yes, it was cold-hearted, but failing that, Europe ran the danger of fascism."
But he's right that those predicting Europe's demise were wrong--and that includes me, more than a decade ago. (Although I've not thought so at all, recently.) And he's right that the EU is better-run and more effective than the US, Russia, or China. This is a low bar, sadly.
It's easy to make Europe's Covid-19 response look good compared to the US. But by the standards of East Asia, it has been miserable. And you're right to say that the EU's failures on rule of law in member states such as Hungary and Poland is profound.
Still, for a Continent that in 1914 entered the greatest period of madness, slaughter, and self-destruction history has seen, and emerged from it only in 1945 bombed to smithereens, rescued from the Nazis by the USSR and the US, divided, shamed, and occupied--
Europe's cohesion, peace, and ability to promote itself as a model are and should be sources of real pride.
But not complacency.
And while at this point Trump's defeat seems a foregone conclusion, it's not over until it's over. If he survives, and goes on to be reelected--a minute possibility, but real--his confidence that the US wouldn't destroy NATO because it's not in our interests is misplaced:
Should that happen, I have every confidence Trump's instinct for destruction would ensure our withdrawal from NATO: He will be reinforced by his survival and reelection in his sense of magical invincibility:
His second term would be Trump without any checks, balances, or logic. No one will be able to prevent him from doing exactly what he pleases. It's a remote chance, but there should be no complacency: a 1-in-a-100 chance is still too high for any of us to sleep well.
On the other hand, it's better than a 25 percent chance, which is what we were looking at last week.
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Yes. I have no evidence that this was the deeper source of the tensions, but I sure hope this factors into NATO's thinking and that they're making plans in the full understanding that this could happen. I worry that they may be in some kind of total denial:
Maybe they're not. Maybe this is discussed at every step, but privately. But it's not beyond imagination that some kind of superstition, or fear of causing offense, prevents people from saying to Biden, "Whatever we do has to be Trump-proof."
e.g., "We need to get Ukraine what it needs *now,* because we don't necessarily have "as much time as it takes." And "we need to pass key treaties *now,* because we may not have the chance later."
You will never convince me that these kids are on the street because they’re sincerely worried that they’ll be forced to toil until the age of 64. When you’re that young, you can’t even truly conceive that one day you’ll be 64.
And the idea that *this* is the worry that keeps them up at night these days is risible. Have they not noticed that Vladimir Putin regularly threatens to nuke them?
That recent advances in artificial intelligence are so revolutionary that we can’t even imagine what work, retirement, or human life will be like by the time they’re old enough to retire?
On invading Mexico: open.substack.com/pub/claireberl… I wrote this because I find the lack of debate about this spooky. I think the GOP is *seriously* talking about invading Mexico!
I sometimes think I’ve been away from the US for so long that I’ve lost my feeling for US culture, because I just don’t get why some perfectly trivial controversies become absolute firestorms, with no one talking about anything else for days, whereas much more serious things--
--like the GOP seriously proposing to invade Mexico, and trying to pass an AUMF to do it--don’t even warrant an opinion piece in the NYT.
Are we just taking it for granted that these proposals aren't serious?
But why? Once you pass that AUMF, it can be used by *any* president.
Tucker Carlson's Ukraine war anniversary episode is obscene-an unrelenting firehose of anti-Americanism, Russian propaganda, and grotesque lies about Ukraine. It leaves me slack-jawed that this was aired in America.
Why is the most-viewed host on American cable television serving an unremittingly hostile and genocidal foe of the United States?
This isn't subtle; it's Baghdad Bob level insane.
We know from the Dominion filing that he knows perfectly well these are lies. But we also know he'd cut out his own tongue before saying anything that would displease his viewers. So he must know that this is what they want to hear--but *why* would they want to hear this?
It's deeply sinister that the West's central platform for sharing news and information is owned by a Putin apologist. Even Father Coughlin (or more aptly, Henry Ford) didn't have this kind of control over the arterials of public debate.
This can't be trivialized. He and Tucker Carlson are overtly on the side of the most dangerous enemy of the West and of humanity since Hitler. Given the influence they have on public debate, this is *deeply* sinister.
Together, they're capable of severely undermining Western unity, morale, and support for Ukraine. Despite the happy rhetoric about supporting Ukraine "as long as it takes," we all know we're only one election away from leaving Ukraine and Europe to Putin's mercy--
If you missed it in the newsletter, I want to point out a very good place to donate for earthquake victims in Syria. My friend @esi_zey is organizing it and I trust her implicitly: crowdfunding.copalana.org/mycampaign/109…
She writes: "The difference between this and donating to Kızılay or Support to Life for example is that this is a relatively small project and we know exactly where the money is going ... so this might give people a bit more sense of having helped.
"It’s a specific shelter. In Sheikh Bahar. And God knows the Syrians were already miserable, are at the mercy of the Syrian regime and Turkey, therefore largely cut off from the world and receiving aid.