Best Of

The transcript of Ezra Klein's talk with Fareed Zakaria is well worth a read

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-fareed-zakaria.html

Starts:

"To the extent you feel you can define it, what’s the Trump doctrine?

Part of the problem with Trump is that he is so mercurial. He’s so idiosyncratic that, just when you think you figured out the Trump doctrine, he goes and says something that kind of sounds like the opposite of the Trump doctrine.
But I do think that there is one coherent worldview that Trump seems to espouse and has espoused for a long time. The first ad he took out when he was a real estate developer was in 1987. It was an ad about how Japan was ripping us off economically and Europe was ripping us off by free-riding on security. And what that represents, fundamentally, is a rejection of the open international system that the United States and Europe have built over the last eight decades."

Trump’s first visit to Russia was in 1987.

I know it’s considered paranoiac to claim that Trump is a Russian operative but he certainly behaves like it much of the time.

I'm not sure he is exactly a Russian asset. More in the pocket of assorted oligarchs who are bigger and nastier than he is. Which is effectively the same thing in practice, but philosophically slightly different.

I don't think Trump is a Russian agent at all.

I think it is really very simple: Trump comes from a time when Russia was the other Superpower. He cannot imagine how a small country like Ukraine could possibly win against them, and therefore they are behaving illogically in resisting. (Just as Canada and Greenland Denmark would be illogical to resist US aggression.)

Words will not change his mind. The older you get, the more severe cognitive dissonance is.

Therefore facts need to change.

And this is why Europe needs to step up.

FPT:

What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.

I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.

Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense

Watch the WHOLE press conference

I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?

I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.

Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around).
https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de

The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.

The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.

IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.

Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"

Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam

There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada

It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.

What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.

The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.

It really is dying. The stats don't lie

EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024

https://www.eiu.com/n/democracy-index-2024/

With Western Europe being the only region to show an improvement.

The decline in the overall index score in 2024 was driven by reversals in every region of the world with the exceptions of Western Europe, whose average index score improved by the smallest margin possible (0.01 points), and North America, whose score stayed the same. The other five regions registered a decline in their average index score, with the biggest regressions occurring in the Middle East and North Africa (-0.11) and Asia and Australasia (-0.10).

Warms your heart!

Democracy has come to mean maintaining liberal policies regardless of how people vote. The more deeply-embedded liberal policies are within the law, the more democratic, whether people like it or not.

Tell that to Leon. If you're right then free speech is growing throughout the world on this study.

More relevant, look at which states in the US are going around banning books. And consider whether it’s the right or left that is doing it.

Was just sent this nice example of grifting by an old school friend who lives in the US.

Corruption out in the open: the criminals becoming the oligarchs - by invitation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has stopped its prosecution of Justin Sun, a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur who had been charged in March 2023 with securities fraud. After Trump was elected in 2024, Sun bought $30 million worth of Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto tokens, putting $18 million directly into Trump’s pockets. Since then, he has invested another $45 million in WLF. Altogether, Sun’s investments have netted Trump more than $50 million.
SEC also appears to have dropped its case against the crypto trading platform Coinbase after the platform donated $75 million to a political action committee associated with Trump and donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.

It's astonishing that in the land of supposed checks and balances this kind of fraud is flourishing so openly. It's like they genuinely have no idea why the US has been such an attractive investment destination and how easily that reputation can be trashed. In the weeks since Trump's inauguration we have seen the very idea of America dying before our eyes, it's incredible.

Imagine a Federal Europe with a huge military under central command and control. Game changer.

It would be a disaster, we would have a single point of failure just like we do in America. Imagine that military being controlled by a European Trump, Orban or Schroder.

Why would you possibly want that?

Far better to imagine a coalition of European nations that actually spend a decent amount on their militaries each, who can work together.

More - a variety of coalitions for different purposes. The key point being that everyone in each is 100% committed to the aims of that specific alliance.

Yep. I am all for working closely with like minded countries. I certainly have no objection, for example, for British troops to be under French or Norwegian or Polish command if that is the best way for things to be organised for a specific campaign or operation.

But what we are learning is that static, long term organisations will eventually fail and that we, as indvidual nations, cannot rely on anyone else to come and pull us out of the fire. We must do that ourselves, yes together, but as equals and realising that we will, at times have fundemental differences of opinion and outlook which means our shared arrangements have to be completely flexible.

Zelensky is meeting the King tomorrow

Should he wear a suit..?

Obviously. The king should always wear a suit.

Zelensky should wear what he thinks is appropriate.

A tee shirt with **** off you orange **** printed on it?

Yes, nothing could help Ukraine more at this moment than pissing off the thin skinned leader of the most powerful military in the world so we can giggle about the LOLs.

It's not clear that kowtowing or imploring him helps either.

Perhaps we're better off admitting that US support for Ukraine is over, and working out how we can help move the frontline so that Ukraine is negotiating from a position of strength.

I do wonder if the right answer is simply for Europe - the US, France, Germany and Poland - to deploy troops to Ukraine. Now, sure, that means the end of NATO, but candidly isn't it over anyway? Does anyway truly believe that the US would send troops to defend Estonia?

Nothing helps dealing with Trump because he’s a dick and is only interested in what’s best for him but pissing him off will definitely not help.

Ultimately his vanity is key but he’s surrounded by nutters who won’t tell him he isn’t getting a Nobel Peace Prize by treating Ukraine like this and Russia like that. Maybe a “leaked” internal memo from the Nobel committee deploring his position might help.

I don't think it would make a scintilla of a difference.

When you are at the top, the single most important thing is to get information that conflicts with your world view. Because the tendency in any organization is to tell the boss what he wants to hear, because that way lies advancement. The optimum strategy for you in the organization is sub-optimum for the organization as a whole.

Telling Trump that (a) the Ukrainians support Zelenskky, or (b) that he won't get a Nobel Peace prize would likely never reach him (because who wants to bring him bad news), and even if it did, cognitive dissonance would set in, and it would be ignored.

Trump is not going to change his mind on Ukraine. Therefore, Western Europe needs to decide whether to leave Ukraine to its fate, or whether it should step up.

Stepping up is incredibly risky. Allowing Russia to win by withholding aid is immoral, and likely just storing up problems for next time.

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that the lowest risk strategy is to drive Russia out of Ukraine. Maybe that can be achieved solely by giving Ukraine all the materiel she needs. Maybe it requires more. But the alternative is merely storing up more trouble for the future.

Good morning

I watched last night's press conference live and to be honest I cannot recall anything close to the shocking spectacle put on by Trump and Vance

It was sickening and showed Trump, Vance and others in their true pro Putin bully boys colours

My concern this morning is not only Trump's threat to stop all military aid to Ukraine, but also just how dependent Europe and especially UK are on US military hardware and not least for our Trident

Starmer may hope to act as a go between, but frankly I cannot see him making any progress with the new US administration and we with Europe need a new partnership and to include Canada, Iceland and others to modify NATO and to develop closer trading agreements without the need to join the EU, which I think will have to change, not least because it's members are quite openly disagreeing with each other

It also questions whether Australia, New Zealand, Japan and others should be embraced

At least this dramatic and dangerous turn of events came in the year I do not have a birthday, though my Mother always celebrated it on the 28th February !!!!!!